Fears historic jewels may be lost forever

BERLIN (GN): Diamond-encrusted swords and intricately designed brooches stolen from a former royal palace in Germany may never be seen again, experts warn. The items, part of a collection created in 1723 by Saxony’s ruler, Augustus the Strong, are so recognisable that thieves are likely to break them up. Artworks taken from the Dresden Green Vault are described as “priceless”. The head of Dresden state museums, Marion Ackermann, said destroying the artworks would be a “terrible idea”. “We are talking here about items of inestimable art-historical and cultural-historical value,” she said. “We cannot put an exact value on them because they are priceless.” Police have released a series of photos of the stolen jewels and appealed for witnesses. The thieves broke into the vault, known in German as Dresden’s GrünesGewölbe, at dawn on Monday after a fire at the building’s power distributor appears to have turned off the alarm system. An inspection of the museum afterwards revealed that a number of items within the three diamond jewellery sets reported stolen were still in place. Seven other sets that make up the collection were left untouched.Thieves had managed to gain access to a display case that contained about 100 objects, police said. Ms Ackermann told reporters she was “shocked by the brutality of the break-in”, adding that criminals would have escaped with more jewellery had objects not been so well secured within their cases.

China’s “artificial sun” device set to be commissioned in 2020

CHENGDU (Xinhua): The HL-2M Tokamak, China’s next-generation “artificial sun,” is expected to be operational in 2020 as installation work has gone smoothly since the delivery of the coil system in June. Designed to replicate the natural reactions that occur in the sun using hydrogen and deuterium gases as fuels, the device aims at providing clean energy through controlled nuclear fusion. The new apparatus, with a more advanced structure and control mode, is expected to generate plasmas hotter than 200 million degrees Celsius, said DuanXuru, head of the Southwestern Institute of Physics under the China National Nuclear Corporation. Duan was quoted at the ongoing 2019 China Fusion Energy Conference held in Leshan, southwest China’s Sichuan Province. The artificial sun will provide key technical support for China’s participation in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project, as well as the self-designing and building of fusion reactors, he noted.