World rings in 2012, bids adieu to a tough 2011

Lady Gaga and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg kiss dur­ing the New Year’s Eve cel­e­bra­tion, in New York, Sat­ur­day, Dec. 31, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes)

VERENA DOBNIK

Asso­ci­ated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — From New Zealand to New York, the world eagerly wel­comed a new year Sun­day with confetti-filled cel­e­bra­tions, glit­ter­ing fire­works dis­plays and star-studded festivities.

For one night, at least, rev­el­ers gath­ered and hoped for a bet­ter future, say­ing good­bye to a year of hur­ri­canes, tsunamis and eco­nomic tur­moil that many would rather forget.

In New York, hun­dreds of thou­sands gath­ered at the cross­roads of the world to wit­ness a crys­tal ball with more than 30,000 lights that descended at mid­night. Lady Gaga and Mayor Michael Bloomberg led the crowd in the final-minute count­down of the famed crystal-paneled ball drop.

Matheus Cam­pos, a law stu­dent from Brazil, threw both arms in the air as the new year began in Times Square.

“It’s awe­some,” he said.

Rev­el­ers in Aus­tralia, Asia, Europe and the South Pacific island nation of Samoa, which jumped across the inter­na­tional date­line to be first to cel­e­brate, wel­comed 2012 with boom­ing pyrotech­nic dis­plays. Fire­works soared over Moscow’s Red Square, crowds on Paris’ Champs-Elysées boule­vard popped Cham­pagne corks at midnight.

But many approached the new year with more relief than joy, as peo­ple bat­tered by weather dis­as­ters, job­less­ness and eco­nomic uncer­tainty hoped the stroke of mid­night would change their fortunes.

“It was a pretty tough year, but God was look­ing after us and I know 2012 has got to be bet­ter,” said Kyralee Scott, 16, of Jack­son, N.J., whose father spent most of the year out of work.

Some New York rev­el­ers, wear­ing party hats and “2012” glasses, began camp­ing out Sat­ur­day morn­ing, even as work­ers read­ied bags stuffed with hun­dreds of bal­loons and tech­ni­cians put col­ored fil­ters on klieg lights. The crowds cheered as work­ers lit the crystal-paneled ball that would drop at mid­night Sat­ur­day and put it through a test run, 400 feet above the street. The sphere, dec­o­rated with 3,000 Water­ford crys­tal tri­an­gles, has been drop­ping to mark the new year since 1907, long before tele­vi­sion made it a U.S. tradition.

In Times Square, hun­dreds of thou­sands peo­ple crammed into spec­ta­tor pens ringed by bar­ri­cades, enjoy­ing sur­pris­ingly warm weather for the North­east. The National Weather Ser­vice said it was about 49 degrees in nearby Cen­tral Park — about 10 degrees warmer than the nor­mal high temperature.

As the coun­try pre­pared for the cel­e­bra­tion, glum wasn’t on the agenda for many, even those who had a sour year.

“We’re hop­ing the next year will be bet­ter,” said Becky Mar­tin, a for­mer ele­men­tary school teacher who drove from Rock­ford, Ill., to Times Square after spend­ing a fruit­less year try­ing to find a job. “We’re start­ing off opti­mistic and hop­ing it lasts.”

Many expressed cau­tious hope that bet­ter times were ahead after a year in which Japan was rav­aged by an earth­quake and tsunami, hur­ri­canes wreaked havoc across the coun­try and a debt cri­sis dev­as­tated Europe’s economy.

“Everybody’s suf­fer­ing. That’s why it’s so beau­ti­ful to be here cel­e­brat­ing some­thing with every­body,” said Lisa Nicol, 47, of Mel­bourne, Australia.

For all of the holiday’s bit­ter­sweet poten­tial, New York City always treats it like a big party — albeit one that now takes place under the watch­ful eye of a mas­sive secu­rity force, includ­ing more than 1,500 police officers.

Dick Clark, who suf­fered a stroke in 2004, put in a few brief appear­ances men­tion­ing that he has hosted his name­sake New Year’s Eve cel­e­bra­tion for years, but said “tonight, it’s bet­ter than ever.” Clark, look­ing cheer­ful but strug­gling with his speech, intro­duced a per­for­mance by Lady Gaga and also assisted in the count­down. The show, hosted by Ryan Seacrest also fea­tured a per­for­mance by Justin Bieber.

Natalie Tolli, a 13-year-old from Yonkers, said “it was the best time I ever had, espe­cially see­ing Justin Bieber in his red hat.”

Her father, George Tolli, said he and his wife and three daugh­ters and son waited since 2 p.m. to get their place.

“It was a pleas­ant sur­prise, very con­trolled,” he said. “In my 51 years, I’ve never been here for New Year’s. But I did it for the kids. And it was worth it.”

In Las Vegas, fire­works were launched from eight rooftops at mid­night. Police ear­lier shut down a four-mile sec­tion of the Strip to vehi­cle traf­fic, let­ting rev­el­ers party in the street. Casino night­clubs touted pricey, exclu­sive bashes hosted by celebri­ties includ­ing Kim Kar­dashian, Bruno Mars and Fergie.

Author­i­ties reported only minor hic­cups, includ­ing an ash tray can­is­ter fire on the 15th floor of the Paris Las Vegas hotel casino and an inter­mit­tent power out­age at Bel­la­gio that led to casino offi­cials clos­ing its buffet.

