Two giant pandas from China landed Sunday in Scotland/The Associated Press

BEIJING — Two giant pandas from China landed Sunday in Scotland, where they will become the first to live in Britain in nearly two decades.

The 8-year-old pair, named Tian Tian and Yang Guang — or Sweetie and Sunshine — were welcomed by bagpipe players and a host of dignitaries as they touched down at Edinburgh Airport on a specially chartered Boeing 777 flight called the "Panda Express."

The pandas, from the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan, are to stay for 10 years at Edinburgh Zoo, where officials hope they will give birth to cubs. The female, Tian Tian, has had twin cubs in the past, but not with Yang Guang. The male panda has previously fathered cubs as well.

The loan marked the beginning of a U.K.-China research program on the animals, and both sides have described it as a signal of a growing friendship between Scotland and China. China sometimes gives or lends the cuddly looking animals — considered a Chinese national treasure — to other countries to boost relations.

"It shows that we can cooperate closely not only on commerce, but on a broad range of environmental and cultural issues as well," said British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

Zoo officials have spent the past five years securing the loan of the animals, which are expected to boost Scottish tourism. The loan was announced in January, when Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang visited Britain to sign billions in trade deals.

The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland will pay more than 600,000 pounds ($935,000) a year to China for the loan of Sweetie and Sunshine, not including the expense of importing bamboo from the Netherlands.

The pair of pandas, which were given an in-flight meal of bamboo, apples and carrots, will have two weeks to settle at the zoo before going on display to the public. They will be kept in two separate enclosures for a few months until they are ready to be introduced to each other.

The zoo also plans to put four hidden "panda cams" in their enclosures and stream the footage online to attract viewers from around the world.

Britain's last giant panda, Ming Ming, lived in the London Zoo until 1994, when she was returned to China.

In 1974, British Prime Minister Edward Heath received two pandas from the Chinese government as a goodwill gift to mark his visit to China. Female Ching-Ching and male Chia-Chia became a much-loved attraction at the London Zoo, but never produced any cubs.

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14 killed in eastern China chemical plant explosion

BBC map

An explosion at a chemical plant in eastern China has killed fourteen workers.

It happened at a melamine production unit in Xintai in Shandong province where a condenser was being maintained and repaired, local officials say.
The cause of the explosion is not yet known.
Industrial accidents are common in China and are often blamed on widespread disregard for basic safety measures.
The state news agency Xinhua reported that the explosion happened on Saturday afternoon.
The plant belongs to Shandong Liaherd Chemical Industry Co Ltd, according to a statement issued by the Xintai city government.

Four workers were killed outright and ten more died in hospital, while another five injured were in a stable condition, said the statement.
An investigation into the cause of the blast is under way.

Melamine is a nitrogen-rich chemical used to make plastics and other products: however, Xinhua said no poisonous or harmful substances were released by the explosion.

China has a notoriously poor workplace safety record, with rules widely flouted as companies chase contracts and profits.
Accidents in factories and on construction sites are common - and China's coalmines are the most dangerous in the world, despite the government's efforts to improve safety standards.

Chinese internet-users have questioned whether China's rush to build a modern industrial economy has jeopardised workers' safety.

BBC NEWS

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School bus crash with coal truck kills 20 in China

credit: Getty Images

Eighteen children and two adults died after an overloaded school bus collided with a coal truck Wednesday in northwest China's Gansu province, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The nine-seater minibus was involved in a head-on collision with the truck in Yulinzi township in Zhengning county, in the Qingyang city area, an official from the city's work safety bureau told Xinhua.
The bureau blamed overloading, saying in a statement the bus had 64 people on board at the time. Most of them were children from Yulinzi's Little Doctor Kindergarten, Xinhua said.
Five people, including the bus driver, were reported to have died at the scene Wednesday morning, with the others confirmed dead later.
Another 45 people, most of them children, were injured and are being treated in hospital, Xinhua quotes the bureau as saying.

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China military accepts heavier, tattooed recruits

China's military is accepting heavier recruits and will no longer reject people for sporting prominent tattoos as it steps up a drive to attract young, new entrants, state media said on Wednesday.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) – already 2.3 million-strong – is on a major charm offensive to attract recruits, particularly from a booming student population that has become more wealthy and fashionable.
As such, the army has relaxed some of the stringent standards governing health examinations for this year's winter army conscripts, according to a Beijing News report posted on the defence ministry's website.
It said that men sporting tattoos less than two centimetres (0.8 inches) in diameter on their faces or necks would now be allowed into the army.
The report added that male soldiers would be accepted if they weighed up to 25 per cent more than the "standard weight" compared to last year's 20 per cent.
According to Contemporary Medicine, a medical journal managed by China's health ministry, a person's standard weight in kilos is calculated by subtracting 110 from his or her height in centimetres.
The changes come as the PLA targets young people – and particularly educated graduates – to bring skills the army needs to modernise.
As the Chinese grow more and more affluent, their waistlines have also expanded with richer diets. Many of the nation's youth, meanwhile, have grown more fashion-conscious and trendy.
Highlighting its drive to attract qualified youth, the ministry has also decided to pay up to 6,000 yuan (£590) every year to university students who enrol in the army, to help them pay off their education, the report said.
The number of graduates in China has grown from 3.38 million in 2005 to 6.3 million in 2010, Colonel Jiang Jiping – in charge of recruitment in the PLA – told reporters in September.

CNN NEWS

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Mine disaster kills 29 people in China

Rescue officials gather at the Xialiuchong colliery in Hengyang, China's Hunan province, October 30, 2011 in this still image taken from video. A blast at a coal mine in southern China has killed 28 people, state news agency Xinhua said on Sunday, in the latest disaster to hit the accident-prone industry. REUTERS/CCTV via Reuters TV

BEIJING (Reuters) - A blast at a coal mine in southern China has killed 29 people, state news agency Xinhua said on Sunday, in the latest disaster to hit the accident-prone industry.
The gas explosion happened on Saturday afternoon at the state-owned Xialiuchong colliery in Hunan province's Hengyang while 35 miners were at work, the report said.
One miner who had remained alive was later found dead, it said. The six survivors have been sent to hospital.
Luo Lin, the head of the State Administration of Work Safety, and Hunan governor Xu Shousheng have arrived at the site of the accident to oversee the investigation, Xinhua said.
The mine had been operating legally, it said. Many disasters happen at illegal mines, or those that the government has closed down and have then been surreptitiously reopened.
China's mines are the deadliest in the world, due to lax safety standards and a rush to feed demand from a robust economy.
In 2010, 2,433 people died in coal mine accidents in China, although this was an improvement on the toll of 2,631 a year earlier.

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