New Year latest: 300 arrests in Berlin as thousands welcome 2024
Berlin police claim that people threw fireworks at officers and attempted to make molotov cocktails
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Your support makes all the difference.Berlin police detained over 300 people on New Year’s Eve after at least 14 on-duty officers were injured as people shot fireworks at each other and police throughout the city.
One of the incidents occurred near Alexanderplatz where around 500 people were letting off fireworks at each other before police dispersed the group at the landmark Neptune Fountain, reported DW.
The crowd fired at police with pyrotechnics when they tried to check them for fireworks, according to the outlet.
In Neukölln, a number of arrests were made after people attempted to make Molotov cocktails, which police say they confiscated.
It came amid jubilant scenes in the US as tens of thousands of beaming people in New York’s Times Square, were showered with confetti and hugs and kisses after watching the descent of the colourful ball marking the birth of 2024.
The UK earlier welcomed 2024 with a bang as tens of thousands packed the streets of London and Edinburgh to watch the cities’ world-famous New Year’s Eve fireworks displays.
Tickets for the event in London sold out and official viewing areas were full. Organisers finished checks on the pyrotechnics with more than 10,000 fireworks shooting up into the night’s sky after the Big Ben countdown.
The march of midnight from time zone to time zone brought the new year first to places like Australia, where more than 1 million people watched a pyrotechnic display centred around Sydney’s famous Opera House and harbour bridge — a number of spectators equivalent to one in five of the city’s residents.
Spectacular scenes in Paris
More than 800,00 people were on the Champs Elysees boulevard to celebrate the start of 2024, and they got a sight of this..
We are just 15 minutes away....
It’s not long to go until the countdown at Big Ben and the huge firework display around the London Eye.
Whether you are one of the lucky ones to get a ticket to see it live, or you are watching it from home, we at The Independent wish you an early Happy New Year
Heightened security
Security has been heightened across European cities for the celebratrions.
German authorities said they had detained three more people in connection with a reported threat of a New Year‘s Eve attack by Islamic extremists on the world-famous Cologne Cathedral.
In Berlin, some 4,500 police officers are in place to keep order and avoid riots like a year ago. Police in the German capital issued a ban on the traditional use of fire crackers for several streets across the city. They also banned a pro-Palestinian protest in the Neukoelln neighbourhood of the city, which has seen several pro-Palestinian riots.
In France, 90,000 law enforcement officers have been deployed. Of those, 6,000 are n Paris, where French interior minister Gerald Darmanin said more than 1.5 million people would attend celebrations on the Champs-Elysees.
Europe welcomes 2024
Traditional processions to music concerts to outdoor parties - it’s all happening across Europe right now as the continent celebrates the turn of the year
Dress appropriately
If you’re not watching tonight’s display from the warmth of your own home, then dress appropriately, as it’s cold and windy. These two have the right idea!
It’s 2024 in Paris
How about this for a light show as the Arc de Triomphe is lit up as Paris enters 2024
Celebrations have already started in Edinburgh
It’s not yet midnight, but the firework displays have started earlier in Edinburgh where the city’s Hogmanay sees people come from around the world for the three-day festival to celebrate the new year.
The build-up in London in pics
Here’s a selection of pictures taken from the wires ahead of the “big one” in London
Sadiq Khan speaking ahead of tonight’s event
Well, the excitement is certainly building with less than an hour to go. Here’s what the city’s mayor said on preparations:“I’ve got to say to my friends in New Zealand and Australia, well done for what you did in Auckland and Sydney, but that’s nothing compared to what we’re going to do in London just after midnight.
“The teams have been working really hard. We started planning this in July. Over the last four or five days, 75 men and women have been getting both sides of the River Thames ready.
“We have got 12 to 13 minutes of amazing fireworks, amazing music and amazing light display and one or two surprises as well.”
Rachel Riley reflects on New Year’s Eve feeling ‘sombre’ amid Gaza conflict
Rachel Riley has said that New Year’s Eve “feels sombre” and hopes 2024 will bring a change amid the conflict in Gaza and Israel.
In an Instagram post on Sunday, the Countdown star, 37, wrote that “Holocaust education feels present and urgent” since the attack by Hamas on October 7.
She said the group, a proscribed terrorist organisation by the UK government, were brutal “against men, women, children, Holocaust survivors, foreign workers, Israeli Arabs, and anyone else who was unlucky enough to have been in the vicinity of Hamas during their attacks”.
Riley added: “As a result, incidents of anti-Jewish hate are surging around the world and of course this New Year’s Eve feels sombre.”
She also wrote: “I hope, as every decent person does, for the remaining 139 hostages in Gaza to return home to their families, and for an end to the violence in Gaza and the region as soon as possible that allows for stable and safe home for everyone there to be able to live in peace.”
Riley also said she is “grateful to be in the relative safety of Britain” and hopes for a miracle next year in the region.
Since the conflict, she has spoken at protests against antisemitism and has in recent years been a vocal critic of Labour’s handling of alleged antisemitism within the party.
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