Risking death, Indians mess with the bull at annual festival
A construction worker by trade, Saravanan B waited all year to celebrate his true passion — daring bare-hands bullfighting that has never gone out of fashion in India’s south.Known as jallikattu, the centuries-old tradition is kept alive at annual harvest festivals in India’s Tamil Nadu state, despite regular injuries and even deaths as a result of the often dangerous sport.To Saravanan, 31, running and wrestling with the bulls is simply a way of life.”I grew up watching it” and developed “an interest in becoming a jallikattu fighter from a very young age”, he said.That fascination has never faded, and at age 18 he joined the ranks of the muscular men he grew up idolising, tackling raging bulls head-on.At the Pongal harvest festival held last week in his village near Tamil Nadu’s Madurai city, Saravanan said he was fighting bulls “purely for my enjoyment” — and not for the prize money.”Usually, whatever prize I get, I give it to others,” he said.The event has remained popular even after dozens of people have been killed and hundreds injured over the years, and despite persistent allegations of animal cruelty and repeated legal challenges.Critics claim organisers feed bulls alcohol, throw chilli powder into their eyes to provoke panic, or sharpen their horns with glass.There have also been reports of animals being seriously injured or dying during these contests.Organisers strongly deny these accusations, saying strict rules govern the events and insisting jallikattu is an essential part of Tamil culture.Saravanan rejects the claims that it is cruel.”People who don’t understand jallikattu may feel it is hurting the bull” but “I always see the bull as my friend. I never hurt the bull,” he said.He bears more than one scar, but to him the risks are worth the joy and pride of taking part.”I got several injuries during bullfighting,” he said. “I have many marks on my body.”Saravanan follows a strict exercise routine and avoids smoking or drinking to stay fit, training with bulls at least twice a week.Others share his passion, too — including his fiancee who “likes jallikattu fighters”, he said.”This is one of the main reasons for our marriage.”Compared to some other sports, jallikattu prize pots are quite modest.”But for a bullfighter, winning… is a matter of pride,” said Saravanan.
Chine: objectif de croissance atteint, mais net ralentissement fin 2025
La Chine a officiellement atteint l’objectif de croissance annoncé de 5% en 2025 grâce notamment à ses exportations, mais les chiffres du dernier trimestre de l’année publiés lundi montrent un ralentissement significatif de la deuxième économie mondiale.Les 5% de croissance rendus publics lundi par le Bureau national des statistiques (BNS) sont conformes à l’objectif d'”environ 5%” énoncé par les dirigeants, après une hausse de 5% en 2024.Cela reste néanmoins une des croissances les plus faibles depuis des décennies, hors pandémie. Les données communiquées lundi confirment la langueur de la demande intérieure.Le tableau est assombri par les chiffres du dernier trimestre de 2025 au cours duquel l’économie n’a crû que de 4,5%, comme s’y attendaient les experts.Kang Yi, directeur du BNS, a invoqué devant la presse le contexte de confrontation commerciale globale qui a caractérisé 2025 et affirmé la robustesse de l’économie chinoise, qui lui a permis d’absorber les chocs et d’afficher l’un des taux de croissance les plus élevés des grandes économies.”L’économie chinoise a progressé en 2025 malgré les pressions et a atteint un taux de croissance de 5,0% dans un contexte d’aggravation des impacts externes négatifs”, a-t-il dit, “cela témoigne de notre résilience et de notre dynamisme”.Cependant, la société d’analyse Capital Economics dit croire dans une note que “les chiffres officiels (de la croissance) surestiment le rythme de l’expansion économique d’au moins 1,5 point de pourcentage”.Les données de décembre “suggèrent que la croissance de la production a gagné en dynamisme en fin d’année, mais cela est largement dû à la bonne tenue des exportations”, dit-il.L’économie chinoise reste confrontée à une série de défis, dont une consommation des ménages durablement atone et une crise persistante dans le secteur immobilier. Les ventes au détail, indicateur clé de la consommation, ont ainsi augmenté en décembre de 0,9% sur un an, à leur rythme le plus lent depuis presque trois ans et la sortie des restrictions liées au Covid-19, indique le BNS.La production industrielle a quant à elle progressé de 5,2% en décembre, soit une baisse par rapport aux 5,8% enregistrés en 2024.Cela reste une “bonne nouvelle”, estime Capital Economics. “La demande extérieure de produits chinois semble se renforcer, la croissance des exportations et les ventes industrielles destinées à l’exportation ayant toutes deux accéléré le mois dernier”, explique-t-il.