The giant steel archway of the Sydney Harbour Bridge was again the centrepiece of the traditional display in Australia’s main city, with a giant neon hourglass illustrating the theme of time passing.

Thousands in Hong Kong ignored unusually chilly temperatures to see the fireworks in Victoria Harbour. In the northern Chinese city of Harbin, tourists strolled through a display of ice structures and some toasted the New Year in a bar made from ice blocks.

In Japan, thousands of people gathered at the Yasukuni shrine and other prayer sites to throw coins as midnight struck. Each addressed a small prayer to the country’s ancestral gods by twice clapping their hands under a clear winter sky.

In Iraq, crowds surged into the streets of strife-torn Baghdad, shooting firecrackers and weapons and dancing in a rare moment of freedom from daily violence that has recently eased encouraging inhabitants to be more daring.

World leaders used the New Year to get their messages across.

In China — set to host the 2008 Olympics in Beijing — President Hu Jintao called for world peace and development in his New Year address.

“We sincerely hope people of all nations live under the same blue sky freely, equally, harmoniously and happily, and enjoy the achievements in peace and development of the humankind,” Hu said, according to Xinhua news agency.

As tens of thousands of people flocked to Moscow’s Red Square, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin used his final New Year address as president to congratulate Russians on a “national renaissance” driven by “colossal resources,” in a pre-recorded broadcast.

Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, in a statement read by a television commentator, said Cubans could feel “proud” of having resisted U.S. pressures for so long.

“In the approaching dawn we will have left behind the 49th year of our revolution and entered the 50th year that will symbolize half a century of heroic resistance,” said Castro, who on July 2006 relinquished power to his brother Raul, after undergoing a gastrointestinal operation.

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