Asia-Pacific cities first to usher in New Year

Sydney's iconic opera house and harbour bridge will sparkle with tons of exploding fireworks, while smog concerns have dampened such pyrotechnic displays in at least one polluted Chinese city and Japanese temples will ring 108 times as Asia-Pacific countries become the first to usher in the New Year.
Sydney officials promised that the Australian city's annual world-renowned pyrotechnics show would be more extravagant than ever, with more than 1.6 million revelers expected to line the harbour today for a view.
The mood will be more subdued in the Philippines, which is three hours behind Sydney, where the lives of millions of people remain disrupted by Typhoon Haiyan.

The November 8 storm killed more than 6,100 people in the eastern Philippines, displaced at least 4 million others and left its most gruesome mark on Tacloban, a city of 240,000 that will need years to recover.
In Sydney, the fireworks will be launched from four sails of Sydney Opera House for the first time in more than a decade.
The local council said the secret fireworks feature that will erupt on the Sydney Harbor Bridge will be twice the size of last year's centerpiece of the show.

China was planning to count down to the New Year with light shows at two spectacular and historic locations, part of the Great Wall near Beijing and at the Bund waterfront in Shanghai.

But in one polluted Chinese city, the celebrations were slated to be quieter as authorities in Wuhan in central Hubei province, which is three hours behind Sydney, called off their annual New Year fireworks show and banned fireworks in downtown areas because of worries about making the smoggy air worse.
In Japan, which is two hours behind Sydney, thousands of visitors, some donning kimono, will pray, ring a bell and toss coins as offerings at shrines across the nation tonight, wishing for health, wealth and happiness. Temple bells will ring the customary 108 times, for the 108 causes of suffering according to Buddhism, and welcome in the Year of the Horse.

Japanese are hopeful about the economy for the first time in years after some signs of revival under Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, whose easing lending policies and pump-priming measures have been dubbed "Abenomics."
The Tokyo Stock Exchange closed the year at a six-year high, rising nearly 60 per cent, a jump unseen in four decades, although a leading business newspaper warned in a New Year's Eve editorial that more reforms will be needed to sustain the growth.