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In a rare instance of the world’s second-largest economy traveling with a guest beyond Beijing, Xi hosted Macron on Friday in the southwest city of Chengdu, according to state media.

Macron and his wife Brigitte met the Chinese president for lunch in a more secluded setting than the previous day as he wrapped up his three-day visit to China.

Videos circulating on Chinese social media showed that Macron had surprised fellow joggers in Chengdu on Friday before joining Xi at the Dujiangyan dam, according to state media. Since the third century BC, the dam has managed the flow of water around Chengdu.

After hosting Xi in the Pyrenees in May 2024, where Macron spent time as a child, he said he was “very touched” by Xi’s gesture, which is against official protocol.

At a time when international tensions are rising and trade imbalances are widening to China’s advantage, he said, these are all indications of mutual trust and a desire to “act together.”

Andy Mok of Beijing’s Center for China and Globalization stated in an interview with Al Jazeera that the visit was important for both expanding “trade cooperation” between France and China and greater Europe and China.

The two leaders had a more solemn meeting on Thursday at Beijing’s more solemn Great Hall of the People, where important discussions were held regarding ending the Russian invasion of Ukraine and promoting international trade.

Following a recent diplomatic rout centered on a US-led peace plan, Macron has been trying to get Beijing to cooperate in pressure Russia on to reach a ceasefire with Ukraine.

The dialogue between China and France is even more crucial than ever, Macron said on Thursday. “We are facing the risk of the international order that has kept peace around the world for decades.

He said, “I hope China will follow our call and join us in achieving, as soon as possible, at the very least a ceasefire in the form of a moratorium on strikes against critical infrastructure.”

China supports all efforts that seek to achieve peace, according to Xi, who did not respond to France’s request for a peace deal that all parties would agree to.

Since its invasion of Ukraine, China has extended an economic lifeline to Russia, increasing trade, and strong diplomatic support.

Twelve cooperation agreements were reached on Thursday at Xi and Macron’s meeting in Beijing that addressed issues like panda conservation and population ageing.

Macron is being accompanied by the heads of some of France’s most important companies for his fourth state visit to China, though no money was disclosed.

According to state broadcaster CCTV, the two countries signed a pact on the sanitary and phytosanitary requirements for French alfalfa exports to China on Friday. According to CCTV, the two nations “important progress” in registering French exporters of pig white viscera for Chinese trade.

Macron will meet with students in Chengdu, China’s fourth-largest city with 21 million residents and regarded as one of the most diverse and socially diverse cities in the world.

For her part, Brigitte Macron will stop by the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, where two 17-year-old pandas that were loaned to France in 2012 as part of China’s “panda diplomacy” recently came back.

According to two military sources in the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the death toll from Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacks on a kindergarten and other locations in the city of Kalogi in South Kordofan state has increased to 47 people, mostly children, and to 50 others have been injured.

The RSF attacked the kindergarten on Thursday, according to the sources, before turning its attention to the civilians who had gathered to offer assistance in the chaos. A government building and a hospital in the city were also bombed.

Due to some of the serious injuries suffered by some of the treated, the sources said this toll is not yet definitive.

At least nine people were killed, including four children and two women, in “deliberate suicide-drone attacks carried out in Kalogi town” by the RSF and its ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–North (al-Hilou), according to a report released on Thursday by the Sudan Doctors Network.

They continued, “This attack constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law, and it continues to target civilians and vital infrastructure.”

In the most recent instance of the brutal civil war, which pits the SAF against the paramilitary RSF, atrocities against civilians. Additionally, it is suspected that the SAF engaged in atrocities during the conflict.

Kordofan’s “history repeating itself”

The UN warned on Thursday that fierce fighting between rival armed forces could lead to a humanitarian catastrophe in the Sudanese Kordofan region.

After last month’s fall of el-Fasher, Sudan’s capital, where international community warnings of impending violence were largely ignored before widespread killings occurred, UN human rights chief Volker Turk claimed that history was “repeating itself” in Kordofan.

According to Turk, it is truly shocking to see history repeat itself in Kordofan so soon after the horrific events in El-Fasher, and he urged other countries to stop the area from experiencing the same fate.

At least 269 civilian deaths have been documented by the UN as a result of aerial bombardment, artillery fire, and summary killings since late October when the paramilitary RSF seized Bara in North Kordofan state.

The actual cost of the incident is probably much higher because of regional communication blackouts, which have led to reports of revenge attacks, arbitrary detentions, sexual violence, and child forced recruitment.

The RSF claimed earlier this week that it was in charge of Babnusa, West Kordofas, with footage showing its fighters rushing through the military base. The city’s fall was not claimed by the army.

Attention has turned to Kordofan in central Sudan now that it is the last major city under the army’s and its allies’ control since the fall of el-Fasher.

Due to its strategic significance, both sides are in a crucial position in Kordofan. The region serves as a crucial link between the conflicting factions’ heartlands and government-held territory in the west of RSF-controlled Darfur in the west.

The RSF would have a direct route to Khartoum, which government forces captured earlier this year, if they had control of major cities like El-Obeid.

The UN issued urgent warnings about potential atrocities before el-Fasher  fell&nbsp in November. Those warnings were largely ignored.

Mass murders broke out after the city’s capture, with corpses emerging from satellite imagery, which prompted UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to refer to it as a “crime scene.”