Border guards in the Russian Far East have rescued 17 bear cubs which smugglers were trying to take into China.

The cubs were found in a consignment of apple cartons at a border crossing in the Primorye Territory, north of Vladivostok.

They had been drugged, and one had died.

Ecologists say they would have been used in China for the production of medicines.

The Russian guards themselves have been looking after the bears while arrangements are made for their transfer to rehabilitation centres and, eventually, back to the wild.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service