Olympic push for kho kho, India’s ancient tag sport
The ancient game of kho kho is enjoying a resurgence in India, with organisers of the first international tournament hoping their efforts will secure the sport’s place in the Olympics.Kho kho, a catch-me-if-you-can tag sport, has been played for more than 2,000 years across southern Asia but only saw its rules formalised in the early 20th century.It was played as a demonstration sport at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin but did not gather enough support to be included in the Summer Games and since then has been largely eclipsed by India’s ferocious love of cricket.Nearly a century later, enthusiasts have sought to raise its profile with the inaugural Kho Kho World Cup featuring teams from 23 nations competing in India’s capital New Delhi. The tournament’s opening ceremony saw a gala of song, dance and an Olympic-style team parade, reflecting the aspirations of organisers and athletes to take the sport global. “My elder sister played the sport, but was not able to pursue her dreams,” Indian women’s team player Nasreen Shaikh, 26, told AFP.”We have crossed the first barrier of playing in a World Cup. The next big step would be an entry in the Olympics.”Kho kho is traditionally played outside on a rectangular court, divided in two by a line that connects two poles at either end of the field.Teams switch between attack and defence, with the former chasing and tagging defending players around the field.Only one player can give chase at a time and attacking players can only move in one direction around the court, forcing them to tag in team-mates crouched on the centre line to take over pursuit.The match is won by whichever team can gain the most points, primarily by tagging defenders faster than the opposing team.- ‘Mud to mat’ -The franchise-based Ultimate Kho Kho League, founded in 2022, brought the sport off grassy fields and onto indoor mats, also boosting its profile with a television audience.Since then the league has become the third most-watched non-cricket sports tournament in the world’s most populous country after the Pro Kabaddi League — another ancient Indian tag sport — and the Indian Super League football competition.”The turning point was when it transitioned from mud to mat. It made it into a global game,” Kho Kho Federation of India president Sudhanshu Mittal told AFP.”Today we are in 55 countries… Native players in countries like Germany, Brazil, and Kenya are embracing the game because of its speed, agility and minimal equipment required.”Mittal said he expected the sport to gain a foothold in dozens more countries by the end of the year, giving it a strong claim to be featured in the Olympics in the coming decade. That would coincide with India’s audacious bid to host the 2036 Games in the city of Ahmedabad, 100 years after kho kho last appeared at the Olympics.The United States, England and Australia are among the nations competing in this week’s World Cup in New Delhi, with expatriate Indians heavily represented after taking the game to foreign shores. But Pakistan is a glaring omission from the competition despite the sport being popular there — a reflection of the deep animosity between the nuclear-armed archrivals.World Cup organisers have refused to comment on the absence, which has failed to dim the sense of optimism at this week’s competition that the sport is destined to thrive. “There has been a sea change in the sport,” Indian men’s team captain Pratik Waikar, 32, told AFP.”Cricket has a rich history and they developed it well by going live on TV, and now our sport has also gone live,” he said. “In the next five years it will be on another level.”
Eruption d’un volcan en Indonésie: des milliers d’évacuations en cours
Les autorités indonésiennes ont indiqué jeudi évacuer des milliers d’habitants d’une île de l’est de l’archipel en raison de l’éruption d’un volcan.Le Mont Ibu, situé sur l’île éloignée d’Halmahera, dans la province de Maluku nord, est entré en éruption mercredi, envoyant une colonne de fumée haute de quatre kilomètres dans le ciel.L’agence géologique indonésienne a émis une alerte à son niveau le plus élevé, ce qui a amené les autorités locales à appeler les 3.000 habitants vivant aux alentours à évacuer.Jeudi matin, 517 habitants du village le plus proche du volcan ont déjà été évacués, tandis que les autres résidents devaient suivre dans l’après-midi.”Les abris d’évacuation ont été préparés par l’administration locale”, a déclaré un porte-parole de l’agence locale de gestion des catastrophes, Irfan Idrus.Selon les observations d’un journaliste de l’AFP, les habitants continuaient leurs activités dans leurs villages respectifs au moment où les camions préparaient les évacuations. “Bien sûr on a des craintes et on s’inquiète, mais on est habitués aux éruptions ici”, a déclaré Rista Tuyu, une habitante de 32 ans.”Mais la plus importante est apparue cette semaine”, précise-t-elle, en ajoutant qu’elle espère que le volcan se calmera rapidement.L’Indonésie, vaste archipel situé le long de la ceinture de feu du Pacifique, connaît une activité sismique et volcanique fréquente. L’activité volcanique du Mont Ibu, sur une île où vivent quelque 700.000 habitants, s’est accélérée depuis juin, après une série de séismes. Le volcan étant entré en éruption neuf fois depuis le début de l’année 2025. Les habitants vivant à proximité et les touristes ont été invités à éviter une zone d’exclusion de cinq à six kilomètres autour du sommet du volcan et à porter des masques en cas de chutes de cendres.En novembre dernier, le mont Lewotobi Laki-Laki, un volcan à deux pics de 1 703 mètres situé sur l’île touristique de Flores, est entré en éruption plus d’une douzaine de fois en une semaine, tuant neuf personnes lors de la première explosion.
