Happy New Year !!! Sydney's skyline erupted in fireworks as Australia ushered in 2013 on Tuesday, while extravagant displays soon followed in Hong Kong and Beijing, and even the once-isolated country of Myanmar joined the party for the first time in decades. Asia greeted the new year with an atmosphere of renewed optimism despite the "fiscal cliff" impasse of spending cuts and tax increases threatening to reverberate globally from the United States and the tattered economies of Europe, … [Read more...]