Global citizens today welcome the new year, 2024, amid celebrations.
In Nigeria, hopes are high for many citizens as they plan new commitments and as country leaders urge followers to remain in high spirits.
Sydney and Auckland are part of the first major world cities to welcome the arrival of 2024.
Many citizens celebrated the New Year on Sunday night amid stunning fireworks displays, illuminating the skies over Australia’s Sydney Harbour and New Zealand’s tallest structure, the Sky Tower in Auckland.
Aljazeera also reports that the small Pacific island nations of Tonga, Samoa and Kiribati ushered in the New Year an hour before other countries.
In Japan, temple bells rang out across the nation as people gathered at shrines and temples to welcome the New Year.
At the Tsukiji Temple in Tokyo, visitors were given free hot milk and corn soup as they stood in line to strike a big bell, and a pipe-organ concert was held before a majestic altar.
Jubilant crowds began bidding farewell on Sunday to the hottest year on record, closing a turbulent 12 months marked by clever chatbots, climate crises and wrenching wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
Much of the world’s population – now more than eight billion – is hoping to shake off high living costs and global tumult in 2024, which will bring elections concerning half the world’s population and the Paris Olympics, AFP reports.
The year 2023 did not also end with wars in Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas war still raging.
Perhaps more than anything, 2023 will be remembered for war in the Middle East, after Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 raids on southern Israel and Israel’s ferocious reprisals on Gaza.
The United Nations estimates that almost two million Gazans have been displaced since Israel’s siege began, or about 85 percent of the peacetime population.
With once-bustling Gaza City neighbourhoods reduced to rubble, there were few places left to mark the new year – and fewer loved ones to celebrate with.
