AFP, published on Wednesday January 01, 2020 at 06:22
The world rocked Wednesday in 2020, with the twelve strokes of midnight greeted in a party atmosphere in New York, after the fireworks fired a few hours earlier on the Champs-Elysées in Paris, above the bay Sydney or Hong Kong, to welcome the arrival of this new year.
A dense crowd, gathered in Times Square, counted the last seconds of 2019 before greeting with enthusiasm, but also realism, the entry into this new decade. “I’m not particularly optimistic about the future,” admitted Natalie Reinhardt, 29, who came to welcome 2020 to Times Square with thousands of other revelers.
Earlier in the French capital, tens of thousands of people gathered on the “most beautiful avenue in the world”, as claimed by Parisians, to celebrate the new year. The Arc de Triomphe, an emblematic monument of the City of Lights located at the end of the avenue des Champs-Elysées, offered a sound and light show before a fireworks display fired just after midnight.
The atmosphere was festive on this avenue, theater in 2019 of many clashes between the police and “yellow vests”, French people angry with the social policy of the government, who were prohibited from demonstrating on Tuesday evening.
In Chile, the theater of many demonstrations in 2019 there too against the social policy of the government, thousands of demonstrators gathered in the “Plaza Italia” of Santiago, epicenter of these demonstrations, to celebrate a “new year with dignity”. The atmosphere remained festive a few hours before the twelve strokes of midnight. “This year, I couldn’t not be there,” Rafael Vergara, 45, from Plaza Italia, told AFP.
Earlier in Asia, a crowd gathered in Pyongyang for a concert in the center of the North Korean capital at twelve strokes midnight, accompanied by fireworks over a neon-lit stage hosting a show dance choreographed to the millimeter. In South Korea, locals have flocked to ritual ceremonies during which bells are ringing, especially in central Seoul in the presence of local stars.
The other capitals have started to take over according to time zones.
In London, after being silent for a long time due to restoration work, the Big Ben chime rang at midnight. Fireworks were also fired from the banks of the Thames.
– Police officers in Copacabana –
For the British, it should be the last Christmas Eve as members of the European Union, before the big leap in Brexit scheduled for January 31.
In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin called in his year-end wishes the Russians to “unity” to continue the “development” of the country, on the 20th anniversary of his coming to power in 1999.
In Rio de Janeiro, more than 2,000 police officers were mobilized to ensure the security of the festivities on the famous Copacabana beach, where nearly 3 million people were expected.
The first megalopolis to tip over into the new decade, Sydney, Australia’s largest city, faced a controversy over the advisability of its pyrotechnic show in the context of the immense fires which ravage the country.
For weeks, the people of Sydney have lived in an atmosphere polluted by a cloud of toxic smoke linked to devastating fires raging around the city. A petition, which collected more than 280,000 signatures, asked for the cancellation of this event out of respect for the victims.
The city authorities refused to accede to this request. Hundreds of thousands of rockets lit up the Sydney sky for 12 minutes before the eyes of a million spectators.
– “Glory to Hong Kong” –
The festivities are, in many regions of the globe, under the sign of troubles and political upheavals.
In Hong Kong, after more than six months of almost daily protests, thousands of protesters had gathered across the city, including on the waterfront at Victoria Harbor.
They counted the passage to 2020: “Ten! Nine! Free Hong Kong, the revolution now!” And they lit the torches on their phones, creating an ocean of lights.
Small groups also gathered in the district of Mong Kok, where they set fire to barricades. The police then used tear gas for the first time in 2020.
As revelers turned the page on 2019, they could project themselves towards 2020 and wonder if this new year will be as tumultuous as the previous one, marked by a revival of demonstrations to demand new political systems and measures against climate change.
In 2019, anti-government protests also swept across Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East, leading to the departure of leaders from Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan and Bolivia.
Throughout the year, issues related to global warming gave rise to rallies across the planet, responding in particular to the calls of young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. Temperatures have broken records over the months, Iceland has lost its first glacier and Venice has experienced historic floods.
burs-hr / arb / jah / ob / bdx / rock
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