Pandas Sent by China Arrive in Qatar

Suhail walks in his shelter at the Panda House Garden in Al Khor, near Doha, Qatar, Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022. (AP Photo, Lujain Jo)
Suhail walks in his shelter at the Panda House Garden in Al Khor, near Doha, Qatar, Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022. (AP Photo, Lujain Jo)
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Pandas Sent by China Arrive in Qatar

Suhail walks in his shelter at the Panda House Garden in Al Khor, near Doha, Qatar, Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022. (AP Photo, Lujain Jo)
Suhail walks in his shelter at the Panda House Garden in Al Khor, near Doha, Qatar, Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022. (AP Photo, Lujain Jo)

Qatar received on Wednesday Chinese giant pandas Suhail and Soraya ahead of next month's World Cup.

Crowds of children and reporters watched as the four-year-old male and three-year-old female took their first steps in a temporary enclosure in a ceremony at the Al Khor park about 50 kilometers north of Doha.

The Chinese government sent the animals as gift to mark the World Cup that starts November 20.

Suhail, who weighs 130 kilograms, and his female partner, who is 70 kilos, must undergo a 21-day quarantine following their arrival along with two keepers, said Al Khor's zoological director Tim Bouts.

"In a few weeks, or in a month's time, they will be ready to be shown to the world," Bouts added.

Eight hundred kilograms of fresh bamboo will be flown in each week to feed them.

Pandas, which reproduce rarely in the wild and rely on a diet of bamboo in the mountains of western China, remain among the world's most threatened species. An estimated 1,800 pandas live in the wild, while another 500 are in zoos or reserves, mostly in Sichuan.



Japan Births in 2024 Fell Below 700,000 for First Time 

People walk along a pedestrian crossing at a shopping street Wednesday, June 4, 2025, in Tokyo. (AP)
People walk along a pedestrian crossing at a shopping street Wednesday, June 4, 2025, in Tokyo. (AP)
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Japan Births in 2024 Fell Below 700,000 for First Time 

People walk along a pedestrian crossing at a shopping street Wednesday, June 4, 2025, in Tokyo. (AP)
People walk along a pedestrian crossing at a shopping street Wednesday, June 4, 2025, in Tokyo. (AP)

The number of births in Japan last year fell below 700,000 for the first time on record, government data showed Wednesday.

The fast-ageing nation welcomed 686,061 newborns in 2024 -- 41,227 fewer than in 2023, the data showed. It was the lowest figure since records began in 1899.

Japan has the world's second-oldest population after tiny Monaco, according to the World Bank.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has called the situation a "quiet emergency", pledging family-friendly measures like more flexible working hours to try and reverse the trend.

Wednesday's health ministry data showed that Japan's total fertility rate -- the average number of children a woman is expected to have -- also fell to a record low of 1.15.

The ministry said Japan saw 1.6 million deaths in 2024, up 1.9 percent from a year earlier.

Ishiba has called for the revitalization of rural regions, where shrinking elderly villages are becoming increasingly isolated.

In more than 20,000 communities in Japan, the majority of residents are aged 65 and above, according to the internal affairs ministry.

The country of 123 million people is also facing increasingly severe worker shortages as its population ages, not helped by relatively strict immigration rules.

In neighboring South Korea, the fertility rate in 2024 was even lower than Japan's, at 0.75 -- remaining one of the world's lowest but marking a small rise from the previous year on the back of a rise in marriages.