China and India agreed on Wednesday to work on easing their long-running border dispute, as the two Asian giants resumed a formal high-level dialogue for the first time in five years.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval met in Beijing on Wednesday, the first time they held formal talks as their countries’ special representatives on border issues since late 2019.

The meeting follows an agreement the two countries reached in October on military disengagement and patrolling arrangements along parts of their contested border, where the two nuclear-armed rivals have engaged in a tense standoff since a deadly clash in 2020.

A statement from China’s Foreign Ministry said Wang and Doval reaffirmed their commitment to seek a package of solutions to the border dispute that were “fair, reasonable and acceptable to both sides.”

They vowed to continue to implement the disengagement agreement and emphasized that the dispute should be handled properly, to “avoid impacting the development of bilateral ties.”

“Both sides agreed to continue taking measures to maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas and to promote the healthy and stable development of bilateral relations,” the Chinese statement said.

The two officials also agreed to strengthen cross-border exchanges, including the resumption of trips by Indian pilgrims to Tibet, cross-border river cooperation and border trade at Nathula, a mountain pass in the Indian state of Sikkim, according to the statement.

A statement from India’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the broad details of the meeting, adding that the ministers “emphasised the need to ensure peaceful conditions on the ground so that issues on the border do not hold back the normal development of bilateral relations.”

“Drawing on the learnings from the events of 2020, they discussed various measures to maintain peace and tranquility on the border and advance effective border management,” the Indian statement added.

The latest effort to ease tensions between the two neighbors comes amid China’s diplomatic charm offensive to mend ties with several American allies and partners, including Japan and Australia, in the lead-up to US President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Ties between China and India have been strained severely since June 2020, when a bloody hand-to-hand battle in the Galwan Valley killed at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers.

Both India and China maintain a significant military presence along their 2,100-mile (3,379-kilometer) de facto border, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which has never been clearly defined and has remained a source of friction since a bloody war between the two countries in 1962.

The clash four years ago along the disputed border between Indian Ladakh and Chinese-controlled Aksai Chin caused the conflict’s first known fatalities in more than four decades.

Since then, the two sides have held rounds of border talks to defuse tensions, but friction points have remained, including in areas that both sides previously patrolled but which have since become so-called buffer zones.

The border patrol agreement reached in October is seen by experts as a positive development. It was struck just days before Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met in Kazan, Russia, on the sidelines of a BRICS summit.

During their meeting on Wednesday, Wang told Doval that the “hard-won” resumption of their dialogue was a “timely and powerful measure” to implement the consensus reached by Xi and Modi in October.

“The two leaders of the two countries emphasized viewing China-India relations from a strategic and long-term perspective. At a critical moment, they recalibrated the course and clarified the direction for the recovery and development of China-India relations,” Wang was quoted as saying in a separate statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Israel captured the strategically important mountain, Syria’s highest peak, following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime to a rebel-led coalition earlier this month. Israeli officials including Netanyahu had initially characterized the advance as a temporary security measure.

The source said Netanyahu’s order was intended to keep forces in place long enough for the political-security situation in Syria to stabilize. He is also waiting, the source said, for clarity on whether Syria’s new leaders intend to honor a 1974 agreement that created a buffer zone along the shared border, on which Mount Hermon’s summit sits. Until the takeover, the summit was demilitarized and patrolled by UN peacekeepers – their highest permanent position in the world.

Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, accused Israel of crossing “the lines of engagement” with its actions in Syria. Meanwhile, several Arab states have accused Israel of exploiting instability in Syria to execute a land grab and “occupy more Syrian territories.”

Netanyahu however has doubled down on the security need for control of the area saying that “Israel will not permit jihadi groups to fill that vacuum and threaten Israeli communities” in the occupied Golan Heights, an area in southwestern Syria that abuts Mount Hermon and which Israel captured and later annexed in 1981.

