When Lien Chan visited China back in April he was offered a gift of two panda bears. Well, it seems that the pandas have beenare being selected, but they’re already getting a bit tired of the media circus:

A process of Beijing officials selecting a pair of pandas to be proffered as a gift for rival Taiwan — normally a scene of Chinese pomp and glory — quickly deteriorated into pandemonium when one of the pandas bit a female journalist in the hand.

The mainland Chinese journalist, who was not named by press reports, stuck her hand in a panda cage as she attempted to photograph one of the rare black-and-white animals at Sichuan Province Wolong Nature reserve.

The five-year old Panda “Ximei”, was pregnant, which affected her normally docile mood and made her grumpy, causing her to take a bite at the press, experts said.

I hate to think what the pandas will make of Taiwan’s famously aggressive media.

It is still unclear whether the pandas will ever make it into Taiwan – back in May the official line was that they would only be accepted if all the permits from the ‘Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species’ were in place (a problem, as the donors don’t believe it is an international trade). Now the Mainland Affairs Council seems to have softened its stance a bit, saying that ‘major international conservation groups would have to have a say on whether Taiwan is able to take care of the animals’. So maybe the penguins and koalas will be getting worried about losing their top billing at Taipei Zoo …