Messages on New Year's Eve confetti in NY

The wishes of people from around the world will rain down on revelers in Times Square at this New Year's Eve celebration.

For the first time, anyone can write their wishes for the New Year on the multicolored confetti by visiting the Times Square Information Center or by typing a message on a "virtual wishing wall" online.

Those message-carrying pieces will then be mixed in with the rest of the confetti, organizers said.

Messages can be serious or silly, said Tim Tompkins, a spokesman for the Times Square Alliance, which organizes the party.

So far, messages have included everything from wanting to be taller or having a smarter boss to asking for the safe return of a child from Iraq, he said.

"Another person wrote that they wanted their husband to get a green card so that they could join them here in the states," Tompkins said in an interview with WABC-TV.

More than a ton of confetti is dropped in Times Square on New Year's Eve.

No fireworks in Brussels

Traditional New Year's Eve fireworks in the center of Brussels have been canceled due to a continuing terror threat to the Belgian capital, officials said yesterday.

Belgian authorities have warned of an increased risk of attack over the holiday season after police detained 14 people last week suspected of a plot to break Al-Qaida prisoner Nizar Trabelsi out of a Belgian jail.

A judge ordered their release 24 hours later for lack of evidence, and all suspects have maintained their innocence. In a letter published by the daily La Derniere Heure, Trabelsi denied allegations that his supporters were involved in preparations for a jailbreak or terror attack.

But authorities said heightened security measures, such as increased police patrols at vulnerable sites, will be maintained until at least January 3.

"We've reviewed the situation and the conclusion is that there is no reason to scale back the current level of (terror) alert," said Jaak Raes, director-general of the Belgian government's Crisis Center. "The aim is not to create panic ... but to avoid unnecessary risks."

Raes said the popular downtown Christmas market will be closed for security reasons at 6 pm today, rather than staying open all night, and the adjacent skating rink will shut down at 8 pm.

Trabelsi, 37, a Tunisian former professional soccer player, is serving 10 years for planning to drive a car bomb into the cafeteria of a Belgian air force base where about 100 US military personnel were based.

The government said last week it had information the suspects were plotting to use explosives and other weapons to free Trabelsi, who was arrested in Brussels two days after the September 11, 2001, attacks and convicted two years later.

Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt warned that the suspects could have other targets and ordered police to step up security in public places, including the Brussels airport, subway stations and the Christmas market.

At the time of his trial in 2003, Trabelsi admitted he planned to kill US soldiers at the air base in northeastern Belgium, saying he had met Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and asked to become a suicide bomber.

Trabelsi came to Europe to play professional soccer in 1989. Over the next few years, he bounced from team to team in the minor leagues, acquiring a cocaine habit and a criminal record. Eventually, he made his way to Al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan, where evidence presented at his trial showed he placed himself on a "list of martyrs" ready to commit suicide attacks.

Agencies

(China Daily 12/31/2007 page6)