Sydney and Auckland have become the world’s first major cities to ring in 2024, with more than a million revelers cheering spectacular fireworks displays that lit up the skies over Sydney Harbor and New Zealand’s tallest structure, Sky Tower.
In Auckland, the gentle rain that had fallen throughout the day had dissipated as expected until midnight in the city of 1. 7 million people before the countdown began on an illuminated virtual screen near the most sensitive point of the 328-meter (1,076-foot) communication tower.
London’s Big Ben on Sunday celebrates the centenary of its New Year’s Eve bongs, which are broadcast around the world.
Ever since New Year’s Eve 1923, when BBC engineer A. G. Dryland climbed onto a roof in front of the British Parliament to record strikes and livestream an annual tradition.
The incomparable sound of the “nation’s clock” has occupied a special place in national life.
The bongs are heard twice a day (at 6pm and three times on Sundays) on BBC radio, as well as at the start of the late-night News at Ten programme on the advertising channel ITV.
Their importance is such that even in the recently completed five-year recovery programme, which were largely muted, vital exceptions were made.
In addition to New Year’s Eve, Big Ben also continued to celebrate Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday, when the country remembers its war dead.
Big Ben rang to mark Britain’s exit from the European Union in 2021 and Queen Elizabeth II’s state funeral in 2022.
After a week of testing, normal service finally resumed last November.
While the rest of London is on New Year’s Eve, watch mechanic Andrew Strangeway will be atop the 315-foot (96-meter) Elizabeth Tower.
The tower houses the clock and its five bells, the largest of which is nicknamed Big Ben.
Along with the other two members of the in-house timing team, the 37-year-old will perform last-minute stopwatch checks that will be “fractions of a moment away from being correct. “
Although the chances of fate changing on the big night are minimal, Strangeway said the watch suffered a crisis in the 1970s when it stopped due to steel fatigue.
“I think the chances of anything being serious are low. Our biggest fear about things like the New Year is whether it will take place and whether it will come in time,” he said.
Completed in 1859, the structure was known as the Clock Tower before being renamed the Elizabeth Tower in 2012 to honour the late queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
In the years before the renovation, parliament’s timekeepers would benchmark the Great Clock’s time against the telephone speaking clock.
It is now calibrated using GPS at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory.
But the method of adjusting the clock’s timing mechanism is still outdated: old coins are added or removed using weights attached to two giant coil springs, to gain or lose a second.
“It’s a fantastic job,” Strangeway told AFP, adding that even when he was on holiday in London, he searched for Big Ben and thought “yes, it still works”.
He said he was very excited that he would be “right next to the bells… at that moment when everyone is looking at that clock for the start of the New Year”.
As the glowing river of lava from a volcano that erupted last week in Iceland ebbed, not everyone was happy.
Hazel Lane, 49, the director of a dental clinic in London, had booked a cheap ticket to Reykjavik as soon as she saw footage of the eruption on television, hoping to witness stunning lava flows under a molten red sky.
Lane had already been to Iceland last month, but it was too soon. Although the government had already evacuated about 4,000 citizens from the nearby city of Grindavik, it took weeks before the volcano, located about 40 km southwest of Reykjavik, erupted in December. 18.
“I had a crazy notion of going to Reykjavik for the day to fly over the volcanic eruption,” Lane said. She arrived with her son and his girlfriend on Dec. 22 to find that lava flows had already diminished.
“We are disappointed that the volcanic activity has stopped, but we will still have a day in Reykjavik. “
Lane may not have to wait long before the next eruption. Iceland, which is about the length of the US state of Kentucky and has a population of less than 400,000, has more than 30 active volcanoes.
This makes the northern European island a prime destination for volcano tourism, a niche segment that attracts thousands of thrill-seekers each year to sites from Mexico to Guatemala, Sicily, Indonesia and New Zealand.
Declining activity at the volcano near Grindavik has eased fears of a repeat of the chaos caused by ash from the first eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano on the island in 2010.
But for local tour agencies, planning to take tourists to the site, it was a missed opportunity. Recent eruptions – like the 2021 Fagradalsfjall volcano in southwest Iceland – have drawn thousands of visitors.
