A giant panda on loan to France from China gave birth to female twin cubs early Monday, a French zoo announced, declaring "they are very lively, pink and plump."
The Beauval Zoo, south of Paris, said the twins were born shortly after 1 a.m. They weigh 149 and 129 grams (5.3 and 4.6 ounces).
Their mother Huan Huan and father Yuan Zi are at Beauval on a 10-year loan from China aimed at highlighting good ties with France. The twins are their second and third cubs after the first panda ever born in France, Yuan Meng, in 2017.
"Huan Huan is taking care of them very well. She took them in her mouth to lick them and clean them. We can hear little cries," the zoo said in a statement.
The zoo said the cubs' genders were determined by the Chinese experts in charge of taking care of them but will need to be definitively confirmed since external genitalia does not appear until panda cubs are several months old.
The births come after the zoo announced with great joy in March that Huan Huan and Yuan Zi had "mated eight times." Veterinarians then carried out an artificial insemination "to have as much chance as possible" to see a pregnancy.
Giant pandas have difficulty breeding and their pregnancies are notoriously difficult to follow.
"We just lived a moment of rare intensity. These births are always very exceptional but they also bring some surprises," said Delphine Delord, director of the Beauval Zoo.
The cubs will not be named before 100 days. They will spend a few years in France before being sent to China, the zoo said.
Other nations in Europe also have giant pandas, including Austria, Britain, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Finland.
There are about 1,800 pandas living in the wild in China and about 500 in captivity worldwide.
China for decades gifted friendly nations with its unofficial national mascot in what was known as "panda diplomacy." More recently the country has loaned pandas to zoos on commercial terms.
Police say that arrests have been made in connection with a $20-million gold heist at Toronto Pearson International Airport one year ago.
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The British government's plan for a landmark smoking ban that aims to stop young people from ever smoking cleared its first hurdle in Parliament on Tuesday despite vocal opposition from within Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservative Party.
More potential jurors were dismissed Tuesday from Donald's Trump's hush money case as lawyers worked for a second day to find a panel of New Yorkers to decide whether the Republican will become the first former president convicted of a crime.
The creation of sexually explicit deepfake content is likely to become a criminal offense in England and Wales as concern grows over the use of artificial intelligence to exploit and harass women.
Canadians will learn Tuesday the entirety of the federal Liberal government's new spending plans, and how they intend to pay for them, when Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland tables the 2024 federal budget.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says she's urging Israel to de-escalate rising conflicts in the Middle East and not bomb Iran in retaliation for this past weekend's thwarted airstrikes.
The federal leader of the New Democrats is insisting his party's position on carbon pricing remains unchanged.
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NASA confirmed Monday that a mystery object that crashed through the roof of a Florida home last month was a chunk of space junk from equipment discarded at the International Space Station.
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A portrait of Winston Churchill by an artist whose work the British leader loathed went on display Tuesday at Churchill's birthplace ahead of an auction in June.
Canadian 'Jeopardy!' champion Mattea Roach will return for the season annual 'Jeopardy! Masters' tournament.
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Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says the annual pace of housing starts in March declined seven per cent compared with February.
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In Salman Rushdie's first book since the 2022 stabbing that hospitalized him and left him blind in one eye, the author wastes no time reliving the day he thought might be his last.
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