A Baby Panda Star Is Born - Wall Street Journal (blog)

By Yoree Koh

Pop the champagne and sound the trumpets: Japan’s got a baby panda to celebrate.

In what might be the most celebrated birth in Japan since the last prince was born in 2006, the country paused Thursday afternoon to drink in the news that seven-year-old giant panda Shin Shin is now a proud mother. It is the first birth at Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo in 24 years (watch the zoo’s spycam video of mother and child above).

Associated Press

Female giant panda Shin Shin eats lunch at Ueno Zoo in Tokyo. View slideshow

Footage of Shin Shin roaming around her pen at the zoo pre-motherhood dominated major TV stations – taking a break from the political drama that erupted over the last week — and Twitter lit up with elated chirps.

The zoo said the mother and newborn appear to be doing well. The baby’s sex is still unknown. Ueno Zoo suspended public viewing of Shin Shin on June 30 amid strong signs indicating she is pregnant.

Shin Shin’s apparent pregnancy had generated excitement among animal lovers in recent months. It even attracted the attention of Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, who proposed the baby panda be named Sen Sen or Kaku Kaku after the territorial disputed islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. Shin Shin, on loan from China, arrived in Japan last year shortly before the March 11 disasters. Japan Real Time has more.