Just this past Sunday, the Israeli government approved a plan by Netanyahu to expand settlements in the Golan Heights, according to a statement from the prime minister’s office, saying that was “out of a desire to double the population” there.

Mount Hermon is a strategic position that overlooks Lebanon, Syria and Israel. It’s also just over 35 kilometers (about 22 miles) from Damascus, which means that control of its Syrian foothills – also currently in the hands of Israeli troops – put the Syrian capital within artillery range.

Mostafa Salem and Nadeen Ebrahim contributed to this report.

Wellington, New Zealand (AP) — Vanuatu’s capital was without water on Wednesday, a day after reservoirs were destroyed by a violent magnitude 7.3 earthquake that wrought havoc on the South Pacific island nation, with the number of people killed and injured expected to rise.

The government’s disaster management office said early Wednesday that 14 deaths were confirmed, but hours later said nine had been verified by the main hospital. The number was “expected to increase” as people remained trapped in fallen buildings, a spokesperson said. About 200 people have been treated for injuries.

Two of those killed were Chinese nationals, according to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency, which cited Gu Zihua, an official at the Chinese embassy in Vanuatu.

Frantic rescue efforts that began at flattened buildings after the quake hit early Tuesday afternoon continued 30 hours later, with dozens working in dust and heat with little water to seek those yelling for help inside. A few more survivors were extracted from the rubble of downtown buildings in Port Vila, also the country’s largest city, while others remained trapped and some were found dead.

A near-total telecommunications collapse meant people struggled to confirm their relatives’ safety. Some providers began to reestablish phone service but connections were patchy.

Internet service had not been restored because the submarine cable supplying it was damaged, the operator said.

The earthquake hit at a depth of 57 kilometers (35 miles) and was centered 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of the capital of Vanuatu, a group of 80 islands home to about 330,000 people. A tsunami warning was called off less than two hours after the quake, but dozens of large aftershocks continued to rattle the country.

The Asia-Pacific head of the International Federation of Red Cross, Katie Greenwood, speaking to the Associated Press from Fiji, said it was not clear how many people were still missing or killed.

“We have anecdotal information coming from people at the search and rescue site that are fairly confident that unfortunately those numbers will rise,” she said.

The capital’s main medical facility, Vila Central Hospital, was badly damaged and patients were moved to a military camp. Clement Chipokolo, Vanuatu country director at the Christian relief agency World Vision, said health care services, already strained before the quake, were overwhelmed.

No water in the capital

While power was out in swathes of Port Vila, the biggest fear among aid agencies was the lack of water. Two large reservoirs serving the capital were totally decimated, the National Disaster Management Office said.

Resident Milroy Cainton said people were joining large queues to buy water in stores, but could only purchase two or four bottles at a time. “People are not really concerned about electricity, they’re just concerned about water,” he said.

UNICEF was recording a rise in diarrhea among children, a sign that they had begun to drink tainted water, said the chief of the Vanuatu office, Eric Durpaire. Officials told residents of areas where water had been restored to boil it.

At least 10 buildings sustained major damage, many in a busy downtown area full of lunchtime shoppers when the quake hit. An unknown number of people were trapped inside, and Cainton, the resident, said rescuers had been forced to target their efforts to where they believed people could be saved.

Michael Thompson, who runs a tourism business in Vanuatu, was among the rescuers and posted a video on Facebook of the frenzied efforts and dust-covered survivors on gurneys along with pleas for people to bring tools and water to the site.

Officials said Wednesday night that Port Vila appeared to be the worst-hit area, but some nearby villages and offshore islands had experienced landslides. Three bridges were “at high risk of collapse” in heavy rain, the government said.

A building housing a number of diplomatic missions in Port Vila — including those of the United States, Britain, France and New Zealand — was destroyed, with a section of the building cleaving off and flattening the first floor. Windows were buckled and walls crumbled.

The US State Department said its embassy staff were safe, but the building was no longer functional. The office opened in July as part of a push by the US to expand its Pacific presence to counter China’s influence in the region.