- “Problèmes anciens” et “nouveaux défis” -L’année 2025 a été marquée par l’âpre guerre commerciale livrée aux Etats-Unis à coups de droits de douanes et de restrictions depuis le retour à la Maison Blanche de Donald Trump. Les tensions ont aussi été vives avec l’Union européenne, autre partenaire primordial.”On constate que l’impact des changements dans l’environnement extérieur s’est accentué, que la contradiction interne (en Chine) entre une offre forte et une demande faible est manifeste, et que le développement économique est encore confronté à de nombreux problèmes anciens et à de nouveaux défis”, a dit le directeur du BNS Kang Yi.Il a réaffirmé la nécessité de stimuler la demande intérieure.Pressée par ses surcapacités de production mais aussi par ses partenaires commerciaux inquiets de voir ces excédents se déverser sur leur marché, la Chine tente d’opérer une transition vers un modèle de croissance tiré davantage par la demande intérieure, plutôt que par les exportations.La Chine a enregistré en 2025 un excédent commercial record de près de 1.200 milliards de dollars. Mais avec la guerre commerciale menée en 2025, les exportations vers les Etats-Unis ont diminué de 20% sur un an en dollars.Kang Yi s’est employé à nuancer le tableau de la consommation en déclarant que la Chine affichait des ventes au détail parmi les plus importantes au monde et que les ventes de services avaient notablement augmenté.Avec la taille de sa population, “le potentiel d’augmentation de la consommation est énorme”, a-t-il déclaré. En 2026, “les politiques visant à stimuler la consommation continueront”, avec la poursuite des programmes de reprise de produits usagés et des plans à venir pour augmenter les revenus en zones urbaines et rurales, a-t-il dit.Autre pesanteur, l’immobilier demeure empêtré dans une crise de la dette persistante, malgré des baisses de taux et un allègement des conditions d’achat, et les experts ne s’attendent pas à un rebond proche.Les chiffres publiés lundi montrent que l’investissement en actifs fixes s’est contracté de 3,8% sur un an en 2025.
Ghana’s mentally ill trapped between prayer and careMon, 19 Jan 2026 06:23:18 GMT
On a recent Friday morning, worshippers made their way in droves into the Achimota Forest, a stretch of green in Ghana’s capital that doubles as an unlikely sanctuary for the desperate.From the outside, the park and adjacent Accra Zoo appeared calm as branches swayed gently with the dry breeze. Inside, voices rose in tongues as …
Ghana’s mentally ill trapped between prayer and careMon, 19 Jan 2026 06:23:18 GMT Read More »
Le prince Harry de retour devant la justice à Londres pour son combat contre les tabloïds
Un nouveau procès s’ouvre lundi à Londres dans la bataille menée par le prince Harry contre les tabloïds: le fils cadet du roi Charles III attaque l’éditeur du Daily Mail, qu’il accuse d’avoir obtenu des informations sur sa vie privée de façon illégale.Le prince, qui vit en Californie avec son épouse Meghan et leurs deux …
Le président du Guatemala déclare l’état de siège après des meurtres de policiers par des gangs
Le président du Guatemala a déclaré dimanche l’état de siège dans le pays pour renforcer les pouvoirs des autorités face aux gangs, qui ont pris ces derniers jours le contrôle de plusieurs prisons du pays et tué huit policiers.Ces attaques, des mutineries et prises d’otages dans trois établissements pénitentiaires, ont eu lieu en représailles à …
China’s Buddha artisans carve out a living from dying trade
In a dimly lit workshop in eastern China, craftsman Zhang measured and shaped a block of wood into a foot as dozens of half-completed life-sized Buddha statues looked on silently.Zhang is one of a dwindling number of master woodcarvers in the village of Chongshan near the city of Suzhou, where generations of residents have made a living creating Buddhist and Taoist sculptures for display in temples across China.Carving the intricate statues, which are often adorned with bright paint and gold leaf, was an art he learned from his father as a teenager.”My grandpa and my grandpa’s grandpa were also craftspeople,” Zhang told AFP in his dusty studio.But “once our generation retires, there will be no one left to carry on the tradition”.He blamed a combination of unattractive pay and youngsters’ unwillingness to dedicate time and energy to mastering the craft.”You need to do this for at least five or six years before you can set up shop on your own.”Zhang said the village had received a boom in orders starting in the late 20th century, after a loosening of tight government restrictions on worship led to a resurgence of interest in religion across the country.But now, fewer people are commissioning new pieces with the market already “saturated” and most temples around the country already furnished with statues, Zhang told AFP.Gu, a 71-year-old artisan at another workshop in Chongshan, said she remembered producing secular handicrafts during the Cultural Revolution, when religion was considered an archaic relic to be eliminated from society by leader Mao Zedong’s followers.”At the time, the temples were all closed,” Gu told AFP.Gu, who specialises in carving the heads of Buddha sculptures, proudly showed off the subtle expressions on the faces of a row of gilded figures in her storeroom.”Every face has an expression, smiling or crying,” Gu said.She grinned as she explained that some sculptures of famed Buddhist monk Ji Gong even showed him smiling on one side of his face and frowning on the other.In comparison, wood carver Zhang took a more practical view of his craft.”People look at us like we’re artists,” he said. “But to us, we’re just creating a product.”
