Revelers bid adieu to a year of conflicts, celebrity deaths
As 2016 draws to a close, revelers around the world are bidding a weary adieu to a year filled with political surprises, prolonged conflicts and deaths of legendary celebrities.
How people are ushering in the new year:
New York
An estimated 1 million people greeted the new year in Times Square, screaming and kissing as the glittering crystal ball dropped.
New Year’s Eve revelers began to fill Times Square hours before midnight. They braved cold temperatures and strong winds at the Crossroads of the World to greet 2017 amid heavy police protection.
Maria Raimilla, from New Jersey, said 2016 was rough.
“Everything is going to be new,” she said at midnight. “I just want to find happiness this year and leave all the bad things behind.”
Lori Haan of Tucson and her husband were on their first trip to New York. She said she’s looking forward to what 2017 brings.
“This is a great start to the new year,” she said. “We are doing something new and exciting, and I hope that it’s a theme for the rest of the year.”
Dozens of 20-ton sanitation trucks weighted with an extra 15 tons of sand blocked off streets leading to the celebration zone to avoid the possibility of a truck attack like those in Germany and France in recent months. About 7,000 police officers, along with specially armed counterterrorism units and bomb-sniffing dogs, were on guard.
Mariah Carey was the headline performer in Times Square for “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest” on ABC.
Las Vegas
More than 300,000 visitors were expected to descend on Las Vegas for an extravagant New Year’s Eve celebration.
Nightclubs were pulling out all the stops with performances from DJ Calvin Harris, rappers T-Pain and Kendrick Lamar and artists Drake and Bruno Mars. The city’s celebrity chefs crafted elaborate prix fixe menus complete with caviar and champagne toasts.
A brief fireworks show was kicking off at midnight, with rockets launching from the tops of half a dozen casinos.
Federal officials have ranked the celebration just below the Super Bowl and on par with the festivities in Times Square.
Germany
In Berlin, the mood was more somber than celebratory.
“I don’t like the way politics is going,” Daniel Brandt said. “Fears are being fanned, and people are so angry with each other.”
The tone of public debate in Germany has become shriller over the last two years with the influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants.
Walking by the Reichstag, Germany’s Parliament building, Hamed Noori said 2016 had been a good year.
“I came to Germany from Afghanistan,” he said. “Life is better here.”
Nicole Durand-Nusser, originally from France but living in Berlin for almost 50 years, said 2016 had been a difficult year: “Brexit, Trump, Erdogan — it’s all getting worse.”
“I’m a convinced European, and I hope Europe doesn’t collapse in 2017,” she said.
Later, police said they arrested a man who shouted “bomb, bomb, bomb” at Berlin’s massive open-air New Year’s party.
Turkey
New Year’s celebrations turned violent in Istanbul when at least one armed assailant believed to have been dressed in a Santa Claus costume opened fire at a nightclub.
At least 39 people were killed and dozens of others injured in the attack, according to Istanbul’s governor, Vasip Sahin.
Security measures had been heightened in major Turkish cities, with police barring traffic leading up to key squares in Istanbul and the capital, Ankara. In Istanbul, 17,000 police officers were put on duty, some camouflaged as Santa Claus or street vendors.
Ankara and Istanbul have been targeted by several attacks in 2016 carried out by the Islamic State group or Kurdish rebels, killing more than 180 people.
Neslihan Dogruol, a restaurant owner in a chic Istanbul neighborhood, said she hopes for peace in 2017 following a year filled with “unrest and death.”
“2016 affected everyone badly,” she said.
France
Tourists and French revelers swarmed along Paris’ illuminated Champs Elysees Avenue on a frosty night, admiring the laser display from the Arc de Triomphe and lines of trees sparkling with lights.
“It’s so magical to be here in Paris, on what people say is the world’s most beautiful avenue,” said Maureen O’Reilly, a visitor from Belfast, Northern Ireland. “At times like this, I do think about all those terrible things in Aleppo and how lucky we are here in Europe despite everything.”
Some people were happy to say goodbye to 2016.
“It’s been such a horrible year, with all these (entertainment celebrity) deaths, Syria, Brexit and Trump. I say: good riddance,” said Karine Dublot, from Lyon.
Russia
President Vladimir Putin invoked a bit of seasonal enchantment in his New Year’s Eve remarks to the nation.
“Each of us may become something of a magician on the night of the New Year,” Putin said in a short televised address broadcast in the closing minutes of 2016 in each of Russia’s 11 time zones. “To do this we simply need to treat our parents with love and gratitude, take care of our children and families, respect our colleagues at work, nurture our friendships, defend truth and justice, be merciful and help those who are in need of support. This is the whole secret.”
New Year’s Eve is Russia’s major gift-giving holiday, and big Russian cities were awash in festive lights and decorations. The Moscow subway offered a special holiday train, festooned with lights and artificial greenery.
The Vatican
Pope Francis has called on the faithful to help young people find a place in society, noting the paradox of “a culture that idolizes youth” but has made no place for the young.
Francis said during vespers marking New Year’s Eve that young people have been “pushed to the margins of public life, forcing them to migrate or to beg for jobs that no longer exist, or fail to promise them a future.”
Japan
Temple bells echoed at midnight as families gathered around noodles and revelers flocked to shrines for the biggest holiday in Japan.
Kami Miyamoto, an economics student at Meiji University in Tokyo, traveled home in Hakusan, Ishikawa prefecture, for the holiday.
