Security was tightened across Asia today as revellers prepared to see in the New Year in defiance of a string of recent terrorist attacks.
Some 180,000 officers were deployed across Indonesia with orders to keep a close eye on entertainment spots after more than 190 people, mostly foreigners, were killed in a nightclub bomb attack on the resort island of Bali in October.
In a show of defiance, Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri is expected to see in the New Year at Bali's Kuta tourist strip, where the year's most devastating attack took place.
Around 4,000 officers will be deployed across the island to prevent a repeat bombing, authorities said.
In Australia, home to nearly half the Bali victims, record numbers of police were deployed in the most populous city, Sydney.
However Australians defied government warnings that the country faces a "credible" threat of attack and were out in force on New Year's Eve.
But Christians in Pakistan, which has witnessed a series of high-profile attacks this year including the abduction and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl, cancelled their celebrations altogether.
"There will be no get-together, no singing and no music concerts," chairman of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, Shahbaz Bhatti, said.
South Korean police sealed off the downtown area around the US embassy in Seoul as protesters planned to ring in the New Year with a massive anti-US rally.
Police buses and jeeps parked bumper-to-bumper barricaded the embassy complex as some 11,000 riot police carrying shields and batons patrolled the central Gwangwhmun district.
Police expected tens of thousands of demonstrators to take part in the latest candlelit rally against the release of two US soldiers charged with negligent homicide in the deaths of two teenagers in a road accident in June.
Police in the Indian capital city New Delhi said they had stepped up security because of the threat of a possible terrorist attack during celebrations.
Thai authorities mounted the biggest holiday security operation ever seen in the kingdom with more than 300,000 people expected to gather in Bangkok alone.
Tourist police commander Sanit Miphan said 10,000 police would be on duty in the capital with their focus on four nightlife and shopping districts that are expected to draw huge numbers of Thais and foreign tourists.
AFP