China, India end border standoff

India and China have agreed to an “expeditious disengagement” of troops in a disputed border area where their soldiers have been locked in a stand-off for more than two months, India’s foreign ministry said on Monday. The decision comes ahead of a summit of the BRICS nations in China beginning on Sunday, which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend. Indian and Chinese troops have been confronting each other at the Doklam plateau near the borders of India, its ally Bhutan, and China, in the most serious and prolonged standoff in decades along their disputed Himalayan border, according to Reuters. The Indian ministry said the two sides had agreed to defuse the crisis following diplomatic talks. It did not offer more details of the terms of disengagement from the area which had raised fears of a wider conflict between the Asian giants who fought a brief border war in 1962.