New Year’s 2025: How the planet welcomed the new year Spectacular events in New York, Paris, and Brazil

2025 is a fact with the planet welcoming it with spectacular events and the presence of a crowd of people. From Sydney to Rio de Zaneiro, passing through Damascus or Paris, the world celebrated the coming of the new year with the necessary fireworks, after a year marked by the Olympics, Donald Trump’s noisy return, but also new twists in the Middle East and Ukraine. CORVERSE The year 2024, which will certainly be the warmest ever recorded, also experienced natural disasters exacerbated by climate change, from the deadly heat during the pilgrimage to Mecca to the tragic floods in the Kathmandu Valley. After the Asia-Pacific region that opened the January 31st dance, the celebrations continued in the Middle East, Europe and America. At midnight in Brazil, hundreds of thousands of people screamed with joy at the beach of Copacabana in Rio de Zaneiro, where they attended an impressive fireworks sight and a concert of almost two hours given by legendary brothers Caetano Veloso and Maria Bethania, among other artists. CORVERSE In New York City, tens of thousands of people gathered in the iconic Times Square waiting for the descent of the famous illuminated five-ton sphere marking the passage into the new year. Welcome 2025! — Times Square (@Times SquareNYC) “I really wanted to experience this. In New York, it is once in your life,” says Jennifer Lopez, a Dominican who lives in a suburb of the city. REUTERS/Adam Gray Five months after the Olympic Games’ euphoria, Paris again wore its good and lit all its lights for the passage into the new year. More than a million people gathered on the Elysian Fields Avenue, the famous Sanz-Elize, where vehicle traffic had been banned and dozens of bright trees starred along it. “I had a very good year 2024. And I would like all the years to be like 2024!”, said Mark Koppels, a Belgian who danced furiously in the Paris cobblestones. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes In Britain, thousands of people gathered on the banks of the Thames in London to admire the fireworks, but bad weather caused the cancellation of events in other cities, mainly Edinburgh. reuters/Isabel Infantes In his speech on the New Year, Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski said that Ukraine would fight in 2025 at the “field of battle”, but also at the “table of negotiations” to put an end to almost three years of Russian invasion. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko In Tbilisi, tens of thousands of pro-European protesters gathered in front of Georgia’s parliament to celebrate the new year, in a follow-up to the protests they have been making for a month against the government’s decision to suspend the EU accession process. In Sydney, located in one of the planet’s most eastern hourly fuselage, more than a million people gathered in the city that characterizes itself as “the world capital of the New Year”. Last year, millions also came to the polls in more than 60 countries. In Russia, Vladimir Putin again won another presidential election despite charges of fraud, while in Bangladesh the student movement dethroned Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina despite violent repression. No vote however had as much suspense as that of November 5 in the United States, won by former President Donald Trump, a target of two assassination attempts and convicted by a criminal court. 2024 was a year of reclassification in the Middle East, with the end of more than 50 years of Assad clan rule in Syria, but also the return of the Israeli army to southern Lebanon. In downtown Damascus, hundreds of people gathered holding their flags with the colours of the “revolution”, expressing their “hope” for the new year, after thirteen years of civil war in the devastated country. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh “I hope that Syria of 2025 will be a Syria non-religious, pluralistic, for all, without exception,” says Havan Mohammad, a Kurdish student from Kamishli, northeastern Syria. In the Gaza Strip, civilians declare exhausted by the war between Israel and the Islamic Palestinian Hamas movement, which broke out with the October 7, 2023 attack. In the field of entertainment, the iconic band of BritPop, the Oasis, will make its great return in summer, while the idols of K-pop, BTS, promised their “ARMY”, the “STRATE” of their fans, as they call them, that they will find them again after June, once the military service of the band members is completed. Football lovers will be able to enjoy a World Cup with 32 teams, organized in the United States. But after a year 2024 even warmer than the previous year, 2025 is expected to be one of the three years with the highest temperatures ever recorded.