BERN, SWITZERLAND – The news comes as something of an anti-climax after 8 years in the making: the two Tinner brothers and their 74-year-old father are being charged with breaking Swiss arms export laws. They were part of an operation run by Pakistani Abdul Qadeer Khan, who supplied nuclear parts and secrets to a network that included Libya. Libya’s nuclear plans were revealed when the Tinner case came to light in 2003, and, largely as a result, Libya was forced to abandon its programme.
The family of engineers has agreed to a deal, according to the Swiss public prosecutor’s office, whereby they will serve a maximum of five years, but details of the arrangements will remain secret.
One of the open questions linked to the case is whether the family cooperated with the CIA.
Background, GenevaLunch, “The political tug of war over the Tinner’s nuclear plans drags on”, 2009
One person was killed and four were hurt in an explosion at a French nuclear waste site on Monday 12 September, but officials said there was no radioactive leak and the authorities quickly declared the emergency over.
L’Autorite de Surete Nucleaire, France’s nuclear safety agency, says it appears a furnace exploded at the Centraco nuclear waste treatment site.
The blast was completely contained within the furnace, which is used to melt waste.
The oven, used to melt low-level radioactive waste, blew up and caught fire but no radioactive or chemical leaks occurred, said power company Électricité de France SA, whose subsidiary operates the furnace.
Links to: La Provence (Fr), CTV, The Wall Street Journal
Japan has established a 20km no-go zone around the Fukushima nuclear plant and has announced that it will impose penalties to anyone breaking the rule.
According to government sources, the fines of up to US$1,200 are necessary to protect the health and safety of the area’s roughly 70,000 residents.
Up to 60 families have returned to the area and were found living in their homes in spite of official warnings.
Reactor cooling systems at the Fukushima nuclear plant were damaged during the Tsunami that hit the country over a month ago, and have since been hit by a series of explosions which have leaked radiation into the air, ground and sea.
This Al Jazeera news report tells the story of former residents going in the no-go zone, trying to recuperate what was left behind
Link to: The Japan Times
Japan is reviewing the possibility of completely covering the three damaged nuclear reactors at the Daiichi plant. It would be the first time anyone has tried to take such a measure. “Seawater near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility’s No.1 reactor contained radioactive iodine at 3,355 times the legal limit and a spokesperson for Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said extraordinary measures must now be taken,” reports Xinhua.
Japanese TV station NHK says reporters were told Wednesday morning that while airborne radiation levels continue to decline, the seawater contamination “was the highest measured in waters off the plant. The level of radioactive iodine-131 found 330 meters south of a water outlet of the plant was 3,355 times regulated standards at 1:55 PM on Tuesday.” The station notes that the outlet is used to drain water from reactors numbers 1 to 4.
“‘The (radiation) figures are rising further,’” said the agency’s deputy director-general, Hidehiko Nishiyama. “‘We need to find out as quickly as possible the cause and stop them from rising any higher.’”
The president of Tokyo Electric Power company, which owns the plant, has been hospitalized with stress and fatigue, Japanese media report, and CNN carries an article about the “austere” living conditions at the plant.
Links to other sites: ABC Australia, Aljazeera, CNN, NHK, Xinhua
©2011 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
Swiss 6pm flight from Zurich to decide later if landing in Tokyo or Osaka
Home sweet home at Zurich airport, but not all Swiss in Japan are keen to rush home
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss government Sunday 20 March temporarily moved its embassy in Japan from Tokyo to Osaka, after reserving all available seats on Swiss airline flights 18, 19 and 20 March, for Swiss citizens.
The moves were part of a series of precautionary measures, with shifting winds adding to uncertainty about radiation in northeastern Japan.
Swiss Monday afternoon says its 18:00 flight from Zurich to Tokyo will leave as scheduled, but a decision about whether to land in Tokyo or Osaka will be made later. The flight stops in Hong Kong. The airline operates an afternoon and evening flight to Tokyo daily and one evening flight to Zurich from Tokyo. Planes returning are being checked for radiation and up to now the tests remain negative, says the airline.
“According to Swiss experts, developments surrounding the nuclear reactor infrastructure in Fukushima remain uncertain,” the government said in a statement issued Sunday.
The nuclear power plant re-established electricity over the weekend but staff were evacuated following unexplained smoke Monday. The smoke has since cleared, reports Reuters.
Zurich’s yes makes it an urban vs rural vote
Geneva says no to tax amnesty and single state housing body
Swiss army soldiers: the guns will stay at home
Update 3, 18:00 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss citizens Sunday 13 February at 16:30 were close to resoundingly rejecting (TSR map) a popular initiative that would end the long-standing practice of keeping military arms at home.
Final official results are in from 25 of 26 cantons: 20 have rejected the initiative and 6 have approved it. Zurich is the latest one in, voting “yes” but in a close vote, approved by 50.4 percent with 49.6 percent saying “no”.