Troll Expeditions, which offers tours of Iceland’s ice caves, glaciers and geothermal pools, as well as a diversity of volcano tours, said tourist bookings to Iceland had plummeted before the Grindavik eruption due to the earthquakes that preceded it. But the eruption itself temporarily revived interest. .
“People are very excited to see the volcano. Unfortunately, the eruption has paused for the moment,” the company said by email, noting it was the fourth eruption in the area in the past three years.
“The eruptions were wonderful for tourism, because they were ‘tourist eruptions,’ where you can get pretty close to the crater and witness the lava flow. “
Former Icelandic president Olafur Ragnar Grímsson is already encouraging visitors to prepare for January.
“The predictions are that in two weeks the eruption might start again! Book your flight now so you can witness the Earth being created!” he said in a Dec. 23 post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Risk Management
For avid “lava hunters,” there’s nothing better than an arduous climb to the most sensitive volcano, a walk around a crater, and the smell of sulfur in the air.
Eruptions can be predicted well in advance, allowing ample time for evacuations and alerts.
When Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, erupted last year for the first time since 1984, thousands of awe-struck bystanders flocked to see its bright lava flows. Hawaii’s emergency management company had said in the past that there were no signs that lava would threaten the due popupast areas.
But in some cases the tourists paid with their lives.
Earlier this month, Indonesia’s Marapi volcano erupted, killing 22 people — climbers who perished near the crater. Marapi is one of the most active volcanoes on the island of Sumatra and erupted in January and February this year.
Indonesia, which straddles the so-called “Ring of Fire” that surrounds the Pacific Ocean, is home to more than a hundred active volcanoes.
New Zealand’s White Island, also known by the Maori name Whakaari, has been closed since a crisis in 2019, when a volcanic eruption killed 22 people, most of them tourists. It welcomed visitors, though eruptions were not uncommon.
Despite these incidents, visiting volcanoes remains popular, and through good management, the risk of injury can be minimized, said Tom Pfeiffer, a geologist and volcanologist who runs VolcanoDiscovery, a company in Germany.
They organize tours to volcanoes around the world in small groups, taking on around 150 people per year to places including Java, Sulawesi, Sicily, and also Iceland. He said interest in visiting volcanoes fluctuated a little, depending on how much media attention they were getting, but was generally pretty steady.
“I am confident that the average number of injuries caused by volcanic tourists is much lower than the average number of similar injuries in mountain sports,” Pfeiffer said in an email. “This also remains true despite the fortunately very rare cases of primary errors such as the recent one at Marapi. “
Pfeiffer said many of the injuries that occurred were due to a lack of preparation or information, or excessive risk-taking. Relying on local recommendations from authorities, volcano observatories, and guides with extensive experience can mitigate the replacement, if anything. It’s going wrong.
“In case of doubt, we never take the risk,” he added.
Iceland has witnessed diverse eruptions in recent years, from ones where lava flows from fissures – like the one last week – to explosive ones of ice-covered volcanoes that spew ash plumes, where fire meets the ice. Many of them have been major tourist draws, with the risks well-flagged by local authorities.
The domain around Grindavik remains closed for the time being, and Iceland’s Metrological Office said on Dec. 27 that magma continues to accumulate beneath Svartsengi on the Reykjanes Peninsula and there is a threat of a new eruption.
Arnar Mar Olafsson, director general of the Icelandic Tourist Board, said some travellers did not have a good reputation in the closure zone around the eruption and had to be turned away as they made their way towards the volcano.
“People really need to reach out, reach out and see, but they don’t realize how harmful it is,” he said.
Severe typhoons slammed into parts of eastern Australia on Saturday, bringing heavy rain, giant hail and strong winds, days after the typhoon hit the region over the Christmas holidays.
A wild weather system is forecast to stretch more than 1,000 kms (620 miles) from Port Macquarie in the state of New South Wales to Rockhampton in Queensland, with southeastern Queensland expected to bear the brunt of the storm.
“We are now entering an active era of thunderstorms,” Bureau of Meteorology forecaster David Grant told a news conference. “There is a risk of isolated and very dangerous storms. “
Some areas received about 110 mm (4. 3 inches) of rain, or about a month in total, in two hours on Saturday morning, while hailstones of up to 6 cm (2. 4 inches) were also detected. The bad weather is expected to continue into the New Year.
