Day: January 20, 2017

    The first ever direct freight train service from China to the UK has arrived in London after an epic 17-day journey. The East Wind service departed Yiwu City in China’s Zhejiang Province on 3 January and crossed ten countries on its 7,456-mile trip, before pulling into Barking rail terminal in East London on Wednesday afternoon. It crossed China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, Belgium and France before finally reaching Britain. The train, which is operated by Yiwu Timex Industrial Investments, arrived carrying 34 containers packed with £4 million worth of clothes and other goods and was greeted by a group of officials and local residents. The Chinese and British governments hope the new route will increase trade between the two countries. Transporting goods ...

    A suspected unexploded Second World War bomb found in the River Thames near the Houses of Parliament is being towed away for safe disposal, police said. The operation by the Royal Navy and Metropolitan Police to recover the bomb led to disruption in central London on Thursday. The Waterloo and Westminster bridges were forced to shut for several hours, Westminster underground station closed and river traffic halted after the device was dredged up near the Victoria Embankment. A Port of London Authority spokesman told the BBC that the suspected bomb measured around 2 ft by 1 ft (60cm x 30cm). A police cordon remained in place into the early hours of Friday morning as the device was removed. Large crowds of tourists and passers-by gathered at the police tape with some calmly ...