China's great wall even longer

It's reported that the Great Wall of China is even greater than previously thought.

The official Chinese news agency says archaeologists have discovered it actually stretches another five-hundred kilometres, to the edge of the Lop Nur desert in the western province of Xinjiang, which was until recently used as a nuclear test site. And it says the wall may go even further. The Great Wall was built some two-thousand years ago to keep out invaders.

There's been no independent verification of the report, but correspondents say Beijing periodically puts out claims that vast areas currently under its control have always been part of China.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service