Eruption d’un volcan en Indonésie: des milliers d’évacuations en cours
Les autorités indonésiennes ont indiqué jeudi évacuer des milliers d’habitants d’une île de l’est de l’archipel en raison de l’éruption d’un volcan.Le Mont Ibu, situé sur l’île éloignée d’Halmahera, dans la province de Maluku nord, est entré en éruption mercredi, envoyant une colonne de fumée haute de quatre kilomètres dans le ciel.L’agence géologique indonésienne a émis une alerte à son niveau le plus élevé, ce qui a amené les autorités locales à appeler les 3.000 habitants vivant aux alentours à évacuer.Jeudi matin, 517 habitants du village le plus proche du volcan ont déjà été évacués, tandis que les autres résidents devaient suivre dans l’après-midi.”Les abris d’évacuation ont été préparés par l’administration locale”, a déclaré un porte-parole de l’agence locale de gestion des catastrophes, Irfan Idrus.Selon les observations d’un journaliste de l’AFP, les habitants continuaient leurs activités dans leurs villages respectifs au moment où les camions préparaient les évacuations. “Bien sûr on a des craintes et on s’inquiète, mais on est habitués aux éruptions ici”, a déclaré Rista Tuyu, une habitante de 32 ans.”Mais la plus importante est apparue cette semaine”, précise-t-elle, en ajoutant qu’elle espère que le volcan se calmera rapidement.L’Indonésie, vaste archipel situé le long de la ceinture de feu du Pacifique, connaît une activité sismique et volcanique fréquente. L’activité volcanique du Mont Ibu, sur une île où vivent quelque 700.000 habitants, s’est accélérée depuis juin, après une série de séismes. Le volcan étant entré en éruption neuf fois depuis le début de l’année 2025. Les habitants vivant à proximité et les touristes ont été invités à éviter une zone d’exclusion de cinq à six kilomètres autour du sommet du volcan et à porter des masques en cas de chutes de cendres.En novembre dernier, le mont Lewotobi Laki-Laki, un volcan à deux pics de 1 703 mètres situé sur l’île touristique de Flores, est entré en éruption plus d’une douzaine de fois en une semaine, tuant neuf personnes lors de la première explosion.
La nouvelle console de Nintendo attendue sous peu, les spéculations s’intensifient
Les spéculations sur la nouvelle console de Nintendo, destinée à succéder à sa très populaire Switch, se sont intensifiées cette semaine, des médias spécialisés misant sur une annonce imminente du géant japonais des jeux vidéo.Le groupe basé à Kyoto avait précédemment annoncé qu’il présenterait d’ici fin mars sa prochaine console, destinée à prendre la relève de la Switch vieillissante, sortie en 2017 et dont le succès s’érode.Le calendrier pourrait-il s’accélérer? Le site Eurogamer a fait état d'”échos dans le secteur” selon lesquels la “Switch 2” pourrait être dévoilée dès ce jeudi, date également avancée par un influent podcasteur. Une journaliste du média spécialisé the Verge évoquait une annonce “cette semaine”, sans préciser de sources.”Il n’y a rien que nous puissions partager”, a simplement commenté jeudi un porte-parole de Nintendo interrogé par l’AFP.Ces différents échos, même hypothétiques, de médias spécialisés contribuent à exacerber sur les réseaux sociaux les interrogations de joueurs impatients de découvrir le successeur de la Switch.Sortie en mars 2017, cette console hybride jouable aussi bien en déplacement que connectée à une télévision, est devenue un immense succès pour Nintendo.Elle s’était vendue fin septembre 2024 à 146 millions d’exemplaires, ce qui en fait la troisième console la plus populaire de l’histoire du jeu vidéo derrière la PlayStation 2 de Sony et la Nintendo DS. Nintendo estime avoir écoulé au total 1,3 milliard de jeux fonctionnant sur la Switch, et il a annoncé début novembre que ces derniers seront compatibles avec sa nouvelle console. Certains titres, dont “Animal Crossing: New Horizons”, étaient devenus incontournables, toutes classes d’âge confondues, pendant les confinements liés au Covid-19.Mais dans l’attente de l’annonce d’un successeur à sa machine vieillissante, le géant japonais a vu son bénéfice net chuter de 60% sur un an au premier semestre de son exercice décalé entamé en avril 2024, et avait révisé en baisse en novembre ses prévisions annuelles.Si Nintendo refuse de commenter de supposées fuites, cette “Switch 2” est probablement déjà en cours de production dans les usines “pour garantir un stock suffisant, car la demande pour la nouvelle console sera certainement très élevée” dès sa commercialisation, a déclaré Darang Candra, du cabinet Niko Partners. Sony, son rival nippon dans les jeux vidéo, avait justement subi des failles d’approvisionnement l’empêchant de répondre à la demande lors du lancement de la PlayStation 5 en 2020.
