Revellers welcome 2025 at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate
World
Up to 60,000 people were present on the Street of 17 June, on the western side of the Gate
(Reuters) – Tens of thousands of people gathered under the Brandenburg Gate in Germany's capital Berlin to usher in the start of the year 2025.
Up to 60,000 people were present on the Street of 17 June, on the western side of the Gate which once separated East and West Berlin until the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, according to countdown organisers.
The party took place in a closed off area stretching over 1.9 km (1.1 miles) from Brandenburg Gate to the Victory Column monument.
Everton, a reveller from Brazil who provided only his first name, said his wish for the New Year was a global world. "We are very global citizens, we live in Brazil, we live in the United States, we have parents in Europe, in Belgium, and we want to have a global world. We don't want to have individual countries."
Big Ben rings out
London brought in the New Year with a fireworks display over the River Thames, as the iconic Big Ben struck midnight.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan posed "Happy New Year, London" on social media platform X and "Greatest city in the world".
The festivities went ahead despite much of the UK subjected to severe weather warnings for the coming week, with heavy rain and strong winds due to affect parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England, according to the Met Office.
Edinburgh's New Year "Hogmanay" celebrations, where tens of thousands of revelers gather in the Scottish capital for street parties and fireworks, have been canceled due to bad weather, organizers said on Monday.
Damascus welcomes New Year
People gathered at a Christmas market in Damascus to ring in the New Year with fireworks in the early hours of Wednesday.
Crowds could be seen strolling around the market before the fireworks display. Some waved Syrian flags and recorded the event on their phones.
Syrians ushered in a new era when fighters seized control of Damascus on December 8, 2024 forcing former president Bashar al-Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family's decades-long rule.
Syrians celebrated and refugees began to pour back home from neighboring countries, but the cost of the devastating civil war is being tallied.
The final death toll is hard to tally but the United Nations estimated in 2023 that more than 300,000 civilians had been killed by the end of March 2021, an average of 84 civilians every day.
Human rights groups also reported Assad's government institutionalized torture.