New Zealand’s foreign ministry said officials have accounted for all embassy staff. Australia’s foreign ministry said its workers were safe.

Damage to the seaport and airport is likely to hamper aid efforts and economic recovery in a country dependent on agricultural exports and tourism. The airport was closed to commercial flights for a further 72 hours from Wednesday.

But the runway was deemed functional for humanitarian flights by French engineers who arrived by helicopter. Military craft from Australia and New Zealand were due to begin arriving Wednesday night, carrying search and rescue personnel and equipment, as well as relief supplies.

Dan McGarry, a journalist living in Vanuatu, said there had been a “massive landslide” at the international shipping terminal. The government said the main wharf was closed.

Vanuatu’s position on a subduction zone — where the Indo-Australian tectonic plate moves beneath the Pacific Plate — means earthquakes of greater than magnitude 6 are not uncommon, and the country’s buildings are intended to withstand quake damage.

Ethiopia and Kenya both embrace renewables for their electricity production.

Ethiopia produces all the power for its national grid from renewable sources, and is home to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the largest hydropower plant in Africa. In Kenya, renewables account for around 90% of electricity, and the country boasts one of the largest geothermal facilities in the world, in the Olkaria Area.

But relying on renewables can be hard: electricity can’t always be generated when needed (a drought can mean no hydropower) and renewable energy is difficult to store. One solution? The Ethiopia-Kenya Electricity Highway.

The vast piece of infrastructure opened officially last year after a decade of work and $1.2 billion of investment. Now, when one country needs more electricity for its national grid and the other has a surplus, electricity automatically flows across the border, along 650 miles of transmission lines, so that supply meets demand. Last week, a Kenya-Tanzania link began operations, which will let energy flow across that border, too.

Power sharing

Experts say sharing electricity (or “power sharing”) between African countries is fundamental to a successful clean energy transition. According to Darlain Edeme, African Energy Analyst for the International Energy Agency (IEA), it can “improve quality, reliability, security, and have benefits on prices,” in a continent where demand for electricity is rapidly increasing.

In Ethiopia, a country with a population of nearly 130 million, electricity consumption per capita quadrupled between 2000 and 2022. In Kenya, it rose by three quarters within the same period. And it’s set to continue rising – in 2017 Ethiopia launched its National Electrification Plan that aimed to achieve universal electrification by 2025, despite only about one in four rural households currently having access to electricity. Across Africa, the UN has targeted universal access to electricity by 2030, which would mean adding the 600 million people currently without it – nearly half the population of the continent – in the next five years.

With a rising energy access deficit – the difference between supply and demand – it makes sense for neighbors to pool their resources. But power sharing requires sophisticated infrastructure – namely, interconnectors – transmission lines that enable electricity to flow both ways across a border or over a large distance.

And it’s expensive, too. The Ethiopia-Kenya Electricity Highway follows the model of other interconnectors in Africa, including one between Zambia and Namibia, which has run since 2010 and cost $300 million to construct, and a 1,000-mile interconnector between two regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, running since 1982 and costing over $800 million.

For the African Development Bank (AfDB), which contributed over $300 million of funding towards the Ethiopia-Kenya link, it’s worth it. “You see population growth somewhat outstripping the growth of new connections,” said Daniel Schroth, director of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Department at the AfDB. “There’s a big push on addressing this energy access deficit more decisively.”

Energy security for East Africa

Since the highway opened, Ethiopia’s electricity supply has provided vital backup for Kenya, which has been importing 200 megawatts (MW) of power daily from its neighbor, equivalent to around 10% of the peak demand of Kenya’s national grid. The interconnector has the capacity to transfer up to 2,000 MW.

