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Honiara, Solomon Islands – On the highway between the airport and Honiara, the Solomon Islands’ capital, a mammoth sports stadium rises from the ground in the tropical heat like an apparition. The new landmark is, by far, the largest building in the small bustling city that is home to just under 100,000 people.

The 10,000-seater stadium has been built for the Pacific Games, a regional multi-sport event held in a different Pacific Island country every four years. The games get under way in the Solomon Islands on November 19 and have become a symbol of national pride in the remote southwest Pacific Island nation.

“It is the biggest international event ever hosted in the country because it leaves a tangible and long-lasting legacy that will change the lives of people in the Solomon Islands,” Christian Nieng, executive director of the Pacific Games National Hosting Authority (NHA), told Al Jazeera in an interview. “Spectators here will now be sitting in good stadiums where they can watch games and where there are international rules and standards.”

Some residents are also optimistic about the event.

“It will bring in more revenue for the country through tourism and it will generate more cohesion and unity among Pacific Island countries, and lead to closer economic relations,” said Tony, a 55-year-old resident living close to the stadium.

The Solomon Islands, located northeast of Australia, is an archipelago of more than 900 islands with a total population of about 734,000 people. Despite being rich in natural resources, particularly forests and timber, most Solomon Islanders live in rural areas where access to infrastructure, basic services and economic opportunities is poor. Development was set back when a five-year civil conflict, known as the ‘Tensions’, erupted in 1998 and left the country’s economy and infrastructure in ruins.

Two decades later, Nieng believes the benefit of the games will be felt far beyond the competition. More than 3,000 local people will gain skills and experience as volunteers who will help with running the event, while more than 1,000 contractors, which employ local citizens, have been engaged to provide goods and services, such as construction and catering, he explained.

“We have also witnessed in the past sports being a uniting force. During the Tensions, football was organised and in the field people from different ethnic groups were playing peacefully. We may come from different islands and speak different languages, attend different churches, but in football, we are one. So, the Pacific Games is playing that role as well,” Nieng added.

Cost vs benefit

On the public minibus along the road which hugs Honiara’s palm tree-lined waterfront, the local radio station is playing a rallying call to remind passengers about the impending opening ceremony.

The event will attract a total of 5,000 athletes from 24 Pacific Island nations, including Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Fiji and Samoa, who will compete in 24 sports. At the Solomon Islands National Institute of Sport, 1,200 eager contenders have been training in the hope of making the cut for the national team.

Jovita Ambrose, a 21-year-old from Malaita Province, participated in the Pacific Games held in Samoa in 2019 and the past two world athletic championships. “I started athletics and running at the age of 17 years during school games. This is the first time the games is happening in the Solomon Islands, so people are very excited to see what will happen,” Ambrose said.

Within walking distance of the newly-built games city, which includes the stadium, swimming and tennis centres, is the Burns Creek informal settlement, a sprawling community of 7,000 people.

Here, people live on low-lying land close to the sea, their homes laid out along a network of unsealed streets with limited access to basic services, such as power and water.

Still, Peter Kosemu, the settlement’s chief, said there was a sense of anticipation in the community.

“It is the first of its kind here. People are wondering what it might bring because it is new,” Kosemu said. Some people in the community have been recruited as volunteers, but he said that beyond this, “many people here have found it difficult to access many of the [economic or employment] opportunities associated with the Games”.

Near the highway, some residents from the settlement earn money selling fruit, vegetables and betelnut, an addictive nut which induces adrenaline when chewed, at a streetside market. Here, 23-year-old Mercy and her friend, Jennifer, 42, said they were hoping to earn more income from visitors.

Ray, another vendor, is more concerned. The 52-year-old has a wife and five children to support and sells betelnut, which will be banned during the games. “This is hard for us. It will be hard to earn money in another way. I have a family to support, and now I will have to go and look for work,” he said.

The Solomon Islands is an underdeveloped country with large rural and youth populations. About 25 percent of the population lives below the international poverty line, according to the World Bank, and, even in the capital, residents suffer daily power and water cuts. Meanwhile, 70 percent of the population is aged under 34, with only an estimated 22 percent of the new entrants to the job market each year likely to secure formal employment.

Given the country’s immense development needs, the total cost of the event, at $250m, is a major expenditure.

