China’s President Xi Jinping said China and India were “good neighbours, friends and partners” as he wished President Droupadi Murmu congratulations on the South Asian nation’s Republic Day, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Monday.

Xi said that over the past year, China-India relations have continued to improve and develop and are of “great significance for maintaining and promoting world peace and prosperity,” according to Xinhua, Reuters reported.

Xi said China has always believed that being “good neighbours, friends and partners” is the right choice for both China and India.

He referred to China and India as the “dragon and the elephant dancing together,” Xinhua said.

Xi said he hoped that both sides would expand exchanges and cooperation and address each other’s concerns to promote healthy and stable relations.

The nuclear-armed Asian neighbours share a 3,800 km (2,400-mile) border that is poorly demarcated and has been disputed since the 1950s.

Ties between the countries were shaken by a 2020 clash in which 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers died in hand-to-hand combat. After that, the Himalayan border was heavily militarised by both sides.

Both countries began improving ties last year after staging a series of high-level bilateral visits.

Direct flights resumed in 2025 as both countries stepped up trade and investment flows against the backdrop of U.S. President Donald Trump’s combative foreign policy.

Airlines have been rerouting and cancelling some flights across the Middle East as tensions ramp up between Iran and the United States, with President Donald Trump saying on Thursday the U.S. had an “armada” heading towards Iran.

A senior Iranian official said on Friday Iran will treat any attack “as an all-out war against us”, ahead of the arrival of a U.S. military aircraft carrier strike group and other assets in the Middle East in the coming days.

The European Union’s aviation regulator recommended on January 16 that its airlines stay out of Iran’s airspace as tensions flared over Tehran’s deadly crackdown on protests and U.S. threats of intervention.

KLM

Airline KLM will avoid flying over large parts of the Middle East until further notice due to rising tensions there, the Dutch arm of airline group Air France KLM (AIRF.PA), opens new tab said on January 24.

“As a precaution, given the geopolitical situation, KLM will not fly through the airspace of Iran, Iraq and Israel and will not fly over several countries in the Gulf region,” a KLM spokesperson said.

AIR FRANCE

Air France resumed its service to Dubai on January 24 after suspending it a day before, saying it was following the situation in the Middle East “in real time”.

“Air France continuously monitors the geopolitical situation of the territories served and overflown by its aircraft,” it said in a statement.

LUFTHANSA

Lufthansa said on January 14 it would bypass Iranian and Iraqi airspace until further notice, and would only operate day flights to Tel Aviv and Amman between January 14 and January 19.

Some flights could be cancelled as a result of these actions, it added in a statement that day.

BRITISH AIRWAYS

British Airways temporarily suspended flights to Bahrain on January 16 as a precautionary measure, saying it “continue(d) to keep the situation in the region under close review”.

Flights to Bahrain were once again available on the BA website on January 24, and a spokesperson for the airline said all its flights were going ahead as scheduled.

FINNAIR

Finnair (FIA1S.HE), opens new tab said in a statement on January 16 it had stopped flying through Iraqi airspace, travelling to Doha and Dubai over Saudi Arabia instead.

The carrier had already been avoiding Iranian, Syrian and Israeli airspace for security reasons.

WIZZ AIR

A Wizz Air (WIZZ.L), opens new tab spokesperson said in January that the company avoided Iraqi and Iranian airspace.

“Therefore some westbound flights from Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports will have to make (refuelling and crew change) stops in Larnaca, Cyprus or Thessaloniki, Greece,” the representative said.

The death toll from a massive fire at a shopping mall in Karachi has risen to around 50 after firefighters recovered up to 25 additional bodies from the debris, officials said on Wednesday.

The blaze, the deadliest in the port city in more than a decade, broke out late on Saturday and rapidly spread through the Gul Plaza shopping complex, which housed about 1,200 family-run shops selling wedding attire, toys, crockery and other goods.

“We have recovered 20 to 25 bodies, or remains,” Deputy Commissioner Javed Nabi Khoso told reporters, adding that the remains had been transferred to a hospital for DNA identification. He said confirming an exact death toll remained difficult due to the condition of the bodies. The official toll had stood at 29 on Tuesday.

Firefighters battled the inferno for several days before bringing it under control on Tuesday. By then, Gul Plaza had been reduced to rubble and ash.

According to a state-run rescue service, 84 people were reported missing following the fire. Police said most of those unaccounted for are feared dead, raising concerns that the death toll could climb further.

Outside the destroyed complex, mourners gathered to light candles in memory of the victims, some holding photographs of those believed to have perished.

Shopkeeper Rehmat Khan described the scene as catastrophic, saying that 18 to 20 people, including six employees, were inside his shop when the fire erupted. All remain missing, he said.

The fire is Karachi’s deadliest since a 2012 industrial blaze that killed more than 260 people.