To people of Taiwan with love: Panda pair, a Christmas gift

A pair of long-promised giant pandas symbolizing "peace, unity and friendship" will be sent to Taiwan next Tuesday as a latest sign of warming ties across the Straits, officials said yesterday.

The mainland first offered the pandas to the island in 2005, but the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party administration rejected them.

The island's current leader Ma Ying-jeou, however, has tried to nurture ties with the mainland and accepted the pandas as a gesture of goodwill.