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FROM SYDNEY TO Mumbai to Nairobi, communities around the world have welcomed 2025 with spectacular light shows, embraces and ice plunges.
It offered a hopeful start to 2025 for some, even as the world’s ongoing conflicts raised security concerns and led to muted or even cancelled festivities.
Countries in the South Pacific Ocean were the first to ring in the New Year with midnight in New Zealand striking 18 hours before the ball dropped in Times Square.
In New York, crowds cheered and couples kissed when the ball weighing almost six tonnes and featuring 2,688 crystal triangles descended down a pole in Times Square. The celebration included musical performances by TLC and the Jonas Brothers.
“It’s the biggest party in the world. There’s no other place to celebrate New Year’s than Times Square,” said Tommy Onolfo of Long Island.
Rio de Janeiro threw Brazil’s main New Year’s Eve bash on Copacabana beach, with barges shooting off 12 straight minutes of fireworks.
Thousands of tourists on cruise ships and charter boats witnessed the show up close, while many more streamed onto the sand to find their spot.
The crowd on Copacabana was expected to exceed two million people — most decked out in white to keep with tradition. They packed together to enjoy concerts by Brazilian music legends Caetano Veloso, Maria Bethânia and Ivete Sangalo, among others.
Right after the fireworks concluded, Brazil’s biggest pop star Anitta took to the stage.
Auckland was the first major city to celebrate, with thousands thronging downtown or climbing the city’s ring of volcanic peaks for a fireworks vantage point.
Fireworks blasted off the Sydney Harbour Bridge and across the bay. More than a million Australians and others gathered at the iconic Sydney Harbor for the celebration. British pop star Robbie Williams led a singalong with the crowd.
The celebration also featured Indigenous ceremonies and performances that acknowledged the land’s first people.
Hong Kong marked the start of the new year with a dazzling fireworks display over Victoria Harbour.
The theme for the 12-minute light and musical extravaganza was “The Symphony of Happiness,” conveying wishes for prosperity in the new year.
In India, thousands of revellers in the financial hub of Mumbai flocked to the city’s bustling promenade facing the Arabian Sea. In Sri Lanka, people gathered at Buddhist temples to light oil lamps and incense sticks and pray.
In Dubai, thousands attended a fireworks show at the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest skyscraper.
And in Nairobi, Kenya, scattered fireworks were heard.
Rome’s traditional New Year’s Eve festivities have an additional draw: the start of Pope Francis’ Holy Year, the once-every-quarter-century celebration projected to bring some 32 million pilgrims to the Eternal City in 2025.
During Mass on Wednesday, the Pope is expected to again appeal for peace in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Paris capped a momentous 2024 with its traditional countdown and fireworks extravaganza on the Champs-Elysées. The city’s emblematic Arc de Triomphe monument was turned into a giant tableau for a light show that celebrated the city’s landmarks and the passage of time, with whirring clocks.
“Paris is a party,” proclaimed Mayor Anne Hidalgo.
The Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games hosted in the French capital from July to September transformed the city into a site of joy, fraternity and astonishing sporting achievements.
In Switzerland and some other places, people embraced the cold, stripping and plunging into the water in freezing temperatures.
American Samoa will be among the last to welcome 2025, a full 24 hours after New Zealand.
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I wudnt send mcentee for a bag of chips, she’d make a bollix of it..
@Stiles: if she legalised drugs first then opened the clubs later, would make more sense.
@Buster Lawless: what drugs ?
@Stiles: are they not all closed bar coppers
@Stiles: Chips
Promising a previous promise ha ha, that’ll solve everything.
@Brian D’Arcy: and of course she’d promise this and the moon. Should have been expected.
That will give her party 5 more years to cook up excuses to explain why they did not deliver on any of their promises when the next bout of elections comes round the corner.
Who was the party who brought in early closure of nightclubs in the first place?
@F1rYnpWc: FF did in 2008. Why can’t you people google this basic info?
