Giant pandas Meng Meng and Jiao Qing will take a chartered flight from Chengdu Saturday to settle in their new home in Berlin Zoo, Germany, on a 15-year research mission.

The furry ambassadors will be accompanied by two Chinese keepers, Berlin Zoo’s senior vet, 1,000 kilograms of bamboo and a large number of biscuits.

Meng Meng, a female, is four years old, and loves being on camera and sleeping, while Jiao Qing is a seven-year-old male, who is very active and loves physical activity.

They were both born at Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. Berlin Zoo has been preparing for their arrival since October.

“We have built new enclosures in an area of 5,500 square meters, neighboring the oldest enclosures, built for antelopes and giraffes in 1871,” said Andreas Ochs, a senior veterinarian at the zoo.

Berlin weather is more agreeable than in Chengdu, so the pandas can stay outside for the whole year, according to Ochs.

The zoo has planned a 1,000 square-meter outside enclosure for each panda and a 250 square-meter inside area, as well as room for treatment, storing bamboo and quarantine.

To better host the bears, the zoo has sent a team to China to learn specific skills to care for them.

“We have learned to design enclosures for keeping the bears and how to go into the cage and remove the baby bear for nursing and to return it to the mother again once the couple give birth,” Ochs said.

China has gifted three pandas to Germany since the early 1980s. Bao Bao and Tian Tian were the first panda couple in Berlin Zoo, though Tian Tian died in 1982.

Bao Bao remained alone until Yan Yan was loaned to the zoo in 1995 to breed. However, breeding attempts were unsuccessful despite trying artificial insemination seven times.

Thirty-four-year-old Bao Bao died in Berlin in 2012, as the oldest male panda in the world.

“Jiao Qing is grown-up now and Meng Meng will be ready to mate in two years. We expect to see their baby born in Berlin,” said Yin Hong, Meng Meng’s keeper in Chengdu.

China Wildlife Conservation Association and Berlin Zoo signed a 15-year contract in April. The research team at Chengdu Base singled the panda pair out based on their health, age and hereditary genes, said Yin.

This year marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Germany.

“They are envoys for China-Germany friendship. All the people in Berlin are looking forward to seeing this pair of pandas soon,” Ochs said.

Chinese police have arrested 16 employees or former employees of an Apple contractor for selling the personal information of iPhone users.

In January, police in Cangnan county of eastern China’s Zhejiang Province suspected several employees or former employees of an Apple distributor and a contractor of stealing user data, the county procuratorate said in a statement Friday.

In May, police caught 22 people, 20 of whom worked for the two companies, from Guangdong, Jiangsu and Fujian provinces.

So far, sixteen have been arrested and four remain under investigation.

Fifteen of those arrested work for Guangzhou Telecom Yingke Company, a contractor which provides consulting and after-sales service for Apple.

Prosecutors said that starting from August 2013, the chief suspects Yang, Li and Gan, used their internal system to illegally check personal information of iPhone users.

They illegally obtained names, telephone numbers, email accounts and addresses of Apple customers.

In July, 2014, they were fired by the company, but continued to collude with company staff to steal information until August 2016

Each item of information was sold at 10 to 180 yuan (US$26.24).

Preliminary investigation showed that they made about 50 million yuan (about US$7.35 million) of illegal profit.

A landslide that occurred in southwest China’s Sichuan Province on Saturday morning smashed some 40 homes, where about 100 people are feared to be buried, according to sources with the authorities in Maoxian County.

The landslide from a high part of a mountain in Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Aba fell to Xinmo Village at about 6 a.m., blocking a 2-km section of a river course.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged all Party committees to advance reform, development and stability to create a sound environment for the upcoming 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Xi, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, made the remarks during an inspection tour in northern Shanxi Province, calling the congress a significant event for the Party and national political life.

During his inspection tour from Wednesday to Friday, Xi visited a revolutionary memorial museum, villages and enterprises in Shanxi Province.

At the revolutionary memorial museum in Xing County of Lyuliang city, Xi left a basket of flowers Wednesday morning to pay respect to the country’s war heroes.

The president said he was deeply moved after seeing pictures and old objects that reminded people of the old days of revolutionary struggle.

“Each part of the CPC’s revolutionary history is a vivid textbook of ideals and faith,” Xi said, urging Party members to forge ahead while staying true to the mission taken up by the CPC when it was founded in 1921.

He said that every Party member should remember the revolutionaries who devoted their lives to national independence and the people’s liberation, keep the mettle of the CPC members, be honest with the people, and create a better life for the people.

