A government-sponsored report says neutral Switzerland played a key role in building the nuclear weapons of South Africa's former apartheid regime.
"Swiss industry got around the arms embargo that the UN had imposed on South Africa in grand style," said Peter Hug, a historian who produced one of the reports in the Swiss National Science Foundation's six-year investigation into Swiss-South African relations.
Germany was among the countries that also played a role, the University of Bern history professor said, but gave no details.
"The fissionable material needed for this originated from the uranium enrichment that South Africa had built up with technical support from Switzerland, Germany and other countries," Hug wrote in his 11-page report for the project.
South Africa built six nuclear weapons and partially assembled a seventh between the 1970s and 1993, when then-President F.W. de Klerk stood in front of Parliament to disclose the program and announce that the bombs had all been dismantled. De Klerk renounced the program that had been aimed at neighboring states opposed to apartheid and Cold War instability that was fueling the war in nearby Angola.
He said a handful of companies and a government research institute were involved in South Africa's atomic program. In 1977, one firm began to supply "highly sensitive technology" to South Africa's uranium enrichment program. The deal was for at least 100 million Swiss francs (US$78 million), he said.
"Though details are not clear, deliveries occurred via the subsidiary in South Africa," he said.
Hug said another Swiss company helped supply aluminum vacuum outlets to South Africa, which "played an important role in uranium enrichment," he said.
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
RSS