lynne way remains the chiang mai zoo the only giant panda now living in thailand. joining me for more on this story. or lived there reported in beijing for many years welcome at 1st i mean giant pandas like frank frank they are actually part of china's diplomatic outreach into the world isn't i don't think many people are aware that this is the case and what prompted china to begin this kind of diplomacy in the 1st place well as a national symbol i can't think of any country that has quite as powerful a national symbol as china and the pound it's central to the thinking in china i suppose and in 171 when richard nixon brother u.s. president richard the. and u.s. president richard nixon went there as a way of sort of cementing this new friendship as china began to open up the chose the pond and the era of panda diplomacy was born and so i think it just seemed like a perfect symbol at the time so clearly the chinese state take this very seriously but so are people in china especially in relation to the death of trying trying let's just take a quick look at some of th

lynne way remains the chiang mai zoo the only giant panda now living in thailand. or formula one's singapore grand prix begins on friday and organizers are concerned that 6 smaug from forest fires in neighboring indonesia could cause problems for practice and for sunday's race now experts say air quality has worsened to unhealthy levels race organizers say they have a contingency plan in case the haze affects sunday's nighttime race but they have not told us what that plan is. this is g w news and these are our top stories following tuesday's inconclusive election israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu has called on his main rival centrist binny guns of the blue and white alliance to form a unity government but netanyahu wants to be at the helm guns also wants a coalition but he wants to lead. he's 20 people have been killed and more than 90 wounded in a truck bomb attack in southern afghanistan authorities say the early morning blast occurred next to the hospital in the city of the taliban have claimed responsibility. racism scandal surrounding the canadian pr