News from Austria

Father of five pandas, Long Hui, has died during emergency surgery on an abdominal tumour at Vienna's Schönbrunn Zoo.

The tumour was only recently diagnosed. Since his diagnosis in mid-November, the Chinese bear had spent most of his time inside, while still remaining visible to zoo visitors.

Long Hui was described as having a very relaxed character and usually a happy disposition. His caretakers did not dare to leave him out of their sight during this difficult and uncertain time for him.

The 16-year old panda recently became the father of twin panda babies at the famous zoo, named Fu Feng and Fu Ban by popular vote. Having arrived at Schönbrunn in March of 2003, Long Hui has five panda offspring in total with his panda partner, Yang Yang.

According to a report in the Die Presse newspaper, Long Hui had been under intensive treatment. An ultrasound showed the ten centimetre tumour in his abdomen on Tuesday.

As his conditioned worsened, and in consultation with panda specialists from China, it was decided to carry out emergency surgery on Friday morning.

His lungs showed changes consistent with metastases, and sadly his heart stopped beating while under anesthesia.

bb1 wrote:What a fool - he's lucky he wasn't shot first and questions asked later.

British and American expats living in Vienna will be able to get traditional treats from back home while Christmas shopping after Bobby's supermarket opened up a new store on the Mariahilferstrasse.

Located at the Westbahnhof end of the busy shopping street, the second branch of the foodstore which is already a fashionable hit in Vienna's fourth district is now also accessible on the city's main shopping street.

The main store on Schliefmühlgasse came into existence after British-born businessman Johnny Szewczuk, 51, decided to open the first of a number of pubs that he now runs in the city, and needed to import a lot of the things he wanted to sell like crisps, soft drinks and alcoholic beverages such as cider.

Realising it was impossible to buy the stuff locally, he then decided to try and sell it to the strong expat community in the city, and the supermarket idea was born. But the now famous Bobby's supermarket does not sell warm food, and for some time now he's wanted to add a second address where some of the things on sale can be heated up and tried out by customers.

So every day there is a selection of curries, pies and soups being sold which are the perfect thing during a cold winter shopping expedition to take a break, and warm up.

The store also sells a selection of sweets and drinks, biscuits, marmalades, sauces, cereals and other traditional items from English-speaking countries that are available in the main store in the fourth district.

But despite the warm food, the main reason everybody is visiting the store at the moment is to buy Christmas crackers, the traditional British festival item that adorns the dinner table every December.

bb1 wrote:Sounds very enterprising.