New Zealand gets the world's New year's Eve party started

AUCKLAND , New Zealand, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- New Year's Eve celebrations around the world got their start Wednesday in New Zealand, Australia and Asia's Pacific Rim.

Auckland, New Zealand, and Sydney, Australia, whose time zones make them the world's first big cities to bring in the new year, presented spectacular fireworks displays as 2015 arrived. Auckland's 1,076-foot Sky Tower and the iconic Harbour Bridge in Sydney were the focal points for the festivities.

The Jakarta, Indonesia, Night Festival, proceeded with New Year's celebrations, although prayer services were added to the schedule to honor victims of the AirAsia airplane accident and those of a deadly landslide in Central Java that killed 95 people.

Fireworks also exploded in the skies over Tokyo, Seoul and cities in China.

West African countries, affected in 2014 by the outbreak of the Ebola virus, will have a more restrained welcome of the new year. A curfew imposed by Liberia, to reduce the spread of the virus, will be lifted for one night so that midnight church services across the country can be conducted.

Across the world, cities are ready for celebration, including New York, whose famous ball drop, in which a 12-foot diameter crystal ball descends a 130-foot pole, is expected to draw one million people to Times Square.

Elsewhere, noting the new year will be more humble but equally sincere. A six-feet-wide crab sculpture will be featured, and lowered, in festivities in Easton, Md.; the celebration in Vincennes, Ind., will include watermelon-smashing and after animal rights activists complained of a caged, live opossum gently lowered in a "Possum Drop," the celebrations of Brasstown, N.C., will feature a dead opossum in its place.