World welcomes 2016 amid terror threats

Millions all over the world welcomed in the New Year with champagne and cheers on Friday, although tightened security put a damper on festivities in Europe where Germany evacuated stations over an imminent terror threat and a huge hotel fire sparked panic in Dubai.

In New York City, around 6,000 police were watching over a bustling Times Square as Mayor Bill de Blasio flicked the switch, sending the city’s massive glittering glass ball down in the final seconds of 2015.

Colorful confetti fluttered in the cool night air as the boisterous crowd roared with glee, mirroring similar scenes of revelry which took place around the world.

But after a year in which Islamic militants staged a wave of deadly attacks, sewing carnage from Paris to California, the celebrations were held in tight security, with the New York police describing it as the biggest security operation in the city’s history.

Since the Paris attacks in November, which saw Islamic State (IS) jihadists slaughtering 130 people in a series of gun and suicide attacks, Europe has been on high alert with France and Belgium canceling their traditional New Year fireworks displays in their respective capitals.

And just half an hour before the celebrations began in Germany, police evacuated two stations in the southern city of Munich after receiving “reliable information” about a plot to carry out a suicide attack at midnight by IS jihadists.

Police said they were hunting “five to seven suspects” after the authorities were tipped off by a “friendly intelligence service,” which media reports suggested was French.

In France, more than 100,000 police were deployed to guard celebrations, as defiant Parisians turned out on the Champs Elysees to greet 2016 in the biggest public gatherings since the Nov. 13 attacks.

And in Belgium, police were holding five people over an alleged New Year plot in Brussels, as they also announced the arrest of a 10th suspect linked to the Paris attacks.

 

Inferno in Dubai

In Dubai, a vast blaze ripped through a luxury 63-story hotel, The Address Downtown, close to the world’s tallest tower where people had gathered to ring in the New Year. (See story on this page.)

Despite the dramatic scenes from the inferno, which injured 16 people, the festivities went ahead as planned and crowds cheering the bursts of light and color from a massive fireworks show at nearby Burj Khalifa skyscraper, even as smoke billowed from the nearby hotel.

At the Vatican, in the final hours of 2015, Pope Francis was encouraging humanity to hang on to recollections of good deeds, so that gestures of goodness can be seen triumphing over evil.

‘Choice target for terrorists’

Francis was presiding over a year’s end prayer service on Thursday evening in St. Peter’s Basilica, where he mused about how people are sometimes driven by “insatiable thirst for power and by gratuitous violence.” He says it was impossible to forget “so many days marked by violence, by death, by the unspeakable suffering of so many innocents.”

Sydney, traditionally the first to host a major New Year’s bash, kicked off the global festivities when it lit up the skies with pyrotechnics at the stroke of midnight (1300 GMT Thursday, midnight in Manila).

New Zealand, the first nation with a sizable population to celebrate the New Year, counted down the seconds to midnight with a giant digital clock on Auckland’s landmark Sky Tower. Horns blared and crowds cheered as the tower was lit up with fireworks, with colors shifting from green to red to white.

In Bangkok, police-flanked partygoers rang in the New Year at the site of a deadly bombing that took place just months ago.

Jakarta remained on high alert after antiterror police foiled detailed plans for an alleged New Year suicide attack in the Indonesian capital.

And Turkish police also detained two Islamic State suspects allegedly planning attacks in the center of the capital Ankara.

In Moscow, police for the first time closed off Red Square, where tens of thousands of revelers traditionally gather.

Britain deployed around 3,000 officers across central London in a reportedly unprecedented security effort, while in Italy, fireworks were banned in towns and cities due to fears that the loud explosions could spark panic.

Police in the UK have thwarted a number of attacks this year as a tiny but increasing number of British Muslims have endorsed the cause of Islamic State extremists.

After Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa, the chimes of midnight finally moved across the Americas.

US officials said they had arrested and charged a 25-year-old American Muslim convert over an alleged attempt to launch a New Year’s Eve attack in upstate New York in the name of the Islamic State group.

But America’s biggest New Year’s Eve celebration, marked by the descent of the traditional lighted crystal ball from atop a skyscraper in New York’s Times Square, unfolded without a hitch under a blanket of unprecedented security.

More than a million people hailed the arrival of 2016 early Friday with kisses, cheers and a measure of relief at the center of the famed Manhattan crossroads, the climax of an annual rite of winter dating back to 1904.

More than 100 million Americans and 1 billion people worldwide were expected to watch the festivities on television.

With memories of the deadly attacks in Paris and California still fresh, police took extraordinary measures to ensure security at a gathering that has come to define the New York experience for many visitors to the largest US city.

But the event, broadcast live on national television, went off without a hint of trouble, as a festive mood prevailed despite—or perhaps because of—the heavy police presence.

“This is the center of the world on New Year’s Eve,” said Rick Milley, 60, who traveled from Boston with his wife, Debbie, 59, to ring in the New Year in Times Square.

About 6,000 uniformed and undercover police officers, 500 more than last year, patrolled the area, with the force bolstered by mounted patrols, bomb-sniffing dogs, radiation detectors and hundreds of surveillance cameras.

Unfazed at the Strip

The specter of terrorism and heavier police presence didn’t appear to faze those braving the chilly Las Vegas Strip.

“The terrorists are not going to try and hit something like this,” said Teresa Fauscette of Tennessee. The 29-year-old said she wasn’t one bit scared.

It isn’t easy topping an 8-minute New Year’s firework spectacle shot, but Sin City expected acts, including Bruno Mars at The Cosmopolitan, Maroon 5 at Mandalay Bay and Nikki Minaj at Drai’s Nightclub, to keep revelers entertained inside the casinos before and after midnight.

Tourism officials expected 332,000 people to crowd the car-free Las Vegas Strip and squeeze underneath the massive video canopy on Fremont Street for Thursday night’s festivities.

For Las Vegas police, it was the first time uniformed officers, including some wearing military-style vests and headsets, walked among the crowd of pedestrians in light of heightened security concerns globally. Nearly 1,000 uniformed police were expected to patrol the Las Vegas Strip, while another 300 to 400 would watch downtown’s Fremont Street.

An estimated two million people watched fireworks over the sea at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro which will later this year host the Olympics.

Alongside the party, swarms of worshipers dressed in white waded into the ocean to leave offerings for Yemanja, the goddess of the sea in the Afro-Brazilian Candomble faith.

Cairo meanwhile was trying desperately to attract tourists to bolster the economy, with this year’s celebrations taking place in front of the pyramids and attended by a host of ambassadors, artists and intellectuals.

Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown was hoping to reclaim its mantle as host of the best beach parties in Africa after Ebola scared people away.

The city of 1.2 million was deserted 12 months ago during the worst Ebola outbreak ever recorded. Reports from AFP, AP

View comments

TAGS: fireworks, New Year, Terrorism