• 31 detained over brazen $50M diamond heist at Belgian airport

    Mozkito / Photonews via Getty Images, file

    The burned-out remains of the van used in the Feb. 18 diamond heist are shown in Zaventem, Belgium. Using a van and car to break down a security fence, a gang of robbers stole diamonds estimated to be worth $50 million from a plane bound for Zurich. Police have now arrested 31 people.

    By Raf Casert, The Associated Press

    BRUSSELS