Two people were taken to hospital after lightning strikes, one while inside a car and the other on an excavator.
The storms continue with severe weather on Dec. 25 and 26 that killed another 10 people and knocked out power to tens of thousands of homes across the east, and after Cyclone Jasper earlier this month caused widespread flooding and damage.
The Australian summer, from December to February, is influenced by the El Niño phenomenon, which can cause excessive weather conditions ranging from bushfires to cyclones and prolonged droughts.
About 28,000 homes are still affected and the latest storms will hamper reconnection efforts, Queensland Premier Steven Miles told reporters.
As Queensland experienced its second major typhoon in a week, an intense heatwave swept across northern and western Australia. Temperatures in Marble Bar, a remote former mining town in the northwest of Western Australian state, are expected to reach 49 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit) on Saturday.
But mild weather is forecast for Sunday in the southeast, as well as Sydney, as Australia’s largest city prepares for New Year’s Eve celebrations. Tens of thousands of people are expected to flock to the harbour venues to watch the famous fireworks that ring out in the New Year.
Australia is bracing for an intense heatwave in the north and west of the country over the New Year’s weekend, with temperatures expected to exceed forty-five degrees Celsius (113 degrees Celsius), while severe thunderstorms are expected in the east of the country. .
The heatwave follows a wild weather phenomenon that hit the east of the country over the Christmas holidays, killing another 10 people and straining tens of thousands, and after Cyclone Jasper earlier this month caused widespread flooding and damage.
The Australian summer, from December to February, is under the influence of the El Niño phenomenon, which affects above-average temperatures in hours of sunlight and can lead to excessive weather events ranging from bushfires to tropical cyclones and prolonged droughts.
Extreme heatwaves are forecast across large swaths of Western Australia’s state, and temperatures at Marble Bar, a remote former mining town in the northwest, are expected to reach 49 degrees Celsius (120. 2 degrees Fahrenheit) on Saturday, the Bureau of Meteorology said. its latest update.
Queensland outback towns of Longreach and Julia Creek in the northeast are set to hit 47°C this weekend, while nighttime temperatures in many parts of the Northern Territory could remain in the low 30s for several days.
The intense heatwave has also prompted the government to increase the threat of wildfires, with several regions under a blanket fire ban.
But in the east, storms are expected to expand from Friday in Queensland and northern New South Wales, and will continue into the new year.
“You can imagine severe storms . . . even if the activity will not be as extensive as in the last few days. Isolated storms with gusts over western South Australia can also be imagined,” said Sarah Scully, a forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology.
Some storms in the east could become severe on Friday afternoon, with the potential for large hail, wind gusts of more than 90 kmh (56 mph) and heavy rain.
Storms are expected to ease over New Year’s Eve and not affect Sydney’s iconic fireworks, with the Bureau of Meteorology predicting cloudy conditions on Sunday with a minimal chance of rain.
Chinese lawmakers engaged in a heated online debate on Friday over whether fireworks should be used to celebrate the Lunar New Year in February, saying a blanket ban on pyrotechnics in the country credited with inventing it would be difficult to implement.
In a blunt response, lawmakers said air pollutant prevention legislation and chimney protection regulations have led to “differences in understanding” of the fireplace ban, which has never been absolute.
In 2017, official data showed that 444 cities had banned fireworks. Since then, some cities have eased restrictions, allowing fireworks at certain times of the year and in designated locations.
This month, however, many counties issued notices banning fireworks, reigniting the debate over the ban.
“They give us fireworks,” wrote one user on Weibo, a Chinese microblog.
According to folklore, the first fireworks were invented 2,000 years ago to hunt down the “nian,” a beast that fed on humans and livestock on the eve of the Lunar New Year or Spring Festival.
Since then, fireworks have been used to celebrate other occasions: Last January, three years after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, some other people defied the bans (and the government) and set off firecrackers.
But some Chinese said the ban on fireworks was mandatory to protect the environment.
“It should be regulated due to pollution and safety (fire) hazards,” a Weibo user said.
However, in an online poll conducted this week through Beijing’s official youth newspaper, more than 80% of respondents expressed support for fireworks at the Spring Festival, the most important holiday in the Chinese calendar.