Amid some concerns about the cost, the government insists existing budgets have not been affected and 80 percent of the games’ costs have been met by international donors and bilateral partners.

“We only received grants from all the countries that are supporting us. There is no loan commitment by the Solomon Islands government to leave behind for our youth or the citizens of this country to repay after the games,” the NHA executive director said.

‘Lasting legacy’

China is the event’s biggest financial supporter, providing half the total funding, including the roughly $71m for construction of the stadium, plus other venues, such as the aquatic centre, tennis courts and hockey field.

China’s stake in the event follows Honiara’s diplomatic switch from Taiwan to China in 2019. Since then, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has signed numerous government-to-government agreements on issues from law enforcement to economic development.

It was a security pact, bolstering police and military cooperation with China, announced by Sogavare in April last year that saw the Solomon Islands become the focus of an increasingly taut geopolitical contest amid concerns about the country’s deepening relationship with China in the United States, Australia and even among other Pacific nations.

The US reopened its embassy in Honiara in January, and President Joe Biden has hosted two summits with Pacific Island leaders in Washington to accelerate offers of economic and development assistance.

Blake Johnson, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra, told Al Jazeera that China’s funding of the Pacific Games was a sign of its persistence in growing government ties with the Solomon Islands, but “many development needs remain unanswered in the shadow of flashy new stadiums”.

“Both China and Solomon Islands governments are hoping the game’s infrastructure will help to demonstrate the benefits of Solomon Islands recognising the ‘One China’ policy, but many actual benefits are yet to be realised,” Johnson said.

Nieng and representatives of some other government ministries reject the suggestion that big power rivalry is a factor in the games, claiming that financial support for the event has been global.

While the US has not provided any direct assistance, Australia has stepped up with $11m to assist with athletes’ accommodation, staffing needs, venues and sports equipment.

A spokesperson for Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told Al Jazeera that Australia remains “Solomon Islands’ largest bilateral partner” and “Australia’s Pacific Games support will leave a lasting legacy and benefit future generations of Solomon Islanders, including with better school infrastructure and deeper institutional links with Australian sporting bodies.”

Funding for the games has also been provided by New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saudi Arabia, Korea, India and Indonesia.

The wife of The Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan has sent “love and prayers” to those “struggling” as she posted a photo of the Fairytale Of New York singer in hospital.

Victoria Mary Clarke thanked well-wishers on X, formerly Twitter, and revealed the singer’s bandmates Spider Stacy and Terry Woods had visited him recently.

The Irish journalist wrote: “Love and prayers for everyone who is struggling right now ❤️ hang in there!”

MacGowan, 65, is believed to have been in intensive care for the past few months and was in a hospital bed with a breathing apparatus in the new picture.

He had been diagnosed with viral encephalitis last year.

Encephalitis is a serious condition where the brain becomes inflamed. It can be life-threatening and requires urgent treatment in hospital.

Ms Clarke said in an Instagram post on Saturday that she was “facing terrifying fears of loss”.

The 57-year-old wrote: “Love is the most beautiful and powerful thing that we can experience as humans but love can also feel painful especially if you are afraid of losing a person or anything else that you love.

“The really really big challenge that we all face is to go beyond what our minds think are the limits of love and what love really is.”

She added: “Sometimes when you love very deeply you will find yourself facing terrifying fears of loss that can feel so big and devastating that you don’t know how you can survive them and you can’t imagine life without this person that you love.

“It’s in these moments when you are staring into the abyss that you have an opportunity… to discover more of who you really are and more of who your soul really is and more of your connection with this person who you love.”

The couple married in 2018 at Copenhagen City Hall in Denmark after more than 32 years together.

MacGowan has faced other health troubles in recent years – he broke his pelvis in 2015 and has used a wheelchair since.

In 2021 he broke his knee in a fall before tearing ligaments in his left leg.

He never fully recovered from his injuries and confirmed in April that he “can’t walk anymore”.

MacGowan has also been open about his battle with addiction.

In 2015, he received a full set of teeth implants as his real teeth were destroyed by decades of drinking and drug use.

China’s leader Xi Jinping has told US President Joe Biden that “planet Earth is big enough” for both their countries “to succeed”.

The two leaders have met face-to-face for the first time in a year, amid strained tensions including over Taiwan, a Chinese ‘spy’ balloon, and hacking.

