Hong Kong celebrated the New Year with fireworks over the Victoria Harbour
PARIS – The world ushered in 2025 on Tuesday, with huge crowds waving goodbye to the old year that brought Olympic glory, a dramatic Donald Trump return and turmoil in the Middle East and Ukraine.
It is all but certain that 2024 will go down as the hottest year on record, with climate-fuelled disasters wreaking havoc from the plains of Europe to the Kathmandu Valley.
“It’s been a rather complicated year, but at the same time you always have to look at the positive side of things. So it’s nice to end the year here,” said Florence Coret in Paris, where a police source said that more than one million visitors were expected for the night’s festivities.
Pro-European Georgians meanwhile rang in the New Year by setting off fireworks at ongoing month-long rallies against a ruling party they accuse of being under Russia’s influence.
“Tonight once again proves that the Georgian people will not allow a pro-Russian government to turn our country into a Russian-style despotism,” said 42-year-old demonstrator Ilia Darsavelidze.
Before that a spectacular pyrotechnics display lit up Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour as Asia joined in popping champagne corks and launching New Year’s Eve parties.
Thousands thronged the streets of Taipei to watch Taiwan’s tallest skyscraper erupt in a dazzling display of fireworks.
And Sydney — the self-proclaimed “New Year’s capital of the world” — sprayed nine tonnes of fireworks from its famed Opera House and Harbour Bridge to begin the year’s farewell.
In 2024, Taylor Swift brought the curtain down on her Eras tour, pygmy hippo Moo Deng went viral and teenage football prodigy Lamine Yamal helped Spain conquer the Euros.
The Paris Olympics united the world for a brief few weeks in July and August.
Athletes swam in the Seine, raced in the shadows of the Eiffel Tower and rode horses across the manicured lawns outside the Palace of Versailles.
– Election upheaval –
It was a global year of elections, with countless millions going to the polls across more than 60 countries.
Vladimir Putin prevailed in a Russian ballo
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