Pandas departed Chengdu for their new homes in Georgia as part of agreement between Chinese and US governments

Two giant pandas departed Chengdu in south-western China early on Sunday for their new homes in Atlanta, Georgia, as part of an agreement between the Chinese and US governments.

While in Washington DC for a three-day summit with Donald Trump, Chinese president Xi Jinping announced that the pandas would arrive in Atlanta in the coming days. The loan of the pandas to the Atlanta zoo was one of the few concrete outcomes to come out of Xi’s state visit with the US president, which saw expressions of goodwill between the leaders, but no fixes to any of the longstanding differences between the two countries.