- (AFP) -- Revellers across the globe began to ring in
the New Year amid concerns over a looming war with Iraq, and deep-seated
fears that 2003 could usher in a brave new world of nuclear and biological
warfare, and even human cloning.
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- Traditional festivities were taking place amid heightened
security after a series of extremist attacks around the world blamed on
the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden.
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- In the dying days of 2002, it seemed some of the worst
nightmares of modern sci-fi writers were about to come true. A US-based
cult, which believes aliens created life on earth, claimed to have cloned
the world's first human being.
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- And the hermit, Stalinist regime in North Korea appeared
to set itself on collision course with the United States by expelling UN
inspectors monitoring its suspected nuclear programme and hinting it could
withdraw from a key non-proliferation pact.
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- One of the first countries to greet 2003 was Australia
which has suffered from a siege mentality since the October 12 bombings
on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.
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- Nearly half of the more than 190 fatalities among tourists
were from Australia.
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- But English tourist Caroline Gue, 25, reflected the views
of many after claiming her vantage spot for the traditional fireworks in
Sydney Harbour.
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- "You do think about it but you can't let things
like that ruin your night, you've just got to do what you want to do,"
she said.
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- With all eyes wondering just when the United States will
unleash its artillery on Iraq, accused of amassing an arsenal of weapons
of mass destruction, President George W. Bush was hunkered down at his
Texas ranch.
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- Washington, along with traditional ally London, has led
calls for military action against Iraq to oust President Saddam Hussein,
accused of working to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
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- Pentagon officials said the US military was poised to
ring in the New Year with a major military buildup in the Gulf, including
deployments of thousands of combat troops as well as bombers and fighter
aircraft.
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- But Iraq vowed Tuesday to face up to the United States
in the new year and posted a dire warning that the Gulf nation would become
a cemetery for any invading forces.
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- "We welcome the new year with the ambition of seeing
an Arab and Muslim unity forged which could face up to the unjust ones,"
said Saddam's deputy, Ezzat Ibrahim, referring to the Americans.
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- "The resistance of our people has laid bare the
tyrants of the American Zionist administration," Ibrahim boasted in
a celebratory New Year message to the president.
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- Amid a groundswell of anti-American sentiment in many
places, some 22,000 South Koreans rang in the New Year with a huge protest
rally, urging Washington to stop pressuring Pyongyang over the ongoing
nuclear crisis, fearing it could escalate into a war.
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- Americans have also been left in no doubt about the continuing
threat posed by Islamic extremists in the wake of the September 2001 attacks
in New York and Washington, after a gunman shot dead three US missionaries
Monday in Yemen.
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- Snipers, undercover police and bomb squads were expected
to guard some half-a-million revellers in New York's Times Square even
though the city's police commissioner Ray Kelly said no specific warnings
had been received about a possible terrorist attack.
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- And a headline Iranian newspaper predicted that things
were only going to get worse in the coming 12 months.
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- "After the fireworks fade and the wild un-Christian
festivities end, there will not be much to celebrate in either Europe or
the Americas," the ultra-conservative Kayhan paper said in a New Year's
Eve editorial from Tehran.
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- "One gloomy year will simply give way to another
year of gloom, or perhaps doom, depending on the policies pursued by those
bidding for unbridled hegemony over the globe," it said.
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- Celebrations were also set to be muted in several European
capitals. London's Trafalgar Square, a traditional New Year's Eve magnet
for revellers, was set to remain eerily quiet as it has been closed for
work.
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- British police have advised people to stay away from
the centre of London, but stressed this was to prevent overcrowding rather
than because of any specific security threat.
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- Nevertheless, revellers were advised to be "vigilant"
and anti-terrorist police were on a state of heightened alert, with 2,000
officers due to patrol the British capital during the celebrations.
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- Security has also been stepped up in France, where 6,500
police and soldiers have been deployed in Paris amid concern following
the recent arrests of nine suspected Islamists.
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- Up to one million revellers were also expected to attend
Germany's biggest New Year's party at Berlin's historic Brandenburg Gate,
where the biggest concerns were likely to be danger from fireworks and
the freezing cold.
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- Russian authorities were also braced for possible further
attacks with 250,000 police mobilised around the country after a suicide
bombing of a Chechen government building that killed at least 83 people
on Friday.
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- In another gloomy note, European stock markets ended
2002 recording a third consecutive year of losses, during which major indices
in London, Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam plunged by around 25 to 35 percent.
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- But the euro hit 1.05 dollars for the first time in three
years as the 12-nation unit prepared to celebrate its first anniversary
as legal tender Wednesday and a year that has seen it soar by 18 percent
against the US dollar.
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