Asia-Pacific region begins welcoming 2025 with fireworks and celebrations

01-01-2025

SYDNEY — Countries in the Asia-Pacific region were the first to kick off the New Year's celebrations, with those in the South Pacific Ocean being the first to welcome 2025.Auckland was the first major city to count down to the new year. Thousands reveled and cheered at colorful fireworks launched from New Zealand's tallest structure, Sky Tower, and a spectacular downtown light show.People also climbed the city's ring of volcanic peaks for a fireworks vantage point, and a light display recognising Auckland's Indigenous tribes. It follows a year marked by protests over Māori rights in the nation of 5 million.Fireworks also blasted off the Sydney Harbour Bridge and across the bay as people in Australia rang in the New Year.More than a million people gathered at the iconic Sydney Harbour for the celebration, featuring British pop star Robbie Williams who led a singalong with the crowd.The celebration also featured Indigenous ceremonies and performances that acknowledged the land's first people.Other cities around the world are readying with celebrations highlighting local cultures and traditions, after a year dominated by ongoing conflict and political instability.In Japan, hundreds of locals and tourists crowded the grounds of Tokudai-Ji temple in Tokyo to celebrate the arrival of the new year.At the stroke of midnight, people used a rope to swing a wooden pole against the huge bell at the temple to ring in the new year.The tolling of bells at midnight is an ancient tradition for Buddhists, who believe that humans are born with 108 worldly desires and that these are removed when a bell is struck 108 times.Much of Japan has shut down ahead of the nation's biggest holiday, as temples and homes underwent a thorough cleaning, including swatting floor mats called 'tatami' with big sticks.The upcoming Year of the Snake in the Asian zodiac is heralded as one of rebirth — alluding to the reptile's shedding skin. Stores in Japan, which observes the zodiac cycle from 1 January, have been selling tiny figures of smiling snakes and other snake-themed products. Other places in Asia will start marking the Year of the Snake later, with the Lunar New Year.
Celebrations will echo around the globe as the New Year arrives in different time zones, with American Samoa among the last to welcome 2025 a full 24 hours after New Zealand. — Euronews

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Main stage at Belgium's Tomorrowland music festival completely destroyed by fire

Saudi Gazette

18-07-2025

Saudi Gazette

Main stage at Belgium's Tomorrowland music festival completely destroyed by fire

BRUSSELS — The first festivalgoers have been arriving at Dreamville, Tomorrowland's official camping site, just hours after a fire destroyed the event's main stage, its crown jewel, on Wednesday evening. As widespread speculation spreads about the electronic dance music festival's potential cancellation, there are still no clear answers. Tomorrowland organisers said calling off the event is "the last thing they want," but they're still searching for solutions. The festival's production and creative teams are working in close consultation with safety experts and government departments, Tomorrowland spokesperson Debby Wilmsen said on Thursday morning in an interview with Belgium's Radio 1. "It is too early to say exactly what we are going to be able to do, but we are going to have to come up with a creative solution. However, the fire and police departments have the last word when it comes to safety, and we always listen to that," she noted. The governor of the province of Antwerp, Cathy Berx, is still hopeful that the festival will go ahead as planned, Flemish public broadcaster VRT reported. "I am confident that Tomorrowland, despite the terrible setback, will reconcile creativity with the safety of festival-goers and employees," she said.A team of 32 artists from 10 different countries brought the stage to life over the course of two years. The construction of the stage itself began at the end of May. No other stages or areas of the festival venue were impacted by the wrote in a statement that the Orbyz Mainstage was a "creation from pure passion, imagination, and dedication.""This wasn't just a stage. It was a living, breathing world. From the very first sketch on a blank page, to countless hours of conceptual design, artistic collaboration, engineering, crafting, building, every single piece of Orbyz carried part of our soul," the statement further is one of the world's largest EDM festivals, attracting a global crowd of music lovers each year across two weekends. Last year's edition welcomed 400,000 festival-goers were on site when the fire broke out and none of the roughly 1,000 employees were hurt while taking part in preparations for the opening investigation into the cause of the blaze is ongoing. — Euronews

'How fragile we are': Roskilde Festival tragedy remembered 25 years on

Saudi Gazette

01-07-2025

Saudi Gazette

'How fragile we are': Roskilde Festival tragedy remembered 25 years on

COPENHAGEN — Today, 25 years ago, one of the worst accidents in rock history occurred at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark: nine young men lost their lives in the chaos that unfolded during a Pearl Jam concert. Rasmus Thirup Beck, a journalist who attended the Pearl Jam concert in 2000 shared his memories with Danish TV on the anniversary: "At some point, we see on the big screen that a completely lifeless body is lifted up over the barrier, and another one a little later and so on. We were completely shaken, and people began to cry around us and so on. We did not know what had happened. We only knew that something really bad had happened." During the show, frontman Eddie Vedder tried to get the thousands of fans to stop pushing forward, but it was too late. The US rock band have shared a post on Instagram honouring the victims. "Nothing has been the same since," it reads. Some 43 other people were also injured during the incident. Several inquiries were conducted, though no charges were filed. An initial report published in December 2000 found that 'a chain of unfortunate circumstances' led to the deaths after poor sound in the back prompted concert-goers to push forward. After 30 June, 2000, Roskilde Festival and all other festivals around the world changed forever. The festival has invested millions of Kroner in modern safety measures in an effort to prevent something similar from happening again. "We can be up to 70,000 people at this stage, and if we want space for all that, so that is still comfortable to stand here we will have to be able to use the corners completely, and therefore there is a much larger scene, big screens, a proper sound system, so it doesn't really matter where you are, then you can still get a good experience," explains head of security at the festival Morten Therkildsen. A memorial sculpture now sits at the festival ground. It's a black stone block engraved with the words "how fragile we are", with nine trees planted around it. On Pearl Jam's 2002 album Riot Act, the song Arc is a wordless tribute to the young men. The band played the song live only nine times. — Euronews

Photos of Global Celebrations Marking the Start of the Summer and Winter Solstices

Al Arabiya

24-06-2025

Al Arabiya

Photos of Global Celebrations Marking the Start of the Summer and Winter Solstices

People are marking the start of the winter and summer solstices across the globe. North of the equator, celebrations welcome summer, while those in the south observe the beginning of winter. In Romania, dancers wearing crowns of wheat gathered for the Sanziene, or Fairies, a pre-Christian pagan celebration in honor of the tiny imaginary winged beings who come to earth as a symbol of fertility. Meanwhile, Lithuanians danced in the small town of Kernave, and Russians lit bonfires. In the US, a performer danced across the colors of Christopher Janey's 'Passing Light' solar sculpture that aligns each summer solstice at the San Antonio airport. In Spain, people watched the sun rise on a Barcelona beach coined 'The Night of San Juan.' South of the equator in Bolivia, Indigenous people gathered around fires and held up their hands to receive the first rays of sunlight in celebration of the Andean New Year of 5533, marking the Southern Hemisphere's winter solstice. This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.