Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

World in brief

Off to wild, Xiang-Xiang takes giant step for pandas

By TIMES WIRES
Published April 29, 2006

BEIJING - With his waddle to freedom Friday morning on a Sichuan province mountainside, Xiang-Xiang, a 4-year-old giant panda weighing 180 pounds, became the first panda born in a laboratory from an artificially inseminated mother, raised in captivity in China and released into nature to fend for himself.

Zhao Xuemin, deputy head of the State Forestry Administration, told the official New China News Agency that Xiang-Xiang's release, by the Wolong Giant Panda Research and Conservation Center, represented a milestone in efforts by China and other nations to preserve the endangered black-and-white creature in its natural habitat among the bamboo stands of central China's highlands.

"He has mastered the ability to adapt to living in a wild environment," the center said in a statement after his release. "He can live without being taken care of. He has become sensitive and alert to human beings. He wants to have his own territory, and he has acquired a sense of self-defense."

Just in case, the center said, Xiang-Xiang was equipped with a collar carrying a global positioning device to enable scientists to track his movements.

Pandas became threatened with extinction as China's population grew and farmers and loggers encroached. With a vast swath of land now protected in China, the State Forestry Administration reported last year that the number of giant pandas living in the wild has risen to an estimated 1,590, most of them in remote areas of Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces where they do not have to come into contact with humans.

PEREIRA, Colombia - The president of Colombia flew to this mountain-ringed city Friday to oversee an investigation into the murder of a former president's younger sister.

Authorities said they did not know whether Liliana Gaviria's slaying was the act of common criminals or intended as a message, a month ahead of presidential elections, that the law-and-order government cannot guarantee Colombians' safety.

President Alvaro Uribe arrived in Pereira to take charge of the hunt for the killers and tried to reassure the nation of 44-million that, if Gaviria's murder was politically motivated, it would not disrupt the May 28 elections.

"If this was a criminal plot to affect the democratic process of the fatherland, then it will be fail in the face of the unrelenting will of Colombians to defend their democratic rights," Uribe told RCN radio.

Local media reported that nearly 1,000 police officers were setting up checkpoints and searching the area. Uribe announced a $430,000 reward for the capture of the killers.

Gaviria, 52, a real estate agent and owner of a transportation company, was killed late Thursday after her sport utility vehicle was intercepted by four or five assailants in a red Mazda who killed her bodyguard. Hours later, she was found dead in a nearby field with a bullet wound in her upper abdomen and bruises on her head, possibly resulting from an attempt to flee her captors, acting Attorney General Jorge Hernando Otalora told RCN radio.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - More than 45,000 Puerto Ricans marched through the streets of the capital Friday, demanding politicians resolve a budget impasse that could lead to a government shutdown next week.

Teachers, union members, students and government workers rallied in front of the legislature near the colonial section of Old San Juan.

The U.S. Caribbean territory on Monday runs out of cash to pay 100,000 public employees and provide public services. Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila has said essential services, such as police and hospitals, would remain running, but 45 of nearly 120 government agencies would close, as well as nearly 1,600 schools, which would halt the term two weeks early.

[Last modified April 29, 2006, 01:18:13]