World welcomes new year with celebrations

NEW YORK -- Visitors crowded into Times Square on Friday for the storied New Year's Eve ball drop, the largest of many events across the country planned to usher in 2011.

Across the globe, dazzling fireworks lit up Australia's Sydney Harbor, communist Vietnam held a rare Western-style countdown to the new year, and Japanese revelers released balloons carrying notes with people's hopes and dreams.

In New York, as many as 1 million people were expected for the Times Square celebration. The city is still digging out from a debilitating Dec. 26 blizzard that dumped 20 inches of snow on streets that still haven't been entirely cleared. Security in Times Square was tight just eight months after a Pakistani immigrant attempted to detonate a car bomb there.

In Chicago, unseasonably warm temperatures that reached the 50s during the day helped draw a robust crowd to Navy Pier for two fireworks shows.

Tens of thousands gathered in Southern California for Rose Bowl pep rallies in Pasadena and at the historic Santa Monica Pier.

In Las Vegas, where temperatures were dipping to the high 20s, nearly 320,000 partiers hit the famed Strip, with celebrity musicians Jay-Z and Coldplay performing a private show broadcast to the street from the marquee of the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas casino. Other warm and party-friendly cities like New Orleans, Miami and Atlanta also hosted large celebrations.

In Europe, Greeks, Irish and Spaniards began partying through the night to help put a year of economic woe behind them.

Around 50,000 people, many sporting large, brightly colored wigs, gathered in Madrid's central Puerta del Sol square to take part in Las Uvas, or The Grapes, a tradition in which people eat a grape for each of the 12 chimes of midnight. Chewing and swallowing the grapes to each tolling of a bell is supposed to bring good luck, while cheating is frowned on and revelers believe it brings misfortune.

"If you eat the grapes your wishes will come true," beautician Anita Vargas said.

As the 12th grape was swallowed, the skies above most Spanish cities lit up with fireworks.

2010 was a grim year for the European Union, with Greece and Ireland needing bailouts, and countries such as Spain and Portugal finding themselves in financial trouble as well.

"Before, we used to go out, celebrate in a restaurant, but the last two years we have had to stay at home," said Madrid florist Ernestina Blasco, whose husband, a construction worker, is out of work.

In Vietnam's capital, Hanoi, an estimated 55,000 people packed a square in front of the city's elegant French colonial-style opera house for their first New Year's countdown blowout, complete with dizzying strobe lights and thumping techno music spun by international DJs.

Vietnamese typically save their biggest celebrations for Tet, the lunar new year that begins Feb. 3. But in recent years, Western influence has started seeping into Vietnamese culture among teens, who have no memory of war or poverty and are eager to find a new reason to party.

At Japan's Zojoji temple in Tokyo, monks chanted, and revelers marked the arrival of the new year by releasing silver balloons with notes inside. The temple's giant 15-ton bell rang in the background.

In Seoul, South Korea, more than 80,000 people celebrated by watching a traditional bell-ringing ceremony and fireworks, while North Korea on Saturday welcomed the new year with a push for better ties with its neighbor, warning that war "will bring nothing but a nuclear holocaust."

(source:star-telegram.com)

New Year's Eve revelers flood Times Square

HUNDREDS of thousands of revelers, many dressed in bulky coats and hats, descended on Broadway and Seventh Avenue to celebrate the year's end and watch the ball drop from a flagpole atop One Times Square.

Carrie Graham, 33, of Texas came with her husband, James, 34, a banker, and son Alden, 6, to celebrate their daughter Ashley's 16th birthday. Ashley opened up the plane tickets for a present on Christmas-morning and cried, Carrie Graham said.

"She always wanted to come here, or own a horse," James Graham said.

Of her first trip to New York City, Ashley said, "I love it."

The family arrived in midtown at 3 p.m. and were standing right next to the stage in Times Square until the crowd grew too overwhelming and then moved further back.

"I feel like the security is safe," James Graham. "I feel good about that."

