With countdowns and fireworks, revelers in major city centers across the Asia-Pacific region ushered in the first new year without COVID-19 restrictions since the pandemic began in 2020.
MELBOURNE, Australia —
Still wearing his military uniform, Mykyta gripped a bouquet of pink roses tightly as he waited for his wife Valeriia to arrive from Poland on platform 9. He hadn’t seen her in six months. “It actually was really tough, you know, to wait so long,” he told The Associated Press after hugging and kissing Valeriia.
“Our pay isn’t going up, and our condition is worsening. The privileged may be doing well, but not those of us, who are working so hard,” Kawamura said. Kenji Seino, who heads the meal program for the homeless Tenohasi, which means “bridge of hands,” said people coming for meals were rising, with jobs becoming harder to find after the coronavirus pandemic hit, and prices going up.
It was the “party Sydney deserves,” the city’s producer of major events and festivals Stephen Gilby told The Sydney Morning Herald.