Revelers around the globe are bidding a weary farewell Monday to an unsettling year filled with challenges to many of the world’s most basic institutions, including politics, trade, alliances and religion.
By The Associated Press
Revelers around the globe are bidding a weary farewell Monday to an unsettling year filled with challenges to many of the world’s most basic institutions, including politics, trade, alliances and religion.
Here’s a look at how people are ushering in the new year:
KIRIBATI
The Pacific island nation of Kiribati was the first in the world to welcome the new year, greeting 2019 with muted celebrations after spending 2018 on the front line of the battle against climate change.
Kiribati is made up of low-lying atolls along the equator which intersect three time zones, the first of which sees the new year 14 hours before midnight in London.
Much of the nation’s land mass, occupied by 110,000 people, is endangered by rising seas which have inundated coastal villages. The rising oceans have turned fresh water sources brackish, imperiling communities and raising doubts the nation will exist at the next New Year. Former President Anote Tong said the only future for Kiribati may be mass migration.
The new year was welcomed in the capital, Tarawa, with church services and mostly quiet private celebrations.
NEW ZEALAND
In Auckland, New Zealand’s biggest city, tens of thousands gathered around Sky Tower as fireworks exploded from the top of the 328-meter (1,076-foot) structure. Across the southern hemisphere nation, thousands took to beaches and streets, becoming the first major nation in the world to usher in 2019.
Fireworks boomed and crackled above city centers and harbors.
AUSTRALIA
An estimated million people crowded Sydney Harbor as Australia’s largest city rang in the new year with a spectacular, soul-tinged fireworks celebration.
One of the most complex displays in Australia’s history included gold, purple and silver fireworks pulsating to the tune of “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” made famous by Aretha Franklin, who died in August. The show used 8.5 tons of fireworks and featured more than 100,000 pyrotechnic effects.
Earlier, a thunderstorm drenched tens of thousands of people as they gathered for the traditional display, creating a show of its own with dozens of lightning strikes.
Police said they took precautions to prevent any terrorist attack, but assured revelers there was no specific threat.
More than 1 billion people around the world were expected to watch the fireworks on television.
In Melbourne, 14 tons of fireworks deployed on the ground and on roofs of 22 buildings produced special effects including flying dragons. In Brisbane, an estimated 85,000 people watched as fireworks exploded from five barges moored on the Brisbane River.
THE UNITED NATIONS
U. N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a bleak New Year’s message that called climate change an existential threat and warned that “it’s time to seize our last best chance.” He noted growing intolerance, geo-political divisions and inequality, resulting in people “questioning a world in which a handful of people hold the same wealth as half of humanity.