For many countries in East Africa with a history of power outages, including Ethiopia and Kenya, access to a backup supply could be a lifeline. But while Alemayehu Wubeshet Zegeye, manager for Regional Power Systems Operations in the East African Region for the AfDB, said that the new interconnector “absolutely will reduce the number of blackouts,” it cannot remove them entirely. IEA analyst Edeme said that while having access to backup supplies of electricity is one thing, having functioning utilities to distribute it is another. Across Africa, he said, utilities “are not in the best shape from a financial perspective.”

In September, Reuters reported two “major blackouts” in Kenya in a single week, with Energy Minister Opiyo Wandayi blaming “sub-optimal investment in infrastructure.”

Connecting the continent

The Ethiopia-Kenya Electricity Highway, also funded by the World Bank, is one part of a wider project for the Eastern African Power Pool (EAPP), a group of 13 countries brought together to meet rising demand for electricity and ensure backup supplies.

The EAPP is one of five power pools in Africa, which, with the help of interconnectors, could one day link together the energy supplies of every region in the continent.

“The vision clearly articulated by the African Union is to create an African single electricity market building on the regional power pools being interconnected,” said Schroth. The hope is that with increased competition will come falling prices for consumers, and new sources of revenue for countries producing surplus energy that – in the absence of expensive storage systems – would otherwise go to waste. Already, due to the electricity highway, Ethiopia has increased revenue from its electricity exports, which were previously limited to Djibouti, by almost a half, according to Zegeye.

Having added the Kenya-Tanzania interconnector to its power sharing network, the next target for the EAPP is to link Tanzania (and therefore Kenya and Ethiopia, too) to Zambia, both countries in the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP).

Environmental benefits around the world

Interconnectors are popular outside Africa, too, with a network of over 400 in Europe. A link between Spain and Morocco already connects the electricity supplies of Europe and Africa, and another – between Greece and Egypt – is currently under construction, with the aim of completion by 2029.

“I think there has been a rallying call over the last two years,” said Schroth, explaining the proliferation of interconnector projects across the continent and the world. “There won’t be an energy transition without transmission.”

With more funding and international cooperation, there is hope that Africa will one day become a clean energy powerhouse. “I’m optimistic,” said Edeme, “I see a lot of momentum right now in the sector.”

French President Emmanuel Macron has landed on the Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte, days after the French overseas territory was hit by a devastating cyclone.

At least 31 people have been confirmed dead so far, but local officials fear the complete toll could be much higher, reaching hundreds or even thousands.

Many parts of Mayotte remain inaccessible after Cyclone Chido – the worst to hit the territory of just over 300,000 in at least 90 years – struck last weekend. The powerful storm flattened neighborhoods, knocked out electrical grids, crushed hospitals and schools and damaged the airport’s control tower.

Mayotte lies in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa, just west of Madagascar. Made up of two main islands, its land area is about twice the size of Washington DC.

The extent of the damage has been difficult to ascertain, in part because of the prevalence of undocumented migrants living in informal dwellings. An estimated 100,000 undocumented migrants, many from neighboring Comoros and Madagascar, live in Mayotte, according to France’s interior ministry.

Mayotte has struggled with poverty, unemployment, violence and a deepening migration crisis, which France has responded to with police crackdowns and mass deportations.

The government activated a state of “exceptional natural disaster” on Wednesday evening, a measure that has never been used, to help manage the crisis, according to the French overseas minister. Authorities also froze the price of consumer goods, such as food and hygiene products, amid shortages.

Local officials have warned that a lack of safe drinking water and poor sanitation conditions could lead to a disease outbreak.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said Tuesday it had lost contact with 200 of its volunteers in Mayotte and that it was racing to deliver aid, including water and medical supplies, to impacted communities.

French authorities distributed 120 metric tons of food Wednesday ahead of Macron’s visit, news agency Reuters reported. On Thursday, the president’s plane also transported more than four tons of food and health aid, Macron said on social media.

Cyclone Chido, a Category 4 storm, tore through the southwestern Indian Ocean over the weekend, impacting northern Madagascar before rapidly intensifying and slamming Mayotte with winds above 220 kilometers per hour (136 miles per hour), according to France’s weather service.

