MILLENNIUM ISLAND, Kiribati (AP) Islanders chanted and danced
on a beach to herald the first sunrise of the new millennium, hours
after a midnight pageant on the usually uninhabited atoll set off
celebrations across the world.
Dancers swaying in grass skirts and headdresses welcomed the
millennium with a traditional call for good luck after chanting
farewell to the pain of the past and proclaiming a new time of
unity.
''Let all the world be joined with us to greet the new
millennium,'' they sang on a tropical beach in their Micronesian
language, called Kiribati. ''Let us put aside all divisions let
us unite in love and peace.''
They reassembled on the beach later in the morning to celebrate
their country's place as the first nation on Earth to witness the
dawn of the millennium. They danced in the glow of early morning,
then greeted the cloudy sunrise with a call through a conch shell.
The first dawn over land was near remote Dibble Glacier in
Antarctica, at about 12:08 a.m. local time (10:08 a.m. EST). It is
midsummer there, and the sun actually had not completely set.
Kiribati's sunrise came at 5:43 a.m. local time (10:43 a.m.
EST).
New Zealand's Chatham Islands were the first permanently
inhabited lands to see the sun rise Saturday morning. It broke
first on Pitt Island the easternmost of the two islands in the
group and then a minute later, at 5:45 a.m. local time (10:45
a.m. EST) was seen on Chatham Island's Mount Rangaika.
There, islanders and descendents of the Maori and the Moriori,
the area's original inhabitants, and descendents of European
settlers performed dances, traditional chants and prayers for peace
and love on the side of the mountain.
''The son of the sky, the sun, climb, weave, search and advance
your way through,'' the performers chanted in the minutes before
sunrise, with the horizon lit a bright orange. ''Daylight is
near.''
Kiribati moved the international date line in 1995 so it no
longer bisected the country. The move positioned Caroline Island to
be among the first to see the new year, and it was renamed
Millennium Island in 1997. No one lives here and today's
celebration had been planned for months.
The events on Millennium Island and the nation of Tonga, which
went on daylight-saving time in October, putting it in the same
zone with Kiribati, started a succession of millennial celebrations
in the South Pacific.
About 25 journalists were on the Kiribati island to beam the
ceremony to televisions around the globe. More than a billion
people were expected to watch.
Right after midnight, the president of Kiribati, Teberuro Tito,
took a burning torch from an elderly man and handed it to a young
boy in a ceremonial passing of time to the new generation.
''Take this torch of hope and peace from Kiribati so that it may
light up the whole world,'' Tito said. The boy and old man were
paddled into the sea in a canoe while singers performed a farewell
chant.
''I feel very, very proud that this is the first island to see
the new year,'' said Kiribati islander Pwepwa Tokia, one of the
dancers performing centuries-old songs to mark the milestone.
Thousands of Tongans dressed in white, some weeping, read a
prayer in front of the royal palace of King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV,
the nation's 81-year-old monarch. At the stroke of midnight, as
fireworks exploded, they sang Handel's ''Messiah.''
As the largest and the richest nation in the group, New
Zealand had the most elaborate celebrations in the region:
fireworks, a performance of ''Messiah'' for 300,000 people in
Auckland and several Maori ''haka'' war dances including one with
a cast of 2,000.
A couple in the Chatham Islands Monique Croom and Dean Braid
held what they believe was the first wedding of the millennium,
timing their vows in the minutes right after the stroke of
midnight.
As a crowd cheered and fireworks went off, each said ''I do.''
