TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
World starts to ring in 2023 after turbulent year
The world's eight billion people began ushering in 2023 on Saturday and bidding farewell to a turbulent 12 months.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
New Year's Eve fireworks light up the sky over the Sydney Opera House (L) and Harbour Bridge during the fireworks display in Sydney on January 1, 2023. (AFP/David Gray)
T
he world's eight billion people began ushering in 2023 on Saturday and bidding farewell to a turbulent 12 months marked by war in Europe, stinging price rises, Lionel Messi's World Cup glory and the deaths of Queen Elizabeth, Pele and former pope Benedict.
Many will be looking to cut loose this New Year's Eve after a few pandemic-dampened years, setting aside pinched budgets and a virus that is increasingly forgotten but not gone.
Sydney will be among the first major cities to ring in 2023, restaking its claim to be the "New Year's Eve capital of the world" after two years of lockdown and coronavirus-muted festivities.
Australia's borders have reopened and the crowds gathering at Sydney's sparkling harbour to watch 100,000 pyrotechnics illuminate the southern sky were expected to number more than one million.
"It's been a fairly good year for us; getting past Covid of course is great," David Hugh-Paterson told AFP as he waited near the Sydney Opera House in a growing crowd.
"Looking forward to the future as well," the 52-year-old said.
Sydney authorities expected almost half a billion more people would see the festivities online or on television.
More from The Weekender
Jakarta’s padel moment
From FOMO to full-blown obsession, padel has captured the city. What comes next may depend less on courts and more on the communities that grow around them.
The battle over memory
And why the government’s plan to rewrite its history books should alarm us all.
Are younger workers getting something right about work?
As micro-retirements gain traction, Gen Z and young millennials are challenging traditional ideas of ambition, success and when it’s okay to pause.
