PAKISTAN
The New Year celebrations have kicked off in different parts of Pakistan. People welcomed 2020 with alluring fireworks and lively celebrations in Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, KPK, Balochistan including Gilgit Baltistan.
Thousands of people gathered in Bahria Town, Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Blue Aread, Islamabad and Saddar, Rawalpindi to celebrate the New Year.
NEW ZEALAND
Thousands gathered around Auckland’s Sky Tower, where for the first time lasers and animations accompanied the fireworks display to take New Zealand into the new year and a new decade.
According to New Zealand Herald, New Year celebrations were in full swing down at Federal St in Auckland’s CBD, as the fireworks explode Continued on page 7
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from the Sky Tower. New Zealand has entered 2020 and a new decade with fireworks and huge celebrations in Auckland and Wellington.
Others gathered at Silo Park, Bastion Pt and Mt Eden while on the North Shore, Bayswater Marina, Devonport’s Mt Victoria and Queens Parade also offer good vantage points, along with Harbour View Beach Reserve on the Te Atat? Peninsula.
Thousands were in the central city to party at Federal St or dance through to the new year at one of three Britomart Block Party clubs from closer to the waterfront.
Auckland’s Harbour Bridge put on a dazzling light show syncing with Sky Tower’s midnight fireworks.
AUSTRALIA
Australia’s largest city usually put on a dazzling display of pyrotechnics over the glittering harbour but this year’s celebrations have been overshadowed by calls to cancel the fireworks as devastating bushfires rage across the country.
Millions of people began ringing in 2020 with fireworks, dancing and party in Sydney.
Large crowds thronged Sydney harbor to watch Australia’s famous New Year’s Eve fireworks, even as smoke turned the evening sky in nearby coastal towns blood-red.
The first of two Sydney firework displays kicked off at 9.15pm local time with a few hours still to go until the midnight display in the city.
The planned spectacle went ahead despite calls from some members of the public for the fireworks to be cancelled in solidarity with fire-hit areas in New South Wales (NSW).
JAPAN
People flocked to temples and shrines in Japan, offering incense with their prayers to celebrate the passing of a year and the first New Year’s Eve of the Reiwa era.
Under Japan’s old-style calendar, linked to emperors’ rules, Reiwa started in May, after Emperor Akihito stepped down and his son Naruhito became emperor. Although Reiwa is entering its second year with 2020, Jan 1 still marks Reiwa’s first New Year’s, the most important holiday in Japan.
Other stalls sold fried noodles and candied apples, as well as little figures and amulets in the shape of mice, the zodiac animal for 2020. Since the Year of the Mouse starts off the Asian zodiac, it’s associated with starting anew.
The first year of the new decade will see Tokyo host the 2020 Olympics, an event that is creating much anticipation for the capital and the entire nation.-Agencies