The Bel­la­gio out­age also affected a bank of slot machines and some guest rooms, but the prob­lem was fixed before 8 p.m., allow­ing all gam­bling, night­club par­ties and shows to go forward.

Thou­sands of New Year’s cel­e­brants turned out in Salt Lake City for a vari­ety of events orga­nized by the Down­town Alliance, while in Seat­tle crowds were treated to a fire­works dis­play that included bar­rages from the top of the city’s iconic Space Needle.

A typ­i­cally busy New Year’s Eve in Los Ange­les became even busier as police and fire crews remained on alert for more arson attacks, after dozens of delib­er­ately set car fires hit the city in the early morn­ing hours of Fri­day and Sat­ur­day. Four sus­pi­cious car fires were reported Sat­ur­day evening.

Atlanta wel­comed thou­sands to its down­town, where a giant peach dropped at mid­night. Fire­works were launched from the top of the Space Nee­dle in Seat­tle; in Hous­ton, tens of thou­sands cel­e­brated at a party with coun­try singer Del­bert McClinton.

In sum­mer tem­per­a­tures at Key West, Fla., three sep­a­rate mid­night drops took place. A giant fac­sim­ile of a conch shell was low­ered at Sloppy Joe’s Bar, Ernest Hemingway’s favorite water­ing hole when he lived in Key West. At the Schooner Wharf Bar, the bar owner dressed as a pirate wench and dropped down from the mast of a tall sail­ing ship. And at the Bour­bon Street Pub com­plex, a drag queen named Sushi descended in a glit­ter­ing 6-foot red women’s high heel.

The town of East­port, Maine, low­ered an 8-foot-long wooden sar­dine from a down­town build­ing at mid­night, in cel­e­bra­tion of its sar­dine can­ning and fish­ing history.

In San Fran­cisco, rev­el­ers lined the water­front for the annual fire­works show.

The first world­wide cel­e­bra­tions started in the island nation of Samoa, which hopped across the inter­na­tional date line at mid­night on Thurs­day, skip­ping Fri­day and mov­ing instantly to Saturday.

Samoa and neigh­bor­ing Toke­lau lie near the date­line that zigzags ver­ti­cally through the Pacific Ocean; both sets of islands decided to realign them­selves this year from the Amer­i­cas side of the line to the Asia side to be more in tune with key trad­ing partners.

In Syd­ney, more than 1.5 mil­lion peo­ple watched the shim­mer­ing pyrotech­nic dis­play designed around the theme “Time to Dream.” In Lon­don, some 250,000 peo­ple gath­ered to lis­ten to Big Ben chime at the stroke of mid­night. Scot­land Yard reported they arrested 77 peo­ple dur­ing London’s New Year’s celebrations.

World lead­ers evoked 2011’s strug­gles in their New Year’s mes­sages with some ambivalence.

French Pres­i­dent Nico­las Sarkozy warned Europe’s cri­sis is not fin­ished and “that 2012 will be the year full of risks, but also of possibilities.”

Pope Bene­dict XVI marked the end of 2011 with prayers of thanks and said human­ity awaits the new year with appre­hen­sion but also with hope for a bet­ter future.

“We pre­pare to cross the thresh­old of 2012, remem­ber­ing that the Lord watches over us and takes care of us,” Bene­dict said. “In him this evening we want to entrust the entire world. We put into his hands the tragedies of this world of ours, and we also offer him the hopes for a bet­ter future.”

In Brazil, heavy rains didn’t halt par­ties as upward of 2 mil­lion peo­ple gath­ered on Copaca­bana beach in Rio de Janeiro and nearly as many on a main avenue in Sao Paulo, South America’s biggest city. Mas­sive fire­works dis­plays and top music acts graced stages across the nation.

Brazil has seen healthy eco­nomic growth in recent years, as the coun­try pre­pares to host the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016. Growth, how­ever, has stalled in recent months, and Brazil­ian lead­ers are try­ing to stim­u­late the econ­omy in the new year.

“This was a good year for Brazil and I think things are only get­ting bet­ter, it feels like we’re mak­ing big advances,” said Fabi­ana dos San­tos Silva, an 18-year-old stu­dent who gath­ered with hun­dreds of thou­sands of oth­ers on a main avenue in Sao Paulo.

Sev­eral peo­ple prepar­ing to cel­e­brate the hol­i­day in the U.S. told the AP that they would usher in the New Year hop­ing the Con­gress would become a more coop­er­a­tive place. Some talked about their hopes for the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. Oth­ers said they hoped to hold on to their job, or find a new one to replace one they’d lost.

An Asso­ci­ated Press-GfK poll con­ducted Dec. 8–12 found that 62 per­cent of Amer­i­cans are opti­mistic that the nation’s for­tunes will improve in 2012, and 78 per­cent hope­ful that their own fam­ily will have a bet­ter year. Most wrote off 2011 as a dud.

Deb­bie Hart, 50, of Perry, Ga., called her­self the “per­pet­ual opti­mist” who believes each year will be bet­ter than the one before.

“I mar­ried a farmer. ‘Wait until next year. Next year will be bet­ter.’ That’s what I’ve been hear­ing for 30 years,” said Hart. “I have faith.”

Posted by AP News on Jan 1 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.