Panda diplomacy:p Chinese h and over new mate for Vienna’s Yang Yang

A senior Chinese official has officially handed over a 19-year-old male giant panda to Vienna’s Schoenbrunn zoo.

Yuan Yuan arrived in Vienna last month and has spent the last few weeks in quarantine.

He was chosen as a partner for Yang Yang, the zoo’ s 18-year-old female panda (pictured playing with her cub Fu Long) who has been at the zoo since 2003 but without a companion since its previous male, Long Hui, died of cancer in 2016. Li Zhanshu, the head of China’s parliament, handed over Yuan Yuan at a ceremony Monday. China lends the rare bears to other countries as a sign of goodwill.