Mr Biden had billed the meeting as a chance for Washington and Beijing to get back “on a normal course” again.

He said on Wednesday the two economic and military superpowers had to make sure that rivalry between them “does not veer into conflict” and manage their relationship “responsibly”.

The pair shook hands as they held talks at a country house, prior to travelling to a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in San Francisco, about 30 miles away.

Mr Biden said the goal of the talks was for the leaders to “understand each other”, while President Xi said they bear “heavy responsibilities” for the world.

“For two large countries like China [and the] United States, turning their back on each other is not an option,” Mr Xi said. “Planet Earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed.”

Speaking at the Filoli estate in Woodside, California, he added: “It is unrealistic for one side to remodel the other, and conflict and confrontation has unbearable consequences for both sides.”

Since they last met in November 2022, fraught relations have been further strained by the US downing of a Chinese ‘spy’ balloon that flew over America and by differences on the self-ruled island of Taiwan, as well as China’s hacking of a Biden official’s emails.

Mr Xi said a lot had happened since their last meeting, telling the media: “The world has emerged from the COVID pandemic, but is still under its tremendous impacts. The global economy is recovering, but its momentum remains sluggish.”

After the meeting, Mr Biden wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “I value the conversation I had today with President Xi because I think it’s paramount that we understand each other clearly, leader to leader.

“There are critical global challenges that demand our joint leadership. And today, we made real progress.”

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Mr Biden will be focused on keeping lines of communication open to prevent misunderstandings which could lead to conflict between the nations.

He is expected to press Mr Xi to use China’s influence over Iran to make it clear that Tehran or its proxies like Hezbollah should not take action that could lead to the Israel-Hamas war expanding into a wider conflict.

Mr Biden is also set to defend the US strengthening its export controls on semiconductor chips.

Mr Xi wants assurances from Mr Biden that the US will not support Taiwan independence, start a new cold war or suppress China’s economic growth.

He is also keen to show America that China is still a good place to invest.

To see the column of people up close was quite something.

Several hundred Palestinians, young and elderly, in a thin line facing south on the main north-south road that cuts down through Gaza.

On a loudhailer, an Israeli soldier is issuing instructions in Arabic. They should move south, they are told, and they will be safe.

We’re deep inside Gaza, a couple of miles southeast of Gaza City itself.

Israel-Gaza latest: UN issues dire warning

Behind us, a couple of miles back, to the east, is the border fence with Israel.

The land between us and the fence resembles a wasteland. What were once fields are now a vast area of earth, churned up by the Israeli military vehicles, which are shuttling back and forth.

Ahead of us, looking west, it’s a different sort of wasteland. Not a single building is untouched. Some are barely standing. In the distance, there is the occasional boom.

We’re with the Israeli military on an embedded facility. The purpose, from the Israeli perspective, is to show us what the humanitarian corridors they have been under so much pressure to implement actually look like.

For us, despite the restrictions they have imposed (we cannot film certain soldiers’ faces, screens in vehicles, identifiable landscape or certain equipment), it’s a chance to see first-hand what’s happening inside this tiny part of Gaza they are willing to show us.

There is no other way to enter Gaza at the moment. It’s with the Israeli military or not at all.

The reporting is subject to Israeli military restrictions.

Our ride in was in a battered and dusty Humvee. We passed through the same part of the border fence through which Hamas fighters came, the other way, on 7 October.

We were about to see what Israel’s five-week long response to that massacre looks like up close.

It’s about a 15-minute drive from the border fence to the edge of Gaza City.

To the north, we could see the black smoke rising from the latest airstrikes.

Just ahead I caught a glimpse of the Mediterranean Sea beyond the rubble of the southern outskirts of Gaza City.

At first, I didn’t notice the hundreds of Palestinians. They were obscured behind a berm of earth. My eye was drawn to the battered buildings beyond.

But then they came into view. Honestly, it resembled a scene from another time.

It’s being presented as good news: people being guided out of a warzone, through a temporary pause in fighting, to safety in the south of Gaza.

“We’re protecting it day and night, in the rain and the sun, and making sure that all these civilians that aren’t involved in terror, could leave the area, and let us get our job done,” a major, who we could only identify as Shraga, told me.

