Last month, the General Assembly voted to recognize Nowruz – which means 'new day' in the Farsi language – annually on 21 March, the day of the vernal equinox.
Marking the sun's crossing of the Equator and the start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, Nowruz is celebrated by more than 300 million people worldwide as the beginning of the new year.
For more than three millennia, people in the Balkans, the Black Sea Basin, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East, among other regions, have observed Nowruz through their own special traditions.
“These rituals, from repainting homes to visiting friends to preparing symbolic meals, are infused with a spirit of renewal and can inspire not only those conducting them but all people,” Mr. Ban said in his message to commemorate the International Day.
Source: UN News
Global 
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U.S. President Barack Obama's top Russia adviser has said that diplomats from Washington and Moscow will likely meet in the coming weeks to work on a new UN Security Council draft resolution targeting the Syrian government over its bloody crackdown on antigovernment protesters.
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More than 500 protesters have gathered in Moscow's Pushkin Square to demand more government funding for science and scientists in Russia.
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Anders Hjemdahl of the Stockholm-based Institute for Information on the Crimes of Communism talked to RFE/RL about why Western Europeans seem to know so little about the communist past.
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The Paris prosecutor's office has dropped an investigation into a French writer's claim that former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her.
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A prominent member of a Russian anarchist street-art collective who faced jail for overturning a police car has had the charges against him lifted.
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The Slovak parliament has approved expanding the powers of the European Union's bailout fund.
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A Prague court has ruled that former Belarusian presidential candidate Ales Mikhalevich should not be extradited to Belarus.
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