The police department deployed a "counterterrorism overlay" in Times Square, including thousands of uniformed and undercover officers, hand-held and vehicle-mounted radiation detectors, helicopters and observation towers, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

"Anyone who comes will have to go through magnetometers, perhaps as many as three times," to get to viewing areas, Kelly said Friday.

He said officers also were deployed to other events in the city, including a concert at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, fireworks in Brooklyn and fireworks at the Statue of Liberty.

"We always do things a little bit differently," Kelly said. "We don't want to get stuck in a rut, so some of our deployments will change."

The celebration will be the first since Pakistani immigrant Faisal Shahzad attempted to detonate a car bomb in Times Square on the evening of May 1. Shahzad pleaded guilty to the bombing attempt in June and was sentenced to life in prison.

Backpacks, large bags and alcohol were prohibited in Times Square and pocketbooks were inspected as revelers entered fenced-in viewing zones.

Just before 5 p.m., the closest many onlookers could get to the action was 49th Street.

Dawn Borchardt, 34, a registered nurse from St. Louis, came with her daughter Cassie Miller, 16, and Dawn's friend Jamie Seitz, 29, a labor and delivery surgical technician. They were far back in the crowd on Seventh Avenue between 49th and 50th streets.

To prepare for the night they wore long underwear and brought handwarmers and snacks.

"It's kind of overwhelming at first, kind of easy to get turned around but exciting," Borchardt said.

(source:newsday.com)

Britain celebrates new year

London's annual extravaganza drew a quarter of a million people to the riverside for a spectacular display of glittering fireworks, bright lights and music around the London Eye, while thousands also gathered for Hogmanay street parties in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Those venturing outside were grateful for warmer temperatures than those seen over the past week, but in large parts of the country firework displays were set to be obscured by cloud and mist.

London's display featured fireworks made by a British firm for the first time, with the show set to music provided by Radio 1 DJ Nihal.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson said the ''dazzling'' display would capture the ''dynamism, colour and energy'' of the city in front of an expected 250,000 people along the River Thames.

The Hogmanay festival started last night in Edinburgh with a torchlit procession along the Royal Mile, and continued tonight with a concert featuring Biffy Clyro, The Charlatans and Billy Bragg and a Keilidh in Resolution Square, both of which were sold out.

A candlelit concert took place at St Giles' Cathedral on the Royal Mile while organisers provided an impressive firework display from Edinburgh Castle and Calton Hill.

In Glasgow, crowds toasted the New Year with one of Scotland's biggest outdoor ceilidhs, in George Square.

Scottish trad-rockers Skerryvore and Celtic music legends Capercaillie were scheduled to appear at the massive street party.

Michael Lawrence, a Met Office forecaster, said: "It will be mostly dry and cloudy with some light winds. It will be cooler than recent days but minimum temperatures will be just above freezing.

"The cloud is fairly low but does have some breaks. The mist will not be as widespread as it has been for the last few days.

"Scotland and north-facing coasts will see the occasional snow shower."

Countries across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Pacific have already celebrated the new year, with thousands gathering in Madrid's central Puerta del Sol square to take part in "Las Uvas," or "The Grapes," a tradition in which people eat a grape for each of the 12 chimes of midnight.

In Australia 1.5 million people gathered to watch a spectacular firework display over Sydney harbour, preceded by aerial displays by vintage aircraft and a parade of boats around the harbour.

A massive pyrotechnic display in the shape of a dragon was set off in Taiwan and people in Japan wrote their wishes on note paper, attached them to balloons and released them into the sky.

Later on nearly a million people are expected to gather in New York's Times Square to watch the midnight ball drop just days after the city was crippled by a devestating blizzard.

British celebrations will continue on January 1 with the 25th New Year's Day parade through London.

Clearer skies are forecast although a band of light rain will be pushing down from Scotland across Wales and the south east as half a million people are expected to pack the streets of Westminster for the free event.

More than 8,500 musicians, cheerleaders and performers, including those from 20 London boroughs, will take part in the 2.2 mile parade with a special message from the Queen read out to start proceedings.

(source:.telegraph.co.uk)