Germany’s Newest Panda Twins Thrive During First 5 Days in Berlin Zoo

This photo released by the Zoo Berlin on Tuesday, Aug. 27, shows a newborn panda at the Zoo in Berlin. (© 2024 Zoo Berlin via AP)

09:25-28 August 2024 AD ـ 22 Safar 1446 AH

Germany’s Newest Panda Twins Thrive During First 5 Days in Berlin Zoo

Germany's newest panda twins are thriving at the Berlin Zoo. The cubs spent their first five days of life taking turns cuddling and drinking milk from their mother every hour.

They were born Thursday to mother Meng Meng, 11. The zoo said Tuesday that it's cautiously optimistic during this critical period — panda cub mortality is at its highest within the first two weeks of birth and through the first month because they don't yet have a functioning immune system.

Without human help, one of the cubs likely would not have survived because giant pandas usually only raise one cub when they give birth to twins. So the zoo has stepped in with a team that includes experts from China's Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, who are on a visit to Berlin.

When one of the twins is with their mother, the other is spending time in an incubator donated by a Berlin hospital.

“Without protective measures, the giant panda would most likely already be extinct,” zoo director Andreas Knieriem said in a statement Tuesday, adding “every cub that grows up healthy counts.”

China gifted friendly nations with its unofficial mascot for decades as part of a “panda diplomacy″ policy. The country now loans pandas to zoos on commercial terms. There are about 1,800 pandas living in the wild in China and a few hundred in captivity worldwide.

Currently deaf, blind and pink — their black-and-white panda markings will develop later — the firstborn twin now weighs 180 grams, while the second is roughly 145 grams (6.35 and 5.11 ounces). Both have regained their birth weights and added more grams, which the zoo considers a promising sign. The cubs' sexes have not yet been determined “with certainty.”

Meng Meng was artificially inseminated on March 26. Female pandas are fertile only for a few days per year at the most. The twins' father, 14-year-old Jiao Qing, is not involved in rearing the cubs.

Meng Meng and Jiao Qing arrived in Berlin in 2017. In August 2019, Meng Meng gave birth to male twins Pit and Paule, also known by the Chinese names Meng Xiang and Meng Yuan, the first giant pandas born in Germany.

Those twins flew to China in December on a journey that was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic but had been contractually agreed to from the beginning.

Sudan's Historic Acacia Forest Devastated as War Fuels Logging

Little is left of the once sprawling acacia forest south of Sudan's capital. Ebrahim Hamid / AFP

Asharq Al Awsat

07:27-19 February 2026 AD ـ 02 Ramadan 1447 AH

Asharq Al Awsat

07:27-19 February 2026 AD ـ 02 Ramadan 1447 AH

Sudan's Historic Acacia Forest Devastated as War Fuels Logging

Little is left of the once sprawling acacia forest south of Sudan's capital. Ebrahim Hamid / AFP

Vast stretches of a once-verdant acacia forest south of Sudan's capital Khartoum have been reduced to little more than fields of stumps as nearly three years of conflict have fueled deforestation.

What was once a 1,500-hectare natural reserve has been "completely wiped out", Boushra Hamed, head of environmental affairs for Khartoum state, told AFP.

Al-Sunut forest had long served as a haven for migratory birds and a vital green shield against the Nile's seasonal floods.

"During the war, Khartoum state has lost 60 percent of its green cover," Hamed said, describing how century-old trees "were cut down with electric saws" for commercial timber and charcoal production.

Where tall acacias once cast cool shade over a wetland just upstream from the confluence of the Blue and White Nile, barren ground now lies exposed, criss-crossed by people gathering whatever wood remains.

Hamed called it "methodical destruction", though the perpetrators remain unknown and there has been no investigation.

Similar devastation is unfolding across several regions -- including western Darfur, neighboring Kordofan and the central states of Sennar and Al-Jazirah -- as insecurity and economic collapse drive unchecked logging, according to Sudan's Forests National Corporation.

According to a 2019 study by the Nairobi-based African Forest Forum, Sudan had already lost nearly half of its forested land since 1960 due to agricultural expansion, firewood collection and overgrazing.

By 2015, the country ranked among Africa's least forested nations, with around 10 percent of its territory still covered by woodland, the study said.

The report had also warned of further degradation if reforestation and sustainable management efforts were not implemented -- concerns now compounded by the ongoing conflict.

- 'Barrier' -

Aboubakr Al-Tayeb, who oversees Khartoum's forestry administration, said the damage "affects not only Khartoum, but Sudan and the wider African continent."

"The forest was home to several migratory species from Europe," he told AFP.

More than a hundred bird species, including ducks, geese, terns, ibis, herons, eagles and vultures, had been recorded in the area, alongside monkeys and small mammals.

