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By Lewis Smith
London, January 02, 2010 – The new decade and the new year were ushered
in around the world with spectacular fireworks displays, heightened
security measures and a blue moon. Spontaneous hugging broke out in
Tokyo, hundreds of Filipinos were hurt by celebratory firecrackers and
gunfire, while revelers in Venice struggled to keep their feet dry as
the New Year came in with a high tide.
An estimated 250,000 people joined the revelries in London, where they
crammed into special viewing points to watch the firework display that
began at the stroke of midnight along the River Thames. Elsewhere in
Britain people braved plunging temperatures to join celebrations with up
to 80,000 people estimated to have turned up at the Edinburgh street
party. A special Hogmany street party in Inverness, however, was called
off because of snow.
A blue moon, so-called because it was the second full moon of the month,
coincided with New Year's Eve in Europe and other parts of the world.
Blue moons occur every two or three years but the next time one takes
place on New Year's Eve will be in 2028.
The new year was already more than 13 hours old by the time it reached
Britain, with the people of first Kiritimati (Christmas island) and the
Chatham islands in the Pacific being the first to welcome 2010.
Nor, said Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, will the last
decade be much missed. In a New Year message he called the Naughtiest
"terrible and grueling" and a decade in which people had been tested by
terrorism, wars, natural disasters and financial collapse. But he said
people should look forward rather than lose hope."
Auckland, New Zealand, was the first major city to celebrate the new
decade and the streets were closed and alcohol banned as thousands of
people watched fireworks at the city's Sky Tower. In Australia revelers
were told to learn to handle alcohol better as police lost patience with
drunks. "People have had it up to here with drunken idiots who ruin
other people's nights. If you're one of these fools that can't handle
their grog, make yourself a New Year's resolution to grow up and behave
yourself," said Michael Daley, police minister of New South Wales.
More than 1.5 million people are estimated to have turned out to watch
the spectacular 12-minute firework display over Sydney Harbor in which
five tones of explosives lit up the night sky.
One of Sydney's few rivals in terms of the size of the celebrations is
Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana Beach, Brazil, where two million visitors
were expected to watch a firework display.
In New York thousands of police officers were drafted in to ensure the
annual New Year celebrations at Times Square, where backpacks and other
bags were banned, passed peacefully. Similarly tight security was in
place at Germany's Brandenburg Gate where about a million people faced
searches.
Revelers in Russia were urged to remain sober in saunas. "Maybe this
sounds funny... But many people die in saunas," said the emergencies
minister Sergei Shoigu. Drinking in saunas is a popular way of seeing in
the new year.
Source: The Independent, January 1, 2010
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