Huge crowds braved tight security and cold, rainy weather to usher in new year's yesterday in celebrations at New York's Times Square.

The arrival of 2006 was also cheered in New Orleans, the historic Gulf Coast city devastated by Hurricane Katrina last August. Thousands of revellers packed the French Quarter to listen to music by Arlo Guthrie and bid good riddance to a year the city was not likely to forget.

Police had said they expected about 1 million people to attend the 101st New Year's celebration in Times Square. Revellers came from across the United States and began arriving on Saturday morning to stake out prime spots so they could watch the ball lowered at midnight to ring in the new year.

"They said this wasn't gonna happen," New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin shouted to a cheering New Year's Eve throng at a concert outside Jackson Square. "They said New Orleans was dead. But we proved them wrong. New Orleans is alive and well."

The first new year's celebration in the city since Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast was smaller than usual. Only about one in four residents, by some counts, have returned to the storm-wrecked city, and few tourists have ventured back.

The mood was jubilant as Nagin ticked off the final seconds of 2005. At midnight, a replica of a gumbo pot decorated with New Orleans symbols, including a bottle of hot sauce and a French Quarter street sign, slid down a 8-metre pole atop Jackson Brewery.

In New York, security was a main concern amid the festive atmosphere, although Mayor Michael Bloomberg had said there were no specific threats against the city.

Police officers led bomb-sniffing dogs throughout the party zone, while biochemical hazard teams and decontamination centres were on standby in case of attack. A mobile laboratory was on hand to test the air for suspicious substances.

Metal detectors were used to check the revellers and large bags and backpacks were banned from the area. Snipers were deployed on rooftops, while helicopters circled the area and police patrolled the city's waterways on boats.

London revellers ignore strike

New Year revellers ignored a threatened strike on London's underground rail network and thronged the capital's streets to celebrate the arrival of 2006.

An estimated 200,000 people crowded into central London on Saturday night, police said, 50,000 more than the year before, after a 24-hour strike by a rail workers' union failed to shut more than a handful of underground stations.

At midnight, crowds cheered a 10-minute firework display launched from the London Eye wheel on the south bank of the River Thames.

London Underground said only 31 of its 275 stations were closed by the strike of station staff, which left trains running on all lines on the network, also known as the Tube.

The RMT union called the strike over the introduction of new work rosters which it says will reduce safety levels on the underground.

London Underground denies the rotas were unsafe and says there will be no reduction in station staffing.

London continued its celebration yesterday of the New Year with a parade through the centre of the capital featuring 10,000 performers from around the world.

Unrest breaks out

Rowdy revellers in France torched 425 vehicles overnight in scattered New Year's unrest that has become an annual problem in troubled neighbourhoods, but there were no major clashes, the national police chief said yesterday. Last year, 333 cars were burned.

Police had been particularly vigilant this year because of the three weeks of rioting and arson that broke out in October. But Police Chief Michel Gaudin said there were no major incidents this year between youths and police, and no seriously destructive arson attacks targeting buildings.

Police took 362 people into custody, up from 272 last year. Among police, 27 officers were injured on the job 15 of them hurt during what police described as a minor scuffle near the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

A state of emergency imposed during the rioting is still in effect, and 25,000 police were on alert for the holiday.

Japanese visit temples

As usual, crowds descended on temples across Japan to pay their New Year's respects. Others climbed Mount Fuji for a glimpse of the year's first sunrise.

Still, police said almost 100 million people would visit shrines and temples across the country during the first three days of 2006, while over 14,000 people would usher in the New Year atop mountains including the snow capped peak of Mount Fuji.

Another 347,000 people were expected to spend those days in a less traditional fashion, at Tokyo's Disneyland, according to figures released ahead of the year's end by the National Police Agency.

Earlier Saturday, at Tsukiji market in central Tokyo, last-minute shoppers snapped up fish roe, shrimp, egg cakes, beans and other ingredients for the traditional New Year's meal, usually served in wooden bento boxes.

"Lucky bag" sales, another Japanese New Year's tradition, will be on offer at most department stores starting today. Shoppers purchase the bags without knowing what is inside them.

(China Daily January 2, 2006)