Al-Nazir Ali Babiker, an agronomist, said the loss of tree cover could cause more severe seasonal flooding because the "forest acted as a barrier" against rising waters.

Flooding strikes Sudan every year, destroying homes, farmland and infrastructure and leaving many families with no choice but to flee to safer areas.

The war in Sudan, which erupted in April 2023, has already killed tens of thousands, displaced 11 million and shattered critical infrastructure.

Before the fighting, forests supplied roughly 70 percent of Sudan's energy consumption, primarily through charcoal and firewood, according to data from the African Forest Forum.

Al-Sunut had also been a popular leisure spot for Khartoum residents.

"We used to come in groups to study and have a good time," recalls Adam Hafiz Ibrahim, a student at Omdurman Islamic University.

Today, wood gatherers have supplanted the usual walkers. Disregarding army notices alerting them to landmines, men and women traverse the dry, open ground that now stands where the ancient forest once grew.

"We're not cutting the trees. We just pick up whatever wood's already on the ground to use for the fire," said Nafisa, a woman in her forties navigating the dry grasslands.

"We found the trees down. We collect the wood to sell to bakeries and families," said Mohamed Zakaria, a construction worker who lost his job because of the war.

Experts say that the economic hardship caused by the war combined with a lack of enforcement has encouraged logging.

"The logging continues, because those responsible for forest protection cannot access many areas," said Mousa el-Sofori, head of Sudan's Forests National Corporation.

Efforts to replant acacias are underway, Tayeb of the Khartoum forestry administration said, but seedlings grow slowly and can take years to mature.

Restoring the lost woodlands would be "long and costly", said Sofori.

"Some of these forests were centuries old," he added.

Varieties

Coffee Regions Hit by Extra Days of Extreme Heat, Say Scientists

17 April 2012, North Rhine-Westphalia, Vluyn: A general view of Arabica Coffee beans. (dpa)

10:20-18 February 2026 AD ـ 01 Ramadan 1447 AH

Coffee Regions Hit by Extra Days of Extreme Heat, Say Scientists

17 April 2012, North Rhine-Westphalia, Vluyn: A general view of Arabica Coffee beans. (dpa)

The world's main coffee-growing regions are roasting under additional days of climate change-driven heat every year, threatening harvests and contributing to higher prices, researchers said Wednesday.

An analysis found that there were 47 extra days of harmful heat per year on average in 25 countries representing nearly all global coffee production between 2021 and 2025, according to independent research group Climate Central.

Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Ethiopia and Indonesia -- which supply 75 percent of the world's coffee -- experienced on average 57 additional days of temperatures exceeding the threshold of 30C.

"Climate change is coming for our coffee. Nearly every major coffee-producing country is now experiencing more days of extreme heat that can harm coffee plants, reduce yields, and affect quality," said Kristina Dahl, Climate Central's vice president for science.

"In time, these impacts may ripple outward from farms to consumers, right into the quality and cost of your daily brew," Dahl said in a statement.

US tariffs on imports from Brazil, which supplies a third of coffee consumed in the United States, contributed to higher prices this past year, Climate Central said.

But extreme weather in the world's coffee-growing regions is "at least partly to blame" for the recent surge in prices, it added.

Coffee cultivation needs optimal temperatures and rainfall to thrive.

Temperatures above 30C are "extremely harmful" to arabica coffee plants and "suboptimal" for the robusta variety, Climate Central said. Those two plant species produce the majority of the global coffee supply.

For its analysis, Climate Central estimated how many days each year would have stayed below 30C in a world without carbon pollution but instead exceeded that level in reality -- revealing the number of hot days added by climate change.

The last three years have been the hottest on record, according to climate monitors.

Varieties

Dog Gives Olympics Organizers Paws for Thought

A dog wanders on the ski trail during the women's team cross country free sprint qualification event of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games at Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium in Lago di Tesero (Val di Fiemme), on February 18, 2026. (Photo by Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP)

Asharq Al Awsat

10:05-18 February 2026 AD ـ 01 Ramadan 1447 AH

Asharq Al Awsat

10:05-18 February 2026 AD ـ 01 Ramadan 1447 AH

Dog Gives Olympics Organizers Paws for Thought

A dog decided he would bid for an unlikely Olympic medal on Wednesday as he joined the women's cross country team free sprint in the Milan-Cortina Games.

The dog ran onto the piste in Tesero in northern Italy and gamely, even without skis, ran behind two of the competitors, Greece's Konstantina Charalampidou and Tena Hadzic of Croatia.

He crossed the finishing line, his moment of glory curtailed as he was collared by the organizers and led away -- his owner no doubt will have a bone to pick with him when they are reunited.

Germany’s Newest Panda Twins Thrive During First 5 Days in Berlin Zoo