The inaugural voyage along the "Polar Silk Road" shipping route from China to Europe was completed on Monday as the container ship Istanbul Bridge reached the UK, just 20 days after departing from east China.
Loaded with more than 1,000 standard containers or Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEU), the Istanbul Bridge departed from the Ningbo-Zhoushan Port in the eastern province of Zhejiang on September 23 and successfully arrived at Britain's largest container port of Felixstowe on Monday evening local time via the Arctic route.
This marks the successful launch of the world's first China-Europe Arctic container express route.
Next, the cargo ship will continue on to dock in the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland.
The new route will connect major Chinese ports, including Qingdao, Dalian, Shanghai and Ningbo, with key European ports such as Felixstowe in Britain, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Hamburg in Germany, and Gdansk in Poland.
It is the fastest container shipping route between major ports in China and Europe, significantly shortening the journey and transportation time by crossing the Arctic Ocean. Taking just 20 days to complete, it is significantly faster than the China-Europe freight train (about 25 days), the Suez Canal route (about 40 days), and the Cape of Good Hope route (about 50 days).
According to Ningbo Customs, the cargo on this initial voyage is valued at 1.4 billion yuan (about 190 million U.S. dollars), including clothing, energy storage cabinets, and power batteries.
The route is also seen as a key achievement under the Belt and Road Initiative's "Polar Silk Road," poised to provide faster and lower-carbon logistics options for industries such as advanced manufacturing, cross-border e-commerce, and new energy.
First voyage on faster China-Europe Arctic shipping route reaches UK port
The U.S.-Israeli airstrikes against Iran since February 28 have inflicted irreparable damage on the country's priceless cultural heritage sites, according to Hassan Fartousi, secretary-general of the Iranian National Commission for UNESCO.
Speaking to the press on Tuesday, Fartousi said that 132 cultural heritage items have been attacked in recent strikes, emphasizing that the losses extend far beyond monetary valuation.
"Last night, I was told that 132 pieces [items] of our cultural heritage have been attacked, and it is really impossible to say how much the costs are, and it can be said that these (damaged cultural heritage items) are priceless and irreparable. How can these be defined?" Fartousi said.
Among the most severely affected sites is the Golestan Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 2013.
Fartousi said that about 40 percent of the palace's historic mirror works, dating back nearly 220 years to the Qajar period, have been damaged.
"Unfortunately, in Golestan Palace, there are almost 40 percent of the mirror works [that] have been damaged which belong to almost 220 years ago, the Qajar period. The same situation [occurred] in the Saad Abad complex [in] which the Green Palace [was] attacked in a way which the specialists were telling me very sadly that it may not be possible to repair some of the damages," he said.
The Golestan Palace complex, selected as the royal residence and seat of power by the Qajar ruling family in the 19th century, has been described by UNESCO as "a masterpiece of the Qajar era, embodying the successful integration of earlier Persian crafts and architecture with Western influences."
The Saad Abad complex, a sprawling former royal compound in northern Tehran, encompasses an extensive park with multiple buildings now serving as museums dedicated to Iran's cultural history. The official residence of Iran's president is located adjacent to the site.
U.S.-Israeli airstrikes cause irreparable damage to Iran's cultural heritage sites: UNESCO official