Some also said the ban was ironic after the United Nations last week adopted the Spring Festival as an official holiday, a move cheered by Chinese officials.
“The Spring Festival belongs to the world, but China’s has almost disappeared,” wrote one Weibo user.
In the southern province of Hunan, a major fireworks production hub, exports totaled 4. 11 billion yuan ($579 million) between January and November, state media reported, surpassing domestic sales.
The National Centre for Vegetation Cover Development and Combating Desertification (NCVC) organized a workshop to present the implementation plan for the rehabilitation of floodplains and grasslands in collaboration with the actual reserves.
The CNVC has signed several agreements with the government of King Salman bin Abdulaziz Royal Reserve, King Abdulaziz Royal Reserve, Imam Turki Bin Abdullah Royal Reserve, Imam Abdulaziz Bin Mohammed Royal Reserve and King Khalid Royal Reserve to rehabilitate more than 1,000 floodplains and grasslands throughout the country. the Kingdom.
The workshop discussed several important facets of the initiative’s objectives,
and criteria for comparing the techniques used in the rehabilitation process, the maximum strategies for evaluating the effects of the implementation of the rehabilitation, the key spaces for cooperation and partnership between the CNVC and the Real Reserves, targeted development and networking.
The Director General of the National Centre, Dr. Khalid Bin Abdullah Al-Abdul-Qadir, explained that the implementation of the first phase involves the rehabilitation of 100 floodplains and grasslands through the planting of 12 million trees and shrubs and the distribution of seeds, as well as the use of rainwater harvesting techniques.
The rehabilitation target domain exceeds 225,000 hectares of degraded land within a single domain with a total domain exceeding 1. 9 million hectares of floodplains and grasslands, contributing to improving environmental sustainability, quality of life and achieving the Kingdom and Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. Green initiative to plant 10 billion trees.
This is a contribution to the implementation of a floodplain and grassland rehabilitation initiative launched by the Minister of Environment, Water and Culture last October, to rehabilitate 1,000 floodplains and grasslands across the Kingdom.
A shark attacked and killed a teenager in the waters of a surfing spot off Australia’s southern coast, police said Thursday.
The frame came out of the water after the attack, near Ethel Beach in Innes National Park on the Yorke Peninsula, South Australian State Police said in a statement.
The teenager may have been about 30 m to 40 m (98 ft to 131 ft) distant from shore, Marty Goody, a local resident who has surfed in the area for decades, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp, Reuters reported.
“It’s the most open component of the oceanArray. . . it’s the largest that reports the swell,” Goody said.
The attack follows the death in May of a 46-year-old man mutilated by a shark on Walkers Rocks beach on the Eyre Peninsula.
Saudi Arabia, represented by the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA), achieved a significant milestone by obtaining the World Health Organization (WHO) Validation Certificate of Trans Fat Elimination, positioning the Kingdom among the first five countries worldwide to receive the certificate.
This is in line with the goals of Vision 2030 and the Health Sector Transformation Agenda, which aims to promote preventive measures against the dangers of fitness and foster a colorful society focused on a fitness life.
The WHO grants this certification based on several criteria, adding the implementation of a policy of phasing out trans fatty acids (TFAs) across the Member State and the status quo of physically powerful surveillance and law enforcement systems.
By getting rid of industrially produced TFAs, also known as partially hydrogenated oil (PHO), the Kingdom has not only increased the nutritional price of its food products, but has also made significant progress towards achieving the goals and signals set through the Health Sector. Transformation Agenda.
These come with extending the average life expectancy of Americans in the Kingdom, reducing the prevalence of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, and ensuring a full and healthy life for all members of society.
In accordance with Vision 2030 and WHO recommendations, the SFDA has developed a law for trans fats in recent years, resulting in the publication of Saudi Technical Regulation No. SFDA. Trans Fatty Acids (Trans Fats) FD 2483 which prohibits the use of partially hydrogenated oils in alimentos. la food industry.
This regulation applies to all foods intended for human consumption, with the exception of hydrogenated oils and trans fats of all-natural origin derived from foods of animal origin.
WHO urged member states in May 2023 to apply for the first Validation Program for Trans Fat Elimination; the second session will begin next year.