Fireworks erupt over Sydney Harbour to bring in 2025
More than one million people are watching a spectacular fireworks display over Sydney Harbour Bridge to see in the new year.
With clear skies and a balmy temperature of 22C, the famous celebrations got into full swing a few seconds ago as the clocks hit midnight in Australia’s two most populated states of New South Wales and Victoria.
Key events
Events across the UK cancelled because of bad weather
A number of new years events across the United Kingdom have been cancelled because of bad weather.
The most notable casualty is Hogmanay celebrations in Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh. A fireworks display from the city’s castle at the top of the Royal Mile has been cancelled, as has a gig nearby by Texas.
A street party alongside Princes Street has also been scrapped. About 50,000 people were due to attend. Other events indoors are still scheduled to go ahead.
Public firework displays in Blackpool, Newcastle, the Isle of Wight, and Ripon have also been called off.
City Hall in London said it is monitoring the weather forecast “closely” ahead of the showpiece fireworks display over the River Thames.
Transport, including ferries to the Isle of Man, has also been affected by the weather.
As of half an hour ago, all of Australia is now in 2025, with Darwin, Adelaide and Brisbane among the larger cities joining the rest of Australia in 2025.
More than 1 million people watched Sydney’s fireworks, while hundreds of thousands took to the banks of the Yarra River in Melbourne to watch the midnight displays.
Tokyo is among the cities that will see in the new year in about 15 minutes’ time. The Japanese capital has had festivities under way all evening ahead of the clock striking midnight.
South Korea will enter 2025 at the same time as their Japanese neighbours. On a day where protests continue after the impeachment of the country’s president Yoon Suk Yeol, some have already been celebrating the impending new year.
There’s more new year’s messages from world leaders, as German chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for unity amid political pressure due to a poorly performing economy and the fall out from a deadly attack on a Christmas market.
Scholz, who faces an election in February that could see him removed from power, said that Germany was a country should remain united.
“Strength comes from solidarity. And we are a country that sticks together,” Scholz said in his New Year’s address, which will be broadcast Tuesday night.
“We have it in our hands together: we can make 2025 a good year.”
He acknowledged that Germany is still reeling from the Christmas market attack that killed five and injured more than 200 people in the eastern city of Magdeburg when a Saudi doctor drove his car into a crowd.
He was arrested on murder charges.
“We are stunned by this inhuman act. How can an insane assassin cause so much suffering?” Scholz said.
“And it is not only in Magdeburg that many are asking themselves: Where can we find the strength to carry on after such a catastrophe?”
Ahead of the election on 23 February, Scholz called on Germans to go vote and took a swipe at tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who twice this month called on people to choose the far-right Alternative for Germany party.
“You, the citizens, decide what happens in Germany. It’s not up to the owners of social media,” Scholz said.
President Vladimir Putin used his new year address to tell Russians that the country would move forward with confidence in 2025.
Putin‘s seasonal message was being broadcast at midnight in each of Russia’s 11 time zones, starting with Kamchatka and Chukotka in the far east, Reuters reports.
His message comes 25 years since he was named acting president on New Year’s Eve in 1999, when predecessor Boris Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned and apologised for the country’s post-Soviet turmoil in a speech that stunned Russians.
In his message, Putin said Russia had strengthened its unity in the first quarter of the 21st century, achieving significant goals and overcoming trials.
“And now, on the threshold of the new year, we are thinking about the future. We are confident that everything will be fine, we will only move forward. We know for sure that the absolute value for us was, is and will be the fate of Russia, the well-being of its citizens,” he said.
Putin paid tribute to Russian soldiers fighting in the war in Ukraine, describing them as “true heroes”, but did not refer in detail to the state of the conflict or make predictions for how the battlefield situation would evolve in 2025.
It’s now 2025 in Queensland – where they’re one hour behind the rest of the Australian east coast.
There are round 80,000 individual fireworks going off across the city’s skyline at the minute.
There are also big displays to the south of Brisbane on the Gold Coast and to the north on the Sunshine Coasts.
And there’s this earlier pic from Newcastle, New South Wales…
More pictures from the fireworks in Sydney.