“The world is heading toward conservative, insular policies,” she said of the U.S. election, Brexit and what she believes lies ahead for elections in Europe in 2017. “We learned about how valuable it is to get correct information.”
China
Residents in Beijing and Shanghai, China’s two largest cities, were passing New Year’s Eve quietly under a virtual security lockdown, according to Chinese media reports citing police.
The Bund waterfront in Shanghai would have no celebrations, authorities announced this week, while the sale, use and transportation of fireworks in central Shanghai would be prohibited.
Large buildings that often display light shows also stayed dark. More than 30 people died two years ago in a deadly stampede on Shanghai’s waterfront, where 300,000 people had gathered to watch a planned light show.
Beijing police also said countdowns, light shows, lotteries and other organized activities would not be held in popular shopping districts such as Sanlitun and Guomao. They advised citizens to avoid crowded areas, closely watch elderly relatives and children, and be aware of exit routes in venues.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said in his New Year’s Eve address that his government will continue to focus on alleviating poverty at home and resolutely defending China’s territorial rights.
South Korea
Hundreds of thousands of South Koreans ushered in the new year with a massive protest demanding the resignation of disgraced President Park Geun-hye. It was the 10th straight weekend of protests that led to Park’s impeachment on Dec. 9 over a corruption scandal.
The evening rally was planned to overlap with Seoul’s traditional bell-tolling ceremony at the Bosinkgak pavilion at midnight.
The city’s mayor, Park Won-soon, invited as guests a man whose teenage son was among more than 300 people who died during a 2014 ferry sinking and a woman who was forced into sexual slavery by Japan’s World War II military.
Park Geun-hye came under heavy criticism over the way her government handled the ferry disaster.
India
For most people in India, New Year’s Eve is a time for family. In New Delhi and many other cities, newspapers are full of big advertisements for lavish parties at upscale hotels and restaurants. The big draws at the hotel parties are song and dance performances from Bollywood and television stars.
The western city of Mumbai was hosting big street parties with thousands of people at the iconic Gateway of India, a colonial-era structure on the waterfront overlooking the Arabian Sea. And there was talk about money — India’s recent devaluing of its currency in an apparent effort to cut graft and tax evasion.
The Philippines
The Philippines’ notorious tradition of dangerous New Year’s Eve celebrations persisted this year after President Rodrigo Duterte postponed to next year his ban on the use of powerful firecrackers, often worsened by celebratory gunfire.
Firecrackers and gunfire maim hundreds of people and kill some each year across the Philippines, despite government crackdowns, an annual government scare campaign and efforts by officials to set up centralized fireworks displays.
Duterte’s southern Davao City hasn’t been tainted by the bloody record because of a largely successful firecrackers ban he enforced when he was the city’s crime-busting mayor. But he said in November that he would delay his plan to replicate the Davao ban nationwide by a year because many people had already invested in firecrackers, and he was concerned about the impact of an abrupt ban on poor Filipinos employed in the industry.
Romania
New Year’s is the biggest party of the year in Romania, and thousands of people flocked to the mountains to ski, hike and celebrate -- some in the mood for fun, others anxious about global challenges in 2017.
Former Finance Minister Daniel Daianu, traveling to the mountain town of Sinaia, said Western governments should pay closer attention to the public mood.
“People are frustrated, people are resentful and people react,” he said. “Unless governments pay attention to fairness and fair play, we could see some very unpleasant surprises.”
Early Saturday, young Romanians roamed streets and trains, wearing peasant costumes and singing traditional songs about goats, a New Year symbol, while waving wands made of dried flowers.
United Arab Emirates
In Dubai, hundreds of thousands of people watched fireworks shoot from the sides of the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.
There was no repeat of the chaos of last year, when police say faulty wiring sparked a fire several hours before midnight at a skyscraper nearby.
Australia
Sydney sent up a dazzling tribute to 2016’s fallen icons with a New Year’s Eve fireworks display honoring the late singer David Bowie and late actor Gene Wilder, becoming the first major city to bid a bittersweet adieu to a turbulent year.
The glittering display over Sydney’s harbor and bridge featured Saturn- and star-shaped fireworks set to “Space Oddity,” the classic song by Bowie, among the seemingly endless parade of beloved entertainers who died in 2016.
Wilder was honored as the bridge lit up in a rainbow of colors while a song from his film “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” played.
Finland
Finland kicked off celebrations for 100 years of independence from Russia.
Tens of thousands of people gathered in Helsinki for a concert and a huge fireworks display.
Throughout 2017, there will be hundreds of events in the Nordic nation of 5.5 million, including films, dance parties, environment-related events, concerts and activities linked to its renowned sauna tradition.
Celebrations will culminate on Dec. 6, the day the Finnish parliament declared independence in 1917 amid the turmoil of the Russian Revolution.
Mexico City
Thousands of people in Mexico City were expected to turn out for a New Year’s Eve concert at the Monument to Independence, better known as the Angel.
Workers spent several days setting up a stage and a booming sound system along a stretch of the central Paseo de la Reforma boulevard. Streets were blocked off in the area, and 2,000 police officers were on hand for security.
The lineup included a mix of Latin pop and balladeer Jorge “Coque” Muniz, with cumbia band Los Angeles Azules heating things up after a midnight fireworks show.
UPDATES:
9:30 p.m.: Updated with the ball dropping in New York.
This article was first posted at 5:30 p.m.
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