Xi met representatives of the old revolutionaries, spoke highly of their contribution and wished them good health.

On Wednesday afternoon, after over an hour’s drive, Xi visited three households in Zhaojiawa village in the destitute areas of Lyuliang Mountain region. He asked villagers the reasons for their poverty and the effects of anti-poverty measures.

After hearing that villager Liu Fuyou, his 71-year-old wife and 92-year-old mother were ill, Xi urged local officials to pay close attention to poverty caused by illness.

“In the past, I could not even dream that impoverished households could receive so much help from the Party and the government,” villager Cao Liuren told Xi.

“The Party and the government aim to serve the people, and it is our duty to let people live a better life,” Xi said.

Villager Wang Sannyu’s husband and son have passed away and her grandson and granddaughter are disabled. Xi urged local officials to arrange special education for her grandchildren.

To know drought-relief measures, Xi inspected a shallow well, the only water source for the village, as well as a cornfield. He also visited officials who were sent to help with poverty alleviation.

“It’s the Party’s solemn promise to let poverty-stricken people and areas enter a ‘moderately prosperous society’ along with the rest of the nation,” said Xi. He said efforts must be made to deliver on the promise no matter how arduous the process.

He called on poverty relief staff to stay humble, improve their abilities and realize their value by solving problems for the poor.

All the villagers came to see Xi off, applauding and cheering.

Xi visited Songjiagou New Village in Kelan county, where new houses have been built for people relocated from poor areas. Xi visited the home of impoverished villager Zhang Guiming, chatting with him about subsidies for resettlement as well as his new life and current troubles.

Xi said a major issue was to solve abject poverty. He said resettlement projects must respect the people’s will, taking relocation sites, investment, income, environmental protection and village management into consideration.

The president called on the villagers to “roll up sleeves and work harder together with the CPC Central Committee.”

Xi stressed technological innovation while visiting a rail transit equipment producer and a carbon materials company Thursday.

He inspected innovations in equipment manufacturing, electronic information, energy conservation and environmental protection, as well new materials and the coal chemical industry.

“Enterprises should play a major role in promoting industrial upgrading which is market-oriented. Breakthroughs should be made in technological transformation and innovation,” he said.

He called on the rail transit equipment company to grasp the opportunities of China’s transport development and the building of the Belt and Road to promote technological innovation and brand building.

“The creativity of enterprises, research institutes and researchers should be mobilized,” said Xi while inspecting the carbon materials company, adding they should get both a sense of achievement in innovation as well a sense of gains from the transformation of their achievements.

After hearing reports of Shanxi provincial officials, Xi praised their achievements in social and economic development, calling on local authorities and people to be bold in reform and innovation, and in tackling challenges.

Xi asked local authorities to enhance economic transformation by creating a good business environment and deepening supply-side structural reform.

Stating that issues of farmers, agriculture and the countryside are key priorities of the whole Party, Xi urged speeding up agricultural modernization and raising income of farmers via means ranging from better training to better basic public services.

Xi called for more efforts to improve people’s livelihoods by offering them better education and healthcare services.

Xi stressed green development, saying that stronger measures should be taken in economic transformation, environmental pollution control, ecological protection and restoration, as well as resource saving.

He called for strict intra-Party life, asking all Party organizations and Party members to follow rules on intra-Party political life and observe regulations and discipline.

“Officials who are both clean and willing to work deserve more opportunities of development,” Xi said.

Torrential rain lashed parts of central China’s Hunan and Hubei provinces over the past two days, with flooding affecting at least 390,000 people.

In western and northern Hunan, heavy rain triggered flash floods, damaging mountain roads and raising the risk of landslides, the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters said Friday.

The storms, the heaviest this summer, brought over 160 mm of rainfall in some areas in just one day. In Yueyang, 47 small and medium-sized reservoirs overflowed.

Floods have affected 334,000 people in 13 counties and districts, toppling 46 houses and forcing the evacuation of 9,100 people.

Heavy rain is forecast to continue in Hunan in the next five days.

In Xianning of Hubei, rain-triggered power outages affected 30,000 households. But by Friday evening, power have been restored to 87 percent of the households.

In Chongyang county of Xianning, floods affected over 50,000 people and damaged around 4,660 hectares of crops. Meanwhile, 26 small reservoirs overflowed.

In Puge county of southwest China’s Sichuan Province, rain-triggered landslides left two villagers dead and one missing early Friday morning. Four more were injured but were in stable condition after emergency treatment.