Zurich, Geneva, Basel and canton Vaud with Lausanne have all approved it, turning the vote into an urban versus rural Switzerland divide, as well as a language regions divide.
Bern, however, with its urban and rural mix, rejected the proposed change to gun laws, voting 59.4 percent against it.
The “no” vote in several German-speaking cantons was more than 60 percent and in some cases 70 percent.
Overall, close to the final count coming in, the “no” vote was 57 percent.
Geneva, Vaud, Jura, Neuchatel and Basel City voted in favour of it, with 61 percent in favour in Geneva and 58.9 percent in Basel City while the others were 52-53 percent.
The arguments during the run-up to the vote were often emotional, with the rationale behind the initiative being to reduce the number of deaths and in particular suicides by firearms. But other issues underlay the votes, including state versus federal balance of power, since an approval would have created a national gun registry to replace cantonal ones and it would have made it more difficult to keep arms at home for sports purposes.
Fewer than one-quarter of registered guns in Switzerland are military issue firearms, the government has estimated.
Socialists and Greens as well as a number of church groups supported the initiative but the Federal Council opposed it, saying current legislation is adequate and the problems need to be addressed elsewhere.
Those in favour have argued that the easy accessibility of guns makes suicide too easy: if a gun is not handy many suicides could be avoided.
Some groups against the initiative have argued that tightening the rules would create a black market in guns, which could prove equally dangerous.
Switzerland has the highest rate of suicides by handguns in Europe, 24-28 percent from 1996 to 2005, according to a pre-vote report by Swissinfo. It trails well behind the United States, where the figure is 57 percent, says Swissinfo.
It is not the leading country overall, however: Switzerland, with 3-4 deaths by suicide a day, ranks 20th in the world for suicide according to World Health Organization figures, with 19.1 per 100,000 (USA: 11.1 per 100,000, ranks 40th).
Canton issues: Geneva says no to two initiatives, Bern votes for a nuclear power station
Geneva voters firmly rejected two initiatives, one that would have given a tax amnesty to those who have defrauded the government and another that would have brought under one roof four separate state bodies that are involved in construction for low-income and needy groups.
Bern agreed to a new nuclear power station in Muehleberg while canton Nidwald has said no to storing nuclear waste on its territory, at Wellenberg.
Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva is calling on world leaders to develop new tactics with Iran, to engage the country rather than isolating it. Lula da Silva and Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met in Brazil Monday 23 November and Lula, the rare leader to welcome Ahmadinejad, said in a joint press conference at the end that he supports Iran’s efforts to develop a peaceful nuclear energy programme. Lula’s background includes years as a union negotiator.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The question marks hanging over Iran’s nuclear activities, peaceful or warlike or possibly both, are bringing together in Geneva today 1 October top officials from Iran and the group known as 5+1: Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany. It follows an earlier meeting of the group in July 2008, which ended on a sour note, and where the head of the US delegation, William Burns, reportedly left the room to avoid shaking hands with his Iranian counterpart, Saeed Jalili. Early in 2009 US President Barack Obama’s administration said it intended to take a fresh approach, and Obama has since said that he wants to allow time to reassess the US relationship with Iran.
This session is described by Iran as an opportunity to discuss security in the region, and by some of the others as a chance for Iran to clarify its nuclear activities. It is also being seen in the West as a chance for China and Russia, whose attitudes towards Iran may have shifted in the past year, to provide their reaction to the announcement that Iran has a uranium enrichment plant at Qom.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss federal council refuses to give up documents related to the Tinner affair and intends to go ahead with its decision to destroy them, despite a court order to the contrary, Swiss president Hans-Rudolf Merz told Swiss German radio DRS yesterday.
The North Korean government announced it would enrich uranium and weaponize its plutonium stocks in a defiant response to the UN Security Council’s resolution to impose stricter sanctions on the country. The sanctions include a ban on arms purchase from North Korea, with which it finances its nuclear program, and searches of its ships at sea. The United States is considering applying greater restrictions on North Korea’s access to the international financial system. FT, BBC, CNN
Jaime Flor-Cruz of CNN, a longtime reporter in China who has visited North Korea, says on his most recent visit to the China-N Korea border that the dilemma for other nations of how to handle a very poor nation seeking respect with its nuclear efforts cannot be resolved by China, which has its own difficult relationship to sort out.
French officials denied claims of a relationship between nuclear weapons tests and health problems among the testers for decades. Defense Minister Hervé Morin told Le Figaro, Tuesday 23 March, that they will compensate those suffering from illnesses linked to radiation exposure from the test. French authorities carried out more than 200 nuclear tests between 1960 and 1996 that theoretically affected approximately 150,000 civilian and military personnel, according to Morin. International Herald Tribune
South Korea says that international nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea may be breaking down; N Korea announced it intends to start plutonium production again soon. AFP
