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Brussels, Dec 30 (EFE).– Brussels Mayor Yvan Mayeur decided Wednesday to cancel all fireworks displays and other public festivities planned for New Year’s Eve, local media reported.
The mayor made the decision after it became known on Tuesday that Belgian security forces had foiled – by arresting the presumed terrorists – a possible attack on “several emblematic sites” planned for the evening of Dec. 31 in the capital.
A fireworks display had been scheduled for the city’s main square, the Place De Brouckere.
Only the Christmas street markets downtown will continue operating, according to RTBF public television.
Mayeur made the move based on the latest intelligence and the meeting held Wednesday by the Belgian Crisis Center, which told him that “the risk is significant” of some sort of attack.
The mayor also consulted with Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon.
Mayeur said that the police will be deployed downtown to safeguard the members of the public who want to be out on the streets.
In Brussels, just like in the rest of the country, the Level 3 terrorist alert remains in effect, and the police and military are continuing to patrol the city’s main avenues.
The mayor said that the measure does not mean that the Belgian capital will be shut down on Dec. 31.
“Restaurants, bars and private party halls will allow people to celebrate” the New Year, he said, adding that the decision to cancel the public festivities was “difficult.”
Nevertheless, the negative economic implications of the measure will be significant for the hotel and restaurant sector, which had already noted a sizable decline in revenues in the face of the terrorist threat. EFE
New York’s Times Square gets ready for New Year’s Eve amid tight security
By Lara Malvesi.
New York, Dec 28 (EFE).– Times Square is getting ready to host its New Year’s Eve celebrations, a tradition that attracts close to 1 million people, most of them tourists, with tightened security measures and with businesses in the area waiting jack up their prices to make a bundle on Dec. 31.
Tourists who immortalized their visit to New York taking selfies at the Crossroads of the World over the weekend could watch the New Year’s Eve Ball, glittering with Waterford crystal, being placed atop One Times Square on Sunday for its ceremonial lowering next Thursday to bring in the year 2016.
The New Year’s spectacle at Times Square is followed on television by around 1 billion viewers worldwide.
The brave who prefer to watch it in person will catch the acts of Jessie J, Carrie Underwood, Demi Lovato, Luke Bryan, Maluma and more.
This year’s weather forecast indicates that with temperatures around 55 F (12 C), it won’t be as cold as on other occasions.
“I was there once and you’ll never catch me there again. I got there at noon and there wasn’t room for a pin. Twelve hours without being able to eat, stretch my legs or go to the bathroom,” Carlos, a Spaniard who has lived in NewYork for three years, told EFE.
People with no money problems wishing to escape the jam-packed crowds in the square might be willing to pay the astronomical prices being charged at its restaurants on this night of nights.
At the Olive Garden, for example, which promises only a “limited view” of the show, diners must be prepared to pay at least $400 per person, The New York Post reported.
Prices will be even more through the roof at Bubba Gump Shrimp, which will charge $799 per person on New Year’s Eve, even though at the same place at other times its famous shrimp dish, named after the movie “Forrest Gump,” costs only $15.
Besides the spectacle and the costly menus this year will be ironclad security measures, which, though they were stepped up 14 years ago after the 9/11 attacks, will be tightened even more following the bloodshed in Paris last November.
As occurred during the last Thanksgiving Day Parade, New York police presence will be reinforced in Times Square, which in the last two months has had more protection that ever due to the vast number of tourists pouring in.
This Dec. 31 marks the 111th year since the owners of One Times Square decided to hold year-end celebrations.
The first time the New Year’s Eve Ball was lowered to a countdown at that address was in 1907, and since then is has become New York‘s iconic way of welcoming the New Year. EFE
