24 hours: New Year highlights around the world

Confetti is dropped on revellers at midnight during New Year celebrations in Times Square in New York on Jan 1, 2013. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Switzerland's Simon Ammann soars past the judges tower during the second jumping of the 61st four-hills ski jumping tournament in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, southern Germany, on Jan 1, 2013. Norway's Anders Jacobsen won the competition ahead of Austria's Gregor Schlierenzauer and Norway's Anders Bardal. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A civilian and a firefighter try to salvage useful material after a fire in Srinagar on Jan 1, 2013. At least one person was injured and one residential house damaged in the fire on Tuesday and the cause of the fire is being ascertained, police said. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A girl looks up to the sky after hearing the sound of shelling as she sits on a toy pony in the playground of Al-Tawheed school in Aleppo on Jan 1, 2013. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

An unidentified man dives into the Tiber River from the Cavour bridge, as part of traditional New Year celebrations on Jan 1, 2013. Four men dived the muddy water of the Tiber from the Cavour bridge, continuing an annual tradition which dates back to 1946. The words on the man's back read, "Cheer up! Let's get Italy". -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard throws a toy for her dog Reuben at an afternoon tea for Australia's and Sri Lanka's test cricket teams at Kirribilli House in Sydney on Jan 1, 2013. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Wisconsin Badgers quarterback Curt Phillips (#10) is tackled by Stanford Cardinal safety Jordan Richards (#8), Josh Mauro (#90) and Alex Carter (#25) during the 99th Rose Bowl Game in Pasadena, California, Jan 1, 2013. -- PHOTO : REUTERS

Royal Saudi Air Force jets fly in formation during a graduation ceremony for air force officers at King Faisal Air Academy in Riyadh on Jan 1, 2013. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Tottenham Hotspur's Clint Dempsey celebrates after scoring against Reading during their English Premier League soccer match at White Hart Lane in London on Jan 1, 2013. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A devotee dances outside the shrine of a Muslim Sufi Saint Data Ganj Bakhsh on his death anniversary in Lahore Jan 1, 2013. Devotees started a three-day celebration of 969th festival of Hazrat Ali Bin Usman popularly known as Data Gunj Bakhsh. -- PHOTO : REUTERS

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men pray near the body of Rabbi Abraham Jacob Friedman of Sadigura during his funeral in Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv on Jan 1, 2013. The Rabbi was the leader of the Sadigura Hasidic movement in Bnei Brak and died on Tuesday at the age of 84. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

An injured man receives treatment at a hospital in Karachi on Jan 1, 2013. A bomb exploded in a crowded area of Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi on Tuesday, killing at least one person and wounding 21, police said. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Mr Monte Isom of New York screams while taking part in the Coney Island Polar Bear Club's annual New Year's Day Polar Bear Swim in New York's Coney Island on Jan 1, 2013. The Coney Island Polar Bear Club is the oldest winter bathing organisation in the United States and every New Year's Day holds the winter plunge, which attracts thousands of participants. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Mr Benjamin Ancrum,18, prays with the congregation during the Watch Night service at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, on Dec 31, 2012. New Year's Day 2013 was the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which declared free all slaves in the rebellious states of the Civil War.The Watch Night tradition at black churches goes back to "Freedom's Eve", on New Year's Eve 1862 when slaves, free blacks and abolitionists gathered in churches and homes to wait for the Emancipation Proclamation to take effect on Jan 1, 1863. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Czech Republic's Lukas Hlava crashes during the second jumping of the 61st four-hills ski jumping tournament in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, southern Germany, on Jan 1, 2013. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

People wounded from a stampede that occurred after a New Year's Eve fireworks display are seen in Cocody's Hospital in Abidjan on Jan 1, 2013. About 60 people were crushed to death in a stampede outside a stadium in Ivory Coast's main city of Abidjan after a New Year's Eve fireworks display, the government said on Tuesday. The incident took place near Felix Houphouet Boigny Stadium where a crowd had gathered to watch fireworks, emergency officials said. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Resident Kim Yong-bin (second from left), 48, jumps to tear a balloon with a cutter just before a group of anti-North Korea activists release the balloon carrying anti-North Korea leaflets towards the North, in front of the former North Korean Labour Party Cheorwon Office Building, near the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas in Cheorwon, northeast of Seoul, on Jan 1, 2013. Mr Kim was opposing releasing balloons towards the North as the North had threatened to attack the area where the balloons were released. The North Korean Labour Party Cheorwon Office Building (background) was used to propagate communist agendas before the 1950 to 1953 Korean War. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for an end to confrontation between the two Koreas, technically still at war in the absence of a peace treaty to end their 1950 to 1953 conflict, in a surprise New Year speech broadcast on state media. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

US Senator John Barrasso (left), a Republican from Wysconsin, and Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, chat about the time as they cross paths during a senate vote in the early morning hours at the US Capitol in Washington on Jan 1, 2013. The Senate moved the US economy back from the edge of a "fiscal cliff" on Tuesday, voting to avoid imminent tax hikes and spending cuts in a bipartisan deal that could still face stiff challenges in the  House of Representatives. -- PHOTO: REUTERS