Thousands march in US to back Iranian anti-government protesters
Thousands in the United States staged large demonstrations Sunday denouncing the Iranian government’s deadly crackdown on anti-government protesters in the Islamic Republic.Several thousand people marched in Los Angeles, home to the world’s largest Iranian diaspora, while several hundred others gathered in New York, AFP journalists in both cities reported. US protesters could be seen carrying signs condemning a “New Holocaust,” a “genocide in the making,” and the “terror” of the Iranian government.”My heart is heavy and my soul is crushed, I’m at loss for words to describe how angry I am,” said Perry Faraz at the demonstration in Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the US.The 62-year-old payroll manager, who fled Iran in 2006, learned this week that one of her young cousins had been killed during the overseas rallies held in her native country.”He wasn’t even 10 years old, that’s horrible,” she said.Demonstrations sparked by anger over economic hardship exploded into protests late December in what has been widely seen as the biggest challenge to the Iranian leadership in recent years.The rallies subsided after a government crackdown in Iran that rights groups have called a “massacre” carried out by security forces under the cover of a communications blackout that started on January 8.Norway-based Iran Human Rights says it has verified the deaths of 3,428 protesters killed by security forces, confirming cases through sources within the Islamic Republic’s health and medical system, witnesses and independent sources.The NGO warned that the true toll is likely to be far higher. Media cannot independently confirm the figure and Iranian officials have not given an exact death toll.- Calls for US intervention -“This mass murdering of the population is terribly upsetting,” Ali Parvaneh, a 65-year-old lawyer protesting in LA said. Like many protesters, Parvaneh carried a “Make Iran Great Again” sign and said he wanted US President Donald Trump to intervene by targeting the country’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).Some in the crowd in LA went as far as to call for the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has been in power for more than 25 years. After having attacked Iranian nuclear sites in June, Trump sent mixed signals on possible US intervention this week. The Republican first threatened to intervene if Iranian protesters were killed, but then said he was satisfied by Iranian assurances that demonstrators would not be executed.”I really hope that Trump will go one step beyond just voicing support,” Parvaneh said.Many protesting in the Californian city chanted slogans in support of the US president and Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah of Iran who was deposed by the popular uprising in 1979.- ‘Don’t need a puppet’ – Parvaneh echoed Pahlavi’s popularity among some segments of Iran’s exiled and expatriate population.”Had the monarchy stayed in place, it would be much different and Iran would be in a much better situation,” he said.Pahlavi’s support base is concentrated abroad while his political sway within Iran is limited.The former Shah’s son, who lives in exile near Washington, said this week he would be ready to return to Iran — but it is unclear if most Iranians want this.The Iranian opposition remains divided, and memories of the Shah’s brutal repression of his left-wing opponents remain vivid. Last week, a man caused minor injuries when he drove a truck into a demonstration held by Iranians in Los Angeles, carrying a sign that read: “No Shah. No Regime. USA: Don’t Repeat 1953. No Mullah.” The sign was referring to the 1953 coup that saw Iran’s government overthrown in a US- and UK-backed operation that had seen Pahlavi installed as the country’s leader.In Los Angeles’s Westwood neighborhood, nicknamed “Tehrangeles,” Roozbeh Farahanipour believes the diaspora must support Iranians without infringing on their “right to decide their own future.””They don’t need a puppet implanted by the West,” said the 54-year-old restaurant owner.Others in California also share that view.”Trump is playing the Iranian people,” said poet Karim Farsis, a resident of the San Francisco Bay area. Farsis, an academic, stresses that it is US sanctions — including those imposed by Trump — and the Republican’s ripping up of a nuclear deal that have contributed in large part to the suffering of the Iranian people.She also criticized the almost complete ban on Iranians entering the US since June.”We’re living in a really twisted moment,” she said. “Trump is saying to Iranians: ‘Keep protesting, take over your institutions.'”But if they find themselves in danger, they can’t even find refuge in the United States.”