Xi Jinping gives bullish message about Chinese prospects
On a slightly different note, Chins’s president, Xi Jinping, has sent out a positive new year message about the country’s sluggish economy.
Despite fears of growth well below the government’s targets, Xi claimed in a speech that the official growth targets of 5% for 2025 would be met.
His message rebutted concerns that Donald Trump’s incoming US administration will harm Beijing’s prospects in the new year.
“The current economic operation faces some new situations, challenges from the uncertainty of the external environment and pressure of transformation from old drivers of growth into new ones, but these can be overcome through hard work,” Xi said.
Here’s our full story:
And there are many events are taking place around the world ahead of the midnight celebrations.
There is already a massive crowd in Chongqing in western China ahead of midnight.
Here are some nice countdown clips of the Sydney show.
Fireworks erupt over Sydney Harbour to bring in 2025
More than one million people are watching a spectacular fireworks display over Sydney Harbour Bridge to see in the new year.
With clear skies and a balmy temperature of 22C, the famous celebrations got into full swing a few seconds ago as the clocks hit midnight in Australia’s two most populated states of New South Wales and Victoria.
It’s not quite such a lovely picture in the UK where high winds and heavy rain are forcing the cancellation of some New Year’s Eve events.
Edinburgh called off its official street parties yesterday because of the prospect of some nasty weather and the curse has spread further south today.
Firework displays have been called off inBlackpool, Newcastle, the Isle of Wight and Ripon, North Yorkshire.
Here’s the full story.
Sydney is the self-appointed “world capital of new year’s eve” but there are also large crowds out in Melbourne to see in 2025.
Families and groups gathered early along the banks of Melbourne’s Yarra River, to secure a good view of the city’s skyline in anticipation of the 14 tonnes of fireworks shot from 27 buildings along with 60 lasers.
Domenic Adami and a group of friends picked their spot in Alexandra Gardens near the Yarra and set up a picnic before settling in for the midnight light show.
“I heard, this year, they’re going to be bigger than Sydney, but usually they’re pretty good,” Adami told Australian Associated Press.
“Even when I sit and watch it at home or from somewhere else on TV, it looks amazing.
“Each year has just gotten better and better, and this year seems like it’s going to be the best.”
The family-friendly fireworks went off over Sydney Harbour earlier before the main display at midnight (1pm GMT).
Another visitor to Sydney is British tourist who used to watch the images of harbourside fireworks a sa child and vowed one day to visit the harbour city.
The 28-year-old has found a vantage point in Balmain with friends and looking forward to the show.
“It is a bit of a bucket list thing for me,” she told AAP.
“At home the Sydney fireworks is always all over the news, it is one of the first places that brings in the New Year.”
Auckland has become the first major city to welcome 2025 a short while ago, with thousands of people counting down to the new year and cheering at fireworks launched from New Zealand’s tallest structure, Sky Tower, and a spectacular light show.
Thousands also thronged to downtown or climbed the city’s ring of volcanic peaks for a fireworks vantage point, and a light display recognizing Auckland’s Indigenous tribes. It follows a year marked by protests over Māori rights in the nation of 5 million.
Countries in the South Pacific are the first to ring in the New Year, with midnight in New Zealand striking two hours before midnight in Sydney, 13 hours ahead of London and 18 hours before the ball drop in New York.
The countdown is well and truly under way in Australia – at least in the country’s eastern cities where it is less than a hour to go before midnight.
Hundreds of thousands of people have already packed themselves into the best vantage points around Sydney harbour to wait for the famous New Year’s Eve fireworks show.
Many of those who will be bringing in the new year in Sydney are tourists such as Roman and Monica Gezernek from Germany who have been waiting for hours for the Sydney pyrotechnics.
“They’re world famous apparently so we have to see them,” Roman Gezernek told Australian Associated Press.
The pair will fly out to New Zealand on New Year’s Day to continue the trip of a lifetime.
“We’re pensioners so we’re just taking our time around the world,” he said.
People around the world ring in the new year
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of New Year’s Eve celebrations from around the world as 2025 begins. We will bring you some of the best photos as people around the globe ring in the new year – well at least those parts of the world that use the Gregorian calendar. Other new years are available.
