Two dozen injured in Pamplona

As Sunday's final day began of a festival where thrills and alcohol seem to outweigh commonsense and ethics, a 23-year-old Australian woman was gored in the chest. On Saturday, a 19-year-old Spaniard was in critical condition with chest trauma after being trampled, and on Friday, an American, one of three men gored that afternoon, had his spleen removed.

Immortalized in Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises," but perhaps better known these days for footage in animal-attack videos and reality programming, the running of the bulls at the San Fermin festival in Pamplona injures 200-300 people annually on average. Animal rights activists call the treatment of the bulls cruel. The bulls are poked and prodded by officials and tipsy revelers before being sent into the streets of town; whether they gore a thrill-seeker or two on the run, their fate and final destination are already determined: death in the bullring at the end of the course.

mkg/pfd (Reuters, AFP, AP)