Taipei Zoo welcomes pair of red pandas from China
Taipei, June 6: A zoo in Taiwan’s capital received a pair of endangered red pandas from China on Saturday, in the first exchange of animals in more than a decade as tensions between the two sides run high.
The pandas, a 3-year old male and a 2-year-old female, will be in quarantine for a month and then acclimated to their new home in the Taipei City Zoo before they are unveiled to the public.
The two pandas have yet to be named. While the male panda immediately began to explore his new home and ate, the female remained cautious and preferred to observe, the Taipei Zoo said.
Taipei last received red pandas from a zoo in China in 2014. The animals are endemic to China, as well as Nepal, Laos and Myanmar, among others.
Taipei will send white-handed gibbons to Shanghai as part of the exchange, the Taipei Times said. (AP)
Glasgow student shortlisted for BAFTA Game Designers Award
London, June 6: An Indian student studying at a UK university has been shortlisted for a BAFTA Young Game Designers Award for a game exploring the life of a sweatshop worker in India.
D’Arcy Dhanda, a first-year student at the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, has been nominated in the 15-18 years category for his creation, Maya.
The game follows the story of a young widow working long hours in a garment factory while raising a child and struggling with poverty. The game uses a series of mini-scenes depicting both factory work and home life to highlight the pressures faced by the main character.
Professor Martin Halvey, Head of the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at Strathclyde, said: “D’Arcy’s nomination reflects both his creativity and ability to use game design to tell meaningful stories.
“The game’s mechanics imitate real-life working conditions and give players a glimpse into Maya’s reality. I wanted to create something people could feel emotionally connected to,” D’Arcy said.
“You spend long days at a sewing machine and even the repetitive actions are designed to reflect the physical strain of that kind of work. People do not always think about those realities.
“I chose to set the game in India because I am Indian myself and I felt I had the cultural understanding to tell the story,” he said. (PTI)
Parade, in London, on Saturday. (PTI)
