Burma's largest city, Rangoon, staged a large New Year's Eve party for the first time, as the country emerges from a decades-long military dictatorship that typically banned large public gatherings.

In the southern Philippines, the festive mood was overshadowed by the devastation from a typhoon that killed more than 1,000 people in early December.

And in India, many hotels and bars scaled down or canceled New Year's Eve parties out of respect for a young woman who died Saturday after she was gang raped in New Delhi — a brutal incident that has shocked the nation