@F1rYnpWc: Fianna Fail, they also closed the off licences at 10pm under then justice minister Dermot Ahern, becausewe weredrinkingtoo much. Always good to have a bit of knowledge before discussing things
@Tired Jim: oh, thanks Jim for an intelligent comment (genuine appreciation).
Always good to (re)learn things when they are factually said [thumps up]
@Jerry LeFrog: you are more than welcome, anytime
@Tired Jim: Did his measures work Tim?
@Brian Hunt: Jim
@Brian Hunt: no, people just bought in bulk lol
What could go wrong?
Sure the rest of Europe is giving up on all hours open even spain nightclubs close at 4am.our government tries to do stuff axse ways
@giles wolohan: No they don’t. Where do people get this stuff from? We are a complete outlier in Europe closing way earlier than anywhere else. 2:30am. I am out quite regularly and tourists etc. don’t believe you when you tell them that’s a wrap. FG backbenchers saying there is no demand. Then what’s the problem? If there’s no demand premises just won’t stay open any longer. And also how would they know? When is the last time any of them were out in the city centre at the weekend?
I pinky-swear I’ll do it this time.
This is shortly one very poor minister. She has become extremely touchy and narky during this campaign a sign of someone completely out of their depth.
Yea right ….
With a few strokes of a pen, they can sign legislation, practically overnight, to keep you within 5km of your home, ban you from visiting your family, “cancel” Christmas and ban minorities (unvaxxed) from pubs and restaurants. Remember that. They can do a lot. But they don’t do it.
@FlipBip: … and ignored the expert opinions of virologists here on social media.
@Patrick Perill: yeah especially the ones saying that you take the vaccine you won’t get Covid. The loooooopera
@Mick O’K: Strange. I can’t remember anybody saying that. What I CAN remember is people saying that the symptoms would be greatly decreased, chances of hospitalisation would be greatly decreased and transmission rates would be reduced. But, no, I can’t remember any reputable source having said that I wouldn’t get Covid.
@Patrick Perill: could be worse. Remember that buying a substantial meal with your pint apparently kept you safe from COVID in the pubs. I’d love to meet the “expert” in government who came up with that
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: The president of America said it. But anyway, kinda drifting off topic here. Point is, they can do something quickly, when they want to.
@Ger Whelan: A perfect example of twisting a story! People sit in limited and well spaced numbers in a restuarant. People stand and mingle in much larger numbers in pubs. So Restuarants were allowed open. Cue publicans saying “But, but, but,………!”. So pubs which served meals to seated customers were allowed to open. But if you wish to believe that somebody said having a meal with your pint prevented the spread of Covid I won’t stop you.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: As far as I remember nobody could define what a substantial meal was so it opened the rule up to different interpretations, thus allowing it to be, let’s say manipulated so people could go on the piss. So really it was a daft idea.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: Anthony Fauci and Joe Biden said it Seán
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: and then it came out that the Covid vaccine did nothing to reduce transmission.
It’s like Christmas morning unwrapping pressies
Good luck finding staff to work that late. It’s hard enough to get staff as it is with the current opening hours.
Just get on with it you useless tw at.
Commenting before all the old men tell us it’s a bad idea
I was going to vote FG until I read this.
She is committed. Well that’s a good start!
Totally useless politician, a disaster at Justice Dept!
Like everything in this country they talk something to death, and then it never happens. Seriously five years for a relatively simple piece of legislation, and they still haven’t managed to get it over the line. Probably explains why we still don’t have a metro, and our health service is embarrassing.
and if you contest anything that would be hate speech ?
send her a message: don’t vote for her
I am looking forward to voting for FG in a fortnight’s time
@Tired Jim: will you get off comments forever if they win? I’ll vote for them too if you promise. Your friend Simon didn’t do great on caple st yest? That old boy put him firmly in his place, Simon came off as a grumpy boy taking his football elsewhere.
Micheal & Fianna Fail going to legalize drugs for all & Mc Entee going to have all night opening, what could go wrong. These people are beyond contempt with their failures & their lies.
Given cost of a taxi is due to rise in December & public transport is on it’s knees it’s not going to happen plus so many people have house parties since covid!
have your say