Bruno Garcia, a resident of Mamoudzou, Mayotte’s capital, told BFMTV the destruction was “catastrophic” and “apocalyptic.”

“There is nothing left. It’s as if an atomic bomb fell on Mayotte,” Garcia said.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday accused Israel of “acts of genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza by depriving them of adequate water supplies.

The group, in an extensive report, found that between October 2023 and September 2024, Israeli authorities deprived Palestinians of what the World Health Organization (WHO) says is the minimum quantity of water required for survival in prolonged emergency situations. This has contributed to thousands of deaths and the spread of numerous diseases, the report found.

Israel, which has repeatedly denied allegations of genocide and of using hunger as a weapon of war, denied HRW’s latest accusations, with a foreign ministry spokesperson saying the report was “full of lies.”

According to WHO, a person needs between 50 and 100 liters (13 and 26 gallons) of water per day to ensure their “basic needs are met.” In protracted emergency situations, the minimum amount of water can drop to 15 to 20 liters per day for drinking and washing.

For the over 2 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, even this is out of reach, HRW found. Most or all of the water Palestinians in Gaza have access to is not safe to drink.

HRW says Israel’s actions amount to acts of genocide under the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). It stresses that the deprivation of water is leading to the slow deaths of Palestinians in Gaza, including newborn babies whose mothers can’t feed them due to malnourishment and dehydration, and who are drinking formula mixed with dirty water.

Israel’s war in Gaza, launched after Hamas’ attack in October 2023, has killed nearly 45,000 Palestinians and injured 106,000 more, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

HRW says that the obstruction of water in Gaza is a deliberate act by Israeli authorities, citing Israel’s obstruction of humanitarian aid including supplies relating to water treatment and production, restrictions on the flow of clean water through pipelines from Israel into Gaza, as well as “massive” damage to Gaza’s water infrastructure caused by Israeli strikes.

In January, the World Bank and Ipsos, a market research firm, estimated that nearly 60% of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure had been damaged or destroyed by hostilities. By August, that had risen to 84%.

In a statement on X, Oren Marmorstein, the spokesperson for Israel’s foreign ministry, denied the accusations and said Israel had “facilitated the continuous flow of water and humanitarian aid” into Gaza.

He said Israel had also ensured water infrastructure, including four water pipelines and water pumping and desalination facilities, remain operational.

‘Brazen breach of international law’

Israel has previously faced accusations of using water as a weapon of war in Gaza.

Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, said in November 2023 that “every hour that passes with Israel preventing the provision of safe drinking water in the Gaza strip, in brazen breach of international law, puts Gazans at risk of dying of thirst and diseases related to the lack of safe drinking water.”

The crisis has fueled diseases in Gaza and caused deaths estimated in the thousands, HRW said. The scale of the devastation caused by a lack of water may likely never be fully understood, the organization warned, due to the decimation of Gaza’s health care system including disease tracking.

Polio, a highly contagious viral disease often caused by insufficient access to safe water and sanitation, is one example of this. WHO testing first discovered the polio virus in samples of sewage taken from overcrowded tents of people displaced by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza in July. On August 16, the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed a case of polio in a 10-month-old child – the first case in Gaza in 25 years.

Bacterial infections like diarrhea have become commonplace in the enclave due to the consumption of contaminated water. Describing the impact of being forced to drink from an unclean well, one man told HRW: “I was getting sick, my kids were vomiting and had diarrhea, and I had diarrhea…This was from the moment we started drinking the (dirty) water.”

The HRW report comes as an Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal remains elusive, although negotiations appear to have taken a more positive turn in recent days.

In an official statement on Tuesday, Hamas said reaching an agreement was “possible.” A Hamas source also added that talks were “positive and optimistic.” However, the militant group cautioned that hurdles remain.

Both Israeli and Hamas teams are in the Qatari capital for indirect negotiations.