Munich welcomes the New Year with fireworks despite terror threat warning

An official New Year’s Eve celebration was staged near Beijing’s Forbidden City with performances and fireworks, and one of China’s most popular TV stations broadcast a gala from the National Stadium, known to most as the Bird’s Nest.

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman lamented the prospect that fear might keep people from celebrating New Year’s Eve.

German media reported that authorities were tipped off by a foreign intelligence service that Islamic State (IS) was planning attacks with five to seven suicide bombers.

Fireworks explode over the temple of the Parthenon at the Acropolis hill during the New Year celebrations in Athens, Friday, Jan. 1, 2016.

Here is how the world welcomed the New Year.

And while celebrations on the scale of Edinburgh’s world-famous three-day Hogmanay festival may be a stretch of the imagination, residents of cities a similar size to Belfast are getting ready to throng the streets and courageous the chilly temperatures. Revellers in Australia and New Zealand were some of the first to welcome the New Year.

In recent days, Lutchman told one of the informants that he had communicated with a “brother” in the Islamic State overseas, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said.

Many revellers braved the intermittent spells of rain last night ahead of the stunning midnight display featuring around 12,000 fireworks.

London New Year’s Day Parade spokesman Dan Kirkby said: “It has been fantastic and we’ve seen about 500,000 people come along – the best turn-out we have ever seen”.

People take part in the New Year’s Day Whitley Bay dip in Northumberland..

Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae said ISIL had planned to use suicide bombers in the attack.

Bhubaneswar: The city erupted with joy as people started celebrating the arrival of New Year at the stroke of midnight on Thursday.

In Brazil, an estimated two million people watched fireworks over the sea at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, which later this year is due to host the Olympics. An 11,875-pound Waterford crystal ball descended as revelers counted down to 2016 before sharing hugs and their first kisses of the year under a blanket of confetti.

“It’s the Scots at their friendliest and we are amazingly good company – so this is the right place to be”.

In the United States, authorities said they had arrested and charged a 25-year-old American Muslim convert over an alleged attempt to launch a New Year’s Eve attack in upstate NY in the name of the Isis group.

Lutchman was described in court papers as having a criminal history stretching back a decade, including a 2006 robbery conviction that led to a five-year prison sentence and arrests for mental health issues.

Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Dubai, said investigators have yet to determine the cause of the blaze.

In Washington, D.C., officials said there would be additional police at popular gathering spots and on the Metro.

Young people take a selfie in front of decorations for New Year celebration in Tverskaya street in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2015.

Information for this article was contributed by Griff Witte, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Brian Murphy, Simon Denyer, Rama Lakshmi, Karla Adam, Andrew Roth and Faiz Siddiqui of The Washington Post and by Sylvie Corbet, Kristen Gelineau, Jon Gambrell, Rachelle Blidner, William Mathis, Julio Cortez, Julie Walker and staff members of The Associated Press.