Paris: When French shoppers start cutting back on buying champagne, oysters and foie gras for New Year's, it's been a rough year.

As Europe prepared to ring in 2009,many revellers said belt-tightening was their top New Year s resolution. The vow followed the most volatile financial year in decades, a time that saw stock markets melt around the world and hundreds of thousands of workers lose their jobs.

Even shoppers in the affluent area west of Paris were scaling back purchases for the traditional New Year's Eve feast.

"We're not going to celebrate in a big way we're being careful," said architect Moussa Siham, 24."We will be eating fish for New Year's dinner."

Sydney was the world's first major city to ring in 2009, showering its shimmering harbour with a kaleidoscope of light that drew cheers from more than a million people.

Spectator Randolph King, 63,of York, England, whose retirement fund was gutted in the global financial crisis, summed up the feeling of many as 2008 came to a close.

"I'm looking forward to 2009," he said. "Because it can t get much worse."

Partygoers everywhere struggled to forget their troubles.

In Ireland, thousands of Dubliners and tourists gathered outside the capital's oldest medieval cathedral, Christ Church, to hear the traditional New Year's Eve bell-ringing.

Source : PTI