“Our job, our main objective, is to totally eliminate Hamas. We won’t want to hurt any of these civilians. And that’s why we’re letting them go out.”

‘An echo of their history’

Seeing these people move south, out of the warzone a few miles to the north, is clearly good for their safety.

But to view it simply in those terms is to miss the point.

From the perspective of the Palestinians, this is an echo of their history. They see it as forced displacement from homes which have been destroyed and to which they never think they will return.

Many Gazans are from families already displaced two generations earlier.

I asked the major if he could see this from the Palestinian perspective; the impact on their psyche – they feel like they’re being moved out of their homes, and that they will never be able to go back?

“After what I saw on October 7, I failed to understand the Palestinian psyche,” the major said.

“So I don’t know how they’re looking at it, or what they understand.

“I don’t know if you visited our kibbutzim that were raided, and how Hamas brought hell into our homes. So the responsibility on that is on them.

“We are here not to fight, not because we love fighting, not because we’re bloodthirsty, and not because we hate any Palestinians. We are here fighting, because we want to live peaceful, productive lives on the other side of the border.”

I asked: “And to those who say that in eliminating evil, you are reaping misery on two million people. What do you say?”

Major Shraga replied: “They’re welcome to take that question straight back to Hamas. You can see here with your own eyes, how much effort we’re putting in to let innocent civilians out.”

“And the civilian casualties?” I asked. “11,000 people dead, killed in four weeks.”

The major said: “Yeah, well, those are big numbers. But when we judge, then it’s not about the numbers. It’s about eliminating evil. And we saw what Hamas could do, what Hamas intends to do.”

It was deeply frustrating not to be able to talk to the people in front of us.

The Israeli military cited security concerns. Hamas snipers, they told us, were emerging from tunnels. And others could be among the civilians being moved south.

So we couldn’t get the reflections of the people here. It’s only when they reach the south that they are able to speak as many have about the pain of being forced from homes destroyed.

And even in the south, they are not safe.

I asked the officer permitted to speak about this: how was it right to destroy peoples’ homes then force them south to areas also being targeted?

The officer replied: “Honestly, I don’t know. I do know that war is not safe. I do know that we are doing everything we can to hit directly the terrorist, not civilians. Honestly, I haven’t been in the south so I cannot answer that question.”

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I asked the same officer about the accusations of war crimes. The question was cut short.

An Israeli spokesperson, accompanying us, took the question a little later.

“Israel is not guilty of any war crimes,” Major Doron Spielman told me.

“I’ve also heard from many international lawyers. This was an assault that was inflicted on Israel.

“Every nation, including Israel, including England, including the United States – all over the world – if there’s a massacre that’s committed on your border and an active threat, you have no choice but to destroy that enemy.”

He added: “That is not only international law, that is also the law of morality.”

What about the number of Gazans killed in a little over four weeks?

“I think that the fact remains that Hamas is operating within that civilian population…” Major Speilman said.

But, I asked, can that be an excuse for killing so many civilians in just a few weeks?

He replied: “I think that again, that every one of these civilians that has unfortunately died, is because Hamas is using them to cover up their operations. Hamas is actively, to this day while speaking to you, shooting rockets, even in this humanitarian corridor.”

So the deaths are inevitable, I asked, and worth it to eliminate Hamas?

“Death is a horrific outcome of war,” Major Speilman said.

An armed gang has stormed a hospital in Haiti and taken hundreds of hostages including newborn babies, the boss of the medical facility has said.

Women and children are also said to have been kidnapped from the Fontaine Hospital Centre in the capital of Port-au-Prince.

Pleading for help on social media, the hospital’s founder and director Jose Ulysse – who himself has been targeted by gangs before – said: “We are in great difficulty.”

It is not clear why the assailants may have taken people hostage, but the community in the sprawling Cite Soleil slum has become overrun by gangs that have unleashed increasingly violent attacks.

Civilians in the area are routinely raped, beaten or killed.

A recent UN report highlighted one gang in Haiti that is involved in extortion, hijacking of goods and general violence against civilians – and has form for kidnapping people for ransom.

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Haitian gangs have grown more powerful since the 2021 assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise.

Earlier this year, at least 20 armed gang members snatched a patient from an operating room after bursting into a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders.

The criminals gained access after faking a life-threatening emergency, the organisation said.