Taipei zoo's giant panda Yuanyuan celebrates her 20th birthday

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Taipei zoo's giant panda Yuanyuan celebrates her 20th birthday

2024-08-30 18:18 Last Updated At：18:21

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — With politics set aside, well-wishers gathered to wish the Taipei zoo’s oldest giant panda a happy 20th birthday.

Visitors crowded around Yuanyuan's enclosure to take photos of her with a birthday cake in the shape of the number 20.

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People take photos during Panda Yuanyuan''s 20-years-old birthday party at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — With politics set aside, well-wishers gathered to wish the Taipei zoo’s oldest giant panda a happy 20th birthday.

Panda Yuanyuan eats her birthday cake for her 20 years old at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Panda Yuanyuan enjoys her birthday cake for her 20 years old at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

People take photos during Panda Yuanyuan''s 20-years-old birthday party at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Panda Yuanyuan enjoys her birthday cake for her 20th birthday at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

People take photos during Panda Yuanyuan''s 20-years-old birthday party at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Panda Yuanyuan eats her birthday cake for her 20 years old at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

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TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — With politics set aside, well-wishers gathered to wish the Taipei zoo’s oldest giant panda a happy 20th birthday.

Panda Yuanyuan eats her birthday cake for her 20 years old at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Panda Yuanyuan enjoys her birthday cake for her 20 years old at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

People take photos during Panda Yuanyuan''s 20-years-old birthday party at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Panda Yuanyuan enjoys her birthday cake for her 20th birthday at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

People take photos during Panda Yuanyuan''s 20-years-old birthday party at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Panda Yuanyuan eats her birthday cake for her 20 years old at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Yuanyuan was born in China and arrived in 2008 with her partner Tuantuan. He died in 2022 at age 18 but not before fathering two female cubs, Yuanzai and Yuanbao, now 11 and 4 respectively and still living at the zoo.

Danielle Shu, a 20-year-old Brazilian student in Taiwan, said she found online clips of the pandas an enjoyable distraction. “And I just find it really funny and cute,” Shu said.

Giant pandas are native only to China, and Beijing bestows them as a sign of political amity. Yuanyuan and Tuantuan arrived in Taiwan during a period of relative calm between the sides, which split amid civil war in 1949. China claims the island its own territory, to be annexed by military force if necessary.

Faced with declining habitat and a notoriously low birthrate, giant panda populations have declined to around 1,900 in the mountains of western China, while 600 pandas live in zoos and breeding centers in China and around the world.

US historian leads charity run in Kyiv to highlight the plight of Ukrainian POWs

2024-09-14 19:57 Last Updated At：20:00

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. historian and author Timothy Snyder on Saturday led a charity run in Kyiv to raise awareness of the conditions under which Ukrainian prisoners of war are held in Russia as the conflict approaches a third winter.

The race came following a recent escalation in Russian missile and drone attacks, largely aimed at Ukraine's electricity infrastructure.

People clapped and cheered after Snyder, a 55-year-old Yale University professor who has written extensively on eastern Europe and the global resurgence of authoritarian regimes and is much admired in Ukarine, addressed the nearly thousand runners. He then joined a workout and participated in the run.

“Thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers are illegally held in captivity during an illegal war,” Snyder told The Associated Press just ahead of the run. “This race is about reminding everyone of that and expressing solidarity with Ukrainians and giving Ukrainians a chance to do something together,” he said.

The 5 and 10-kilometer runs took place around a sprawling park in the Ukrainian capital created out of a renovated Soviet-era exhibition center.

The runners included members of the public, servicepeople and veterans, as well as wives of the POWs. Among them was 27-year-old Anastasia Ofyl, whose husband Oleksandr was captured by the Russians. “We have to fight for him,” she said. “That’s why I’m running.”

Ukrainian soldiers often give harrowing accounts of their conditions in Russian captivity when they return home as part of regular prisoner exchanges.

In a report issued in July, a United Nations human rights agency said it “continued to document the widespread use of torture and ill-treatment, including sexual violence, against civilians and Ukrainian prisoners of war held by the Russian Federation.”

Snyder, who has organized fundraisers as part of the country’s war-relief effort, enjoys near-celebrity status in Ukraine. On Tuesday, he visited President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who thanked him for his charity work. The Ukrainian head of state also received former UK prime minister Boris Johnson, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and the American actor Michael Douglas this week.

After Saturday’s race, Snyder was surrounded by admirers, many of whom waited in line for autographs and selfies. Some asked the historian to sign translated copies of his widely-read books on Ukraine, “Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin” and “The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America.”

Taipei zoo's giant panda Yuanyuan celebrates her 20th birthday

News

Taipei zoo's giant panda Yuanyuan celebrates her 20th birthday

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — With politics set aside, well-wishers gathered to wish the Taipei zoo’s oldest giant panda a happy 20th birthday.

Panda Yuanyuan eats her birthday cake for her 20 years old at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Panda Yuanyuan enjoys her birthday cake for her 20 years old at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

People take photos during Panda Yuanyuan''s 20-years-old birthday party at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

People take photos during Panda Yuanyuan''s 20-years-old birthday party at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

People take photos during Panda Yuanyuan''s 20-years-old birthday party at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Panda Yuanyuan enjoys her birthday cake for her 20th birthday at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Panda Yuanyuan enjoys her birthday cake for her 20th birthday at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

People take photos during Panda Yuanyuan''s 20-years-old birthday party at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Panda Yuanyuan eats her birthday cake for her 20 years old at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Panda Yuanyuan eats her birthday cake for her 20 years old at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — With politics set aside, well-wishers gathered to wish the Taipei zoo’s oldest giant panda a happy 20th birthday.

Panda Yuanyuan eats her birthday cake for her 20 years old at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Panda Yuanyuan enjoys her birthday cake for her 20 years old at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

People take photos during Panda Yuanyuan''s 20-years-old birthday party at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

People take photos during Panda Yuanyuan''s 20-years-old birthday party at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

People take photos during Panda Yuanyuan''s 20-years-old birthday party at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Panda Yuanyuan enjoys her birthday cake for her 20th birthday at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Panda Yuanyuan enjoys her birthday cake for her 20th birthday at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

People take photos during Panda Yuanyuan''s 20-years-old birthday party at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Panda Yuanyuan eats her birthday cake for her 20 years old at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Panda Yuanyuan eats her birthday cake for her 20 years old at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. Yuanyuan was a gift from China to mark warming ties with Taiwan in 2008. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

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