La nouvelle console de Nintendo attendue sous peu, les spéculations s’intensifient
Les spéculations sur la nouvelle console de Nintendo, destinée à succéder à sa très populaire Switch, se sont intensifiées cette semaine, des médias spécialisés misant sur une annonce imminente du géant japonais des jeux vidéo.Le groupe basé à Kyoto avait précédemment annoncé qu’il présenterait d’ici fin mars sa prochaine console, destinée à prendre la relève de la Switch vieillissante, sortie en 2017 et dont le succès s’érode.Le calendrier pourrait-il s’accélérer? Le site Eurogamer a fait état d'”échos dans le secteur” selon lesquels la “Switch 2” pourrait être dévoilée dès ce jeudi, date également avancée par un influent podcasteur. Une journaliste du média spécialisé the Verge évoquait une annonce “cette semaine”, sans préciser de sources.”Il n’y a rien que nous puissions partager”, a simplement commenté jeudi un porte-parole de Nintendo interrogé par l’AFP.Ces différents échos, même hypothétiques, de médias spécialisés contribuent à exacerber sur les réseaux sociaux les interrogations de joueurs impatients de découvrir le successeur de la Switch.Sortie en mars 2017, cette console hybride jouable aussi bien en déplacement que connectée à une télévision, est devenue un immense succès pour Nintendo.Elle s’était vendue fin septembre 2024 à 146 millions d’exemplaires, ce qui en fait la troisième console la plus populaire de l’histoire du jeu vidéo derrière la PlayStation 2 de Sony et la Nintendo DS. Nintendo estime avoir écoulé au total 1,3 milliard de jeux fonctionnant sur la Switch, et il a annoncé début novembre que ces derniers seront compatibles avec sa nouvelle console. Certains titres, dont “Animal Crossing: New Horizons”, étaient devenus incontournables, toutes classes d’âge confondues, pendant les confinements liés au Covid-19.Mais dans l’attente de l’annonce d’un successeur à sa machine vieillissante, le géant japonais a vu son bénéfice net chuter de 60% sur un an au premier semestre de son exercice décalé entamé en avril 2024, et avait révisé en baisse en novembre ses prévisions annuelles.Si Nintendo refuse de commenter de supposées fuites, cette “Switch 2” est probablement déjà en cours de production dans les usines “pour garantir un stock suffisant, car la demande pour la nouvelle console sera certainement très élevée” dès sa commercialisation, a déclaré Darang Candra, du cabinet Niko Partners. Sony, son rival nippon dans les jeux vidéo, avait justement subi des failles d’approvisionnement l’empêchant de répondre à la demande lors du lancement de la PlayStation 5 en 2020.
