2023-12-31 22:09:04
(Paris) Crowds of revelers have begun to bid farewell to the turbulent year 2023, the hottest on record, marked by the rise of artificial intelligence, the climate crisis and the bloody wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
Posted at 5:09 p.m.
Steven TRASK
Agence France-Presse
The world’s population – now over eight billion – begins the new year with hopes of ending the high cost of living and global conflict.
In Sydney, the self-proclaimed “New Year’s Eve capital of the world”, more than a million revelers packed the harbor foreshore, with city authorities and police warning that all vantage points were occupied.
The population gathered at all the city’s emblematic sites, despite an unusually humid climate, to admire Sydney Bay, the Harbor Bridge and the Sydney Opera House under the multicolored fireworks.
Pyrotechnics also lit up the skies of Auckland, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Manila.
PHOTO PETER PARKS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Fireworks in Hong Kong.
From 700,000 to a million people gathered on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. A fireworks display above the Arc de Triomphe at midnight was the high point of the celebration, placed under the sign of the Olympic Games with numerous activities evoking the sporting event that the city will host next summer .
Nudists wearing Santa hats bathed in the Mediterranean in the south of France, while crowds celebrated in the streets of Thessaloniki, Greece.
Rocket fire on Tel Aviv
Bars and restaurants on one of the busiest streets in Tel Aviv, Israel, were celebrating the New Year when sirens sounded announcing rockets fired from the Gaza Strip at the city and its surroundings as well as in southern Israel.
The year 2023 will be marked by the unprecedented attack by Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7 – and by Israel’s relentless reprisals.
The United Nations estimates that nearly two million Gaza residents have been displaced since the start of the siege imposed by Israel, or around 85% of the population.
“It was a dark year full of tragedy,” said Abed Akkawi, who fled the city with his wife and three children.
This 37-year-old man, who now lives in a United Nations camp in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, says he lost his brother, but he clings to meager hopes for 2024.
PHOTO AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The sun sets for one last time in 2023 on the Egyptian Gaza border.
In Rio de Janeiro, thousands of people are preparing to celebrate the New Year on Sunday on Copacabana beach with fireworks and music with a symphony orchestra and performances by local stars of pop, funk and samba.
Over the past 12 months, the world has been overcome by the pink wave of “Barbie mania,” experienced an unprecedented proliferation of artificial intelligence tools and the world’s first entire eye transplant.
“Ravage” the Russian forces
India has become the most populous country in the world, taking the title from China. It was also the first country to land a spacecraft in the unexplored South Pole region of the Moon.
The year 2023 was also the hottest year since records began in 1880, with a series of climate disasters hitting the planet, from Pakistan to the Horn of Africa to the Amazon basin.
In Ukraine, where the Russian invasion is approaching its second anniversary, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky promised in his New Year’s greetings on Sunday to “ravage” the Russian forces that invaded his country.
PHOTO VALENTYN OGIRENKO, REUTERS
People gather in front of Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv.
“Next year, the enemy will suffer the ravages of our domestic production,” said Mr. Zelensky, assuring that Ukraine would have one million drones in its arsenal by 2024.
His televised speech was illustrated by images of Ukrainian artillery and fighter planes.
Some in Vladimir Putin’s Russia are tired of the conflict. “In the New Year, I would like the war to end, there to be a new president and a return to normal life,” says Zoya Karpova, a 55-year-old theater designer and resident of Moscow.
But Vladimir Putin remained defiant during his New Year’s Eve speech, vowing that Russia “will never back down, praising front-line troops.”
He is the longest-serving Russian leader since Joseph Stalin and his name will once once more appear on the ballot in March’s elections.
Few believe in the vote being completely free and fair, or expect him to lose.
In Rome, Pope Francis prayed for the victims of conflicts around the world, citing the Ukrainians, Palestinians and Israelis, the people of Sudan and the “Rohingya martyrs” in Burma.
“At the end of the year, have the courage to ask yourself how many lives have been torn apart in armed conflicts, how many deaths,” declared the sovereign pontiff, aged 87, following the Angelus prayer on St. Peter’s Square.
In addition to the Russian elections, more than four billion people in total will be called to the polls, notably in the United Kingdom, the European Union, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, Venezuela and of course the States -United, where Democrat Joe Biden, 81, and Republican Donald Trump, 77, intend to face each other once more next November.
Outgoing president, Mr. Biden has at times shown signs of advanced age and even some of his supporters worry regarding the consequences of another term.
As for Donald Trump, facing several indictments and at least three of whose trials are supposed to begin in 2024 before the presidential election, nothing immediately prevents him from campaigning.
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