South Africa

Suspect charged with nuclear trafficking

The head of a South African engineering company was charged Friday with trafficking in nuclear-related materials that could be used to make weapons of mass destruction.

Johan Meyer, 53, made a brief appearance at Vanderbijlpark Magistrates Court on charges of violating South Africa’s Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction Act and Nuclear Energy Act. He was not asked to plead and was remanded in custody pending a bail hearing on Sept. 8.

Details were sketchy. But the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria said Meyer’s arrest was linked to investigations into the network of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced founder of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program who admitted in February to passing nuclear technology to other countries.

Germany

Fire at library destroys thousands of books

A fire that ripped through one of Germany’s most precious historical libraries destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of irreplaceable books, although some 6,000 works, including a 1543 Martin Luther Bible, were spirited to safety, officials said Friday.

Some 25,000 books were destroyed and another 40,000 damaged by water and smoke from the fire Thursday night in Weimar’s Duchess Anna Amalia Library, housed in a 16th-century rococo-style palace, said Ulrike Bestgen, an expert with the Weimar Classics Foundation.