Life after the unthinkable: Shoah survivors who began again in Israel
For years, Auschwitz survivor Naftali Furst kept his story to himself.But since his granddaughter survived the October 7 massacre at the Kfar Aza kibbutz — one of the bloodiest in Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza — the 92-year-old is more determined than ever to testify.With anti-Semitism at levels rarely seen since World War II, Furst warned that “if we forget our history, we risk seeing it repeat itself”. Eighty years after the Red Army liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp on January 27, 1945, AFP reached out to Holocaust survivors who rebuilt their lives in Israel.Several came through the horrors of that slaughterhouse in occupied Poland where one million of the six million Jews killed in the Shoah were murdered, and which has become a symbol of the genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany.Here are their stories:- Naftali Furst, born in Slovakia in 1932: daughter, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren -Naftali Furst was only 10 when he and his family were rounded up and sent to a concentration camp, ending up in Auschwitz in November 1944. He was separated from his parents and a number was tattooed on his arm.But with Soviet troops approaching, the Nazis forced the remaining prisoners on a “Death March” through the winter snow towards Germany and Austria. Those weeks were the “worst of my life”, Furst recalled.”It was an indescribable experience.” He and his brother saw “lots of people drop dead or collapse by the roadside. Those who could not keep up were killed on the spot. Survival meant fighting not to be left behind.”We encouraged each other when we were about to drop, forcing ourselves to keep going and stay with the group to avoid being killed.”When they finally arrived at Buchenwald in Germany they were saved from death by a Czech communist resistance member called Antonin Kalina, who was later honoured by Israel as Righteous Among the Nations for rescuing hundreds of Jewish children.Furst was 12 when American soldiers liberated the camp. You can see him in one of the most iconic images of the Shoah, stretched out on a plank in a barrack with other survivors including, Elie Wiesel, who would later win the Nobel Peace Prize.He now heads a group of former Buchenwald inmates and told AFP he intends to talk about what happened to them as long as he can “so people will never forget what happened.”Many who lived through these horrors are no longer there and I consider it my responsibility to testify. But I am afraid that in 50 or 100 years, the Shoah will become just another page of history, and that we will forget how unique and tragic it was.”Furst was at home in Haifa in northern Israel when Hamas militants launched their attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023.But his granddaughter Mika and her family were living in a kibbutz less than two miles (three kilometres) from the Gaza border and he could not get through to them on the phone.Mika, her husband and their two-year-old son hid for more than 12 hours in their shelter as one of the worst massacres of that terrible day happened around them. At least 62 of their neighbours died and 19 were taken hostage. Both her husband’s parents were murdered, burned in their home.”My granddaughter and her family are survivors like me,” Furst said.But he does not compare October 7 with the Holocaust. “It’s terrible, unimaginable, painful and should not have happened, but it is not the Shoah,” he said.And he is worried that “similar atrocities could happen again”.- Miriam Bolle, born in the Netherlands in 1917: three children –  Miriam Bolle has much to tell, though she insists she “has done nothing special”. As a secretary at Amsterdam’s Jewish Council during the war, which the Nazis set up to control the community after they invaded, she knew all about the deportation of Dutch Jews.Her turn came in 1943, ending up in the Bergen Belsen concentration camp in Germany. “They wanted to starve us. They wanted us dead,” said Bolle who was 26 at the time.She remembers inmates sharing a few vegetables at a Passover “feast” celebrating the freeing of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. Instead of reciting the traditional prayer of “Next year in Jerusalem”, the children sang, “This year in Jerusalem”.And their prayer was answered. Bolle and her family were “miraculously” freed with a number of others in exchange for German prisoners of war in British-controlled Palestine in July 1944. She travelled across Europe by train to “the land of Israel”, where she has lived ever since.There she was reunited with her fiance Leo, who had emigrated before the war. They married in 1944 and had three children. Two died young defending Israel during their military service. The third died childless.During her time in the camps, she wrote a series of letters to Leo that she never sent.They were finally published in 2014 as “Letters Never Sent”, a rare insight into Jewish life in the Dutch capital under Nazi occupation, which has since been translated into seven languages.  “I wanted to tell what had happened so it would not be forgotten,” said Bolle, who has lost none of her elegance at 107 years old. But she is worried by the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe. “I don’t understand why Jews are so important. I think the future for Jews there is uncertain. I am happy to be in Israel as it is the safest place for us even with the problems now,” said one of the oldest of the survivors.  – Dan Hadani, born in Poland in 1924: two children, two grandchildren -Work saved Auschwitz survivor Dan Hadani.”To escape the nightmares and try to forget, I worked day and night. I never stopped. I was so tired when I slept that I never dreamed,” said the Polish-born 100-year-old.Hadani’s father died in the Lodz ghetto before he and his family were sent to the death camp in 1944.His mother was killed as soon as they arrived and his sister murdered when the Nazis liquidated the women’s camp as the Red Army neared.Hadani was almost picked out for medical experiments by Josef Mengele, the SS doctor known as the “Angel of Death”. But he threw Mengele off by speaking to him in German.”Stay there, you dog,” Mengele replied. It was only later that the 20-year-old realised he could have been shot on the spot. “I will never forget that moment,” he said.  Put to work in one of the camp’s factories, Hadani survived the “Death Marches” and was liberated from the Wobbelin camp in Germany by American GIs.When he returned home to Poland, he realised that the rest of his family had perished. He left for Italy before emigrating to Israel just after the creation of the state in June 1948.He began to rebuild his life and became an officer in the navy before founding a press photo agency, leaving two million pictures telling the story of the young country to its national library.Small and bearded, Hadani still has remarkable energy, proudly showing the driving licence that was renewed before his 100th birthday before driving the AFP team to his home in Guivatayim in central Israel.Every Thursday morning he joins what he calls a “parliament” of former journalists and diplomats to put the world to rights over a coffee.Hadani, who was born Dunek Zloczewski, is convinced that the testimony of the thousands of survivors like him will help to ensure the Shoah is not written out of history. But what worries him is the future of Israel, particularly since the October 7 attacks. A fierce critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he warned that the Holocaust “could happen again. Men are animals. That is how I see the world”.- Abraham Wassertheil, born in 1928 in Germany: four children, three grandchildren, two great-grandchildren -Long silences follow when Abraham Wassertheil is asked what happened to his family during the war.”I am not very talkative,” said the 96-year-old. Hounded out of his home when he was nine in 1937, he survived a succession of camps — Markstadt, Funfteichen, Gross Rosen, Buchenwald and Dautmergen — by pretending he was older than he was, before being liberated from Allach, a sub-camp of Dachau near Munich in 1945.Unlike his friend Dan Hadani, who he met in a refugee camp in Italy before they joined the Israeli navy together, he chose not to talk publicly about what happened to him. Until now. “With age, I have realised that you have to talk,” he said, telling AFP that “in the camps, I thought about only one thing — eating and looking for something to eat”.The most important thing is to have “passed on my story and that of my parents to my children”, he said. He has also taken his daughters back regularly to Chrzanow in southern Poland, not far from Auschwitz, where his family originally came from.Two years ago, the town opened a park in memory of its lost Jewish population, naming it after Wassertheil’s mother Esther. For him it has become the tomb she never had, not knowing where or when she was murdered in Auschwitz. For a moment, the emotion broke through. Despite losing all his family, and now living in a part of northern Israel which has been in the firing line for Hezbollah, Wassertheil insisted that he is at peace. Yet the October 7 attacks came amid personal tragedy, the day after he buried his wife. And a year later a missile fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon hit a neighbouring building, forcing him to take refuge in a shelter. “My life will soon be over,” he said. “I cannot do anything to change things, but my children are in good health. They are doing fine without me and I can manage without them. That’s why I am optimistic,” he added.- Eva Erben, born in 1930 in Czechoslovakia: three children, nine grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren -Eva Erben, who grew up in a well-off Jewish family near Prague, was 11 in 1941 when she and her family were sent to Theresienstadt (Terezin), the “model camp” the Nazis used in their propaganda to pretend that Jews were being well treated.She was also one of the children who sang the opera “Brundibar” there, which was performed for a Red Cross visit to the camp in 1944.She even sang along when AFP showed her a film of one of their performances, before pointing out that all of the children and the camera crew were sent to Auschwitz afterwards.She and her mother survived the extermination camp, only for her mother to die during a “Death March” with the retreating Germans. Erben, now 94, was left behind in a haystack where she was sleeping. She was saved by some Germans — “they were not all murderers” — and then some Czechs who hid her till the end of the war.She proudly showed a photo of herself with her children and grandchildren at her home in Ashkelon, southern Israel, with its large garden and trees planted by her late husband.”We didn’t ignore the Holocaust. We lived it and now it is time for life — children, singing, playing sport, travelling: a normal life of eating and living well. “The Shoah was a shadow on our lives, yes, but one we traversed.”Erben’s story is featured in a book on the Holocaust for schoolchildren which has been translated into several languages. The former nurse has also appeared in films and documentaries.But since the October 7 attacks, and having just returned from a fortnight giving talks in Germany, she argued that the priority now is to “defend Israel”. More than 600 rocket alerts have sounded in Ashkelon, which is close to the Gaza Strip, since the war began. But Erben has refused to go to a shelter.”If Hitler didn’t succeed in killing me, they won’t either,” she said with a laugh.But she is worried and “disappointed at the way Israel is seen in the world now.”It is all very well to come with flowers to pay homage (to the victims of the Holocaust), but we have got over the Shoah, we rebuilt, we had children. Now Israel needs to be respected and accepted,” she said.