The world welcomes 2024 – DW – December 31, 2023

Kiribati’s Line Islands will be the first region on Earth to welcome the event in 2024, but no major events were planned on the main island of Kiritimati.

Line Islanders tend to celebrate the turn of the year by eating roast pigs, crayfish, and other traditional foods, along with a popular coconut sap drink.

Islands were not necessarily the first places in the world seen in the new year.

The Line Islands time zone change took effect on December 31, 1994. The adjustment effectively moved the International Date Line more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) eastward within Kiribati.

This brought all of this archipelago country with three time zones onto the Asian side of the international date line, even though parts of the Line Islands were further east than Hawaii.

This step was taken to eliminate confusion caused by Kiribati straddling the International Date Line and the islands always being separated on two different days.

The Line Islands shares the same time as Honolulu, but the date is one day earlier.

Berlin police are planning a large-scale deployment in the new year, fearing a similar outbreak of violence at the end of 2022.

Additional police officers are being drafted in the wake of attacks on police officers, firefighters and paramedics in parts of Berlin on New Year’s Eve last year. In some cases, the attackers used firecrackers and other pyrotechnics.

The war in Gaza has already created a tense atmosphere in the German capital.

Police also announced on Saturday that a pro-Palestinian rally planned for New Year’s Eve in Berlin’s Neukölln district would not take place.

The decision was made due to concerns that demonstrations would occupy the event and violence could break out.

Pakistan has banned New Year’s Eve celebrations that the government said were a show of solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and urged people to “observe simplicity” instead.

Prime Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar said the situation in the Gaza Strip meant the government had “completely banned all kinds of events related to New Year celebrations.”

New Year’s Eve celebrations in Pakistan are usually lively with fireworks and aerial gunfire.

Meanwhile, the UAE emirate Sharjah has banned fireworks on New Year’s Eve.

Sharjah Police said in a Facebook post that the ban was a “sincere expression of solidarity and humanitarian cooperation with our brothers in the Gaza Strip.”

In his New Year’s message, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz acknowledged the difficult global situation, but expressed confidence that “Germany will overcome this.”

“There has been too much suffering, too much bloodshed. Our world has become an even more volatile and harsh place,” Scholz said in a speech released by his office ahead of the New Year’s broadcast. “It’s changing at such a speed that it’s shocking.” Eve.

However, the German leader expressed optimism and highlighted the obstacles that Germany has successfully overcome at home and abroad in 2023.

“Our strength lies in our readiness to compromise – to work for each other,” Scholz asserted.

rc/sms (AFP, AP, DPA, Reuters)