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National Zoo returning beloved pandas to China on Wednesday after 23 years in U.S.
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The Smithsonian National Zoo’s beloved giant pandas began their trek back to China on Nov. 8 after 23 years in the U.S. The pandas, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, were on loan for a research and breeding program and in 2020 gave birth to a baby named Xiao Qi Ji, who is also heading to China.
Ahead of the pandas’ farewell to the zoo, the Smithsonian said in a news release that forklifts will be used to move each of them into FedEx trucks. The trucks will transport them to Dulles International Airport, but they will not be visible as they are moved onto the “FedEx Panda Express” – a Boeing 777F aircraft with a custom decal.
Their estimated departure from the airport is slated for 1 p.m.
Jose Luis Magana / AP
Mei Xiang and Tian Tian came to the zoo in 2000 as part of an agreement between the zoo and China Wildlife and Conservation Association and were supposed to stay for just 10 years, but the agreement was extended several times. The agreement was set to expire on Dec. 7, 2023.
The National Zoo first received pandas from China in 1972 in an effort to save the species by breeding them. The zoo has had panda couples ever since.
During her time in D.C., Mei Xiang has given birth to seven cubs – three who died before adulthood and three who have already been returned to China. Per the agreement, the baby pandas are returned by age 4.
KAREN BLEIER
After National Zoo pandas’ official departure, only four giant pandas that were part of the program will be left in the U.S.: Lun Lun and Yang Yang, the giant pandas at the Atlanta Zoo, and their offspring Ya Lun and Xi Lun. This panda family is expected to head back to China in 2024.
San Diego also had pandas as part of the agreement, receiving its first two pandas in 1987. They were supposed to stay just 100 days, but like the deal with D.C., the zoo’s agreement was extended several times and Bai Yun and Shi Shi stayed in the U.S. until 2019. They had six babies at the zoo.
The Memphis Zoo had a 20-year loan agreement with China that ended in 2023 with the return of Ya Ya in April, according to the Associated Press. One of their male pandas, Le Le, helped other pandas across the world conceive babies through artificial insemination, the zoo said. Le Le died in February ahead of the return to China.
Breeding programs have been successful for the once-endangered species. Pandas were upgraded to “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2017, according to the World Wildlife Fund. But only about 1,864 pandas remain in the wild, mostly in China’s Sichuan Province.
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Moderate Masoud Pezeshkian wins Iran’s presidential runoff election
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Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian won Iran’s runoff presidential election Saturday, besting hard-liner Saeed Jalili by promising to reach out to the West and ease enforcement on the country’s mandatory headscarf law after years of sanctions and protests squeezing the Islamic Republic.
Pezeshkian promised no radical changes to Iran’s Shiite theocracy in his campaign and long has held Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the final arbiter of all matters of state in the country. But even Pezeshkian’s modest aims will be challenged by an Iranian government still largely held by hard-liners, the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, and Western fears over Tehran enriching uranium to near-weapons-grade levels.
A vote count offered by authorities put Pezeshkian as the winner with 16.3 million votes to Jalili’s 13.5 million in Friday’s election.
Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images
Supporters of Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and longtime lawmaker, entered the streets of Tehran and other cities before dawn to celebrate as his lead grew over Jalili, a hard-line former nuclear negotiator.
But Pezeshkian’s win still sees Iran at a delicate moment, with tensions high in the Mideast over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, Iran’s advancing nuclear program, and a looming U.S. election that could put any chance of a detente between Tehran and Washington at risk.
The first round of voting June 28 saw the lowest turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iranian officials have long pointed to turnout as a sign of support for the country’s Shiite theocracy, which has been under strain after years of sanctions crushing Iran’s economy, mass demonstrations and intense crackdowns on all dissent.
Government officials up to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei predicted a higher participation rate as voting got underway, with state television airing images of modest lines at some polling centers across the country.
However, online videos purported to show some polls empty while a survey of several dozen sites in the capital, Tehran, saw light traffic amid a heavy security presence on the streets.
The election came amid heightened regional tensions. In April, Iran launched its first-ever direct attack on Israel over the war in Gaza, while militia groups that Tehran arms in the region — such as the Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels — are engaged in the fighting and have escalated their attacks.
Iran is also enriching uranium at near weapons-grade levels and maintains a stockpile large enough to build several nuclear weapons, should it choose to do so. And while Khamenei remains the final decision-maker on matters of state, whichever man ends up winning the presidency could bend the country’s foreign policy toward either confrontation or collaboration with the West.
The campaign also repeatedly touched on what would happen if former President Donald Trump, who unilaterally withdrew America from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, won the November election. Iran has held indirect talks with President Joe Biden’s administration, though there’s been no clear movement back toward constraining Tehran’s nuclear program for the lifting of economic sanctions.
More than 61 million Iranians over the age of 18 were eligible to vote, with about 18 million of them between 18 and 30. Voting was to end at 6 p.m. but was extended until midnight to boost participation.
The late President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a May helicopter crash, was seen as a protégé of Khamenei and a potential successor as supreme leader.
Still, many knew him for his involvement in the mass executions that Iran conducted in 1988, and for his role in the bloody crackdowns on dissent that followed protests over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman detained by police over allegedly improperly wearing the mandatory headscarf, or hijab.
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Biden set for pivotal 24 hours with primetime interview
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