New Year 2016 Grab Bag Of People, Places, And World Events

At this point, the hangovers have likely dissipated, and most are likely back to their regular drinking schedules, returning to their normal routines since the whole world celebrated New Year 2016.

Many are probably also at the end of their run of their New Year’s resolutions, which undoubtedly takes the remaining sentiment of the celebration out entirely, but in order to keep the spirit alive, we can look at some of the events that took place during this period of transition with popular places and people.

For instance, celebrities certainly shared their moments online as the New Year 2016 countdowns came to completion all over the world, such as this image by Jason Statham wishing everyone a happy new year on Facebook.

People Magazine also collected a series of 30+ photos from some of the biggest celebrities from their personal social media sites.

Economic analysis sources such as CNN Money posted a very positive angle on the status of American currency as a marker for starting off 2016 with comparisons to how it measures up against the currency of other nations.

Of course those conflict zones that have been at the top of the headlines and the center of foreign policy debates were not entirely out of the loop. News media has been reporting almost daily about the infighting within the Ukrainian government, which has grown even more tense, to add to a reportedly third year of conflict against Russian separatists, but when it came to celebrating the new year 2016, they took the time to make it as festive as possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIPTjF8GID0

Even the people of Syria celebrated the new year however they could.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHojpEgqN2A

Cultures being different across the world, the Western holiday tradition normally centers around a signature meal like a turkey, tamales, or something similar.

One writer for Global Voices describes how the New Year’s celebrations in Japan include a required ritual to the fish markets to gorge on the white meat.

Even so, the city of Belfast was left out of the new year 2016 bash as they only did a mild countdown compared to other large cities like it, as far as a celebration held by the government is concerned. The Belfast Telegraph reports that a petition is being passed around by the city’s residents calling for a bash in 2017 as they haven’t had a large celebration since 2008.

And since businesses are generally closed for at least a week so everyone can spend time with their families, with Christmas and New Year’s running together, the holiday break becomes two weeks or up to three, and this year, it caused some headaches when it came to needs in the community.

For instance, according to MassLive which is a news source out of Massachusetts, communities across New Hampshire and Massachusetts had been given a January 6 deadline to comment on a gas pipeline proposal through an online system set up by the the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. However, due to the holidays, the system was down and no one could be reached for nearly two weeks.

As of January 4, 2016, the online e-filing service finally started working, but with some communities still reporting problems and currently demanding an extension.

The trends of terrorism permeated the narrative throughout 2015, and concerns of many regarding people’s safety during celebrations had been reported; the Inquisitr revealed that security forces were on its toes for the New Year’s 2016 festivities in New York. There were even other reports which focused on some arrests of some terror suspects, but overall, almost everyone can agree that the new year 2016 transition was a much needed reset into the future.

[image via Stuart Moreton / Flickr | CC BY 2.0]