A female vendor sells Christmas and New Year paraphernalia from her stall at a roadside in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, 16 December 2022. A few days before the Christmas holidays and with the celebrations of New Year's Eve and New Year's Day in sight, the shopping for seasonal decoration in the West African city is at its peak. (Photo by Legnan Koula/EPA/EFE)

A young fan plays a virtual reality game during the first round of the US Open tennis championships, Monday, August 29, 2022, in New York. (Photo by Julia Nikhinson/AP Photo)

Tourists feed freshly picked grapes to 40-year-old elephant Boonruen, a long-term resident of the Hua Hin Hills vineyard, that used to be an elephant corral in Hua Hin, about 200km southwest of Bangkok, Thailand, 08 March 2016. The winery is among a handful of companies producing new latitude wines in non-traditional wine areas of the world near the equator. Harvest is only once a year in Thailand, this year in March. (Photo by Barbara Walton/EPA)

It’s a tradition that dates back hundreds of years, where two stallions fight over a female to ring the Chinese new year. And when it’s the Year of the Horse, the fights are considered to be even more significant. They’re held in small villages across southern China and have been condemned by animal rights groups, including Hong-Kong based Animals Asia. But those who participate in the events defend the fights and insist they take care of the animals.

A woman wearing a protective mask is seen behind a girl dressed in a Plague Doctor Mask in Western-Ukrainian city of Lviv, Ukraine, 22 March 2020. Ukrainian Designer Anastasia Markovska sewed protective masks looking like Plague Doctor Masks, the traditional costume of Venice Carnival, for herself and her friends due to the ongoing pandemic of the COVID-19 disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. In Ukraine had been 47 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19, including three deaths and one recovery as Ukraine's Health Ministry announced. (Photo by Pavlo Palamarchuk/EPA/EFE)

A hot-air balloon flies over Metropolitan Park during the International Hot-Air Balloon Festival in Leon, state of Guanajuato, Mexico, on November 16, 2024. (Photo by Henry Romero/Reuters)

Fireworks explode over the Quadriga statue atop the Brandenburg Gate on New Year's Eve on January 1, 2012 in Berlin, Germany. According to the media, up to one million people celebrate the country's biggest New Year's Eve Party. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

32 year old Mahada Khatum repairs a fishing net outside her home in the Shamalapur Rohingya refugee settlement on April 11, 2014 in Chittagong district, Bangladesh. Some years ago she escaped violence and discrimination from the Zomgara Baharchara village in the Meherulla district of Myanmar. (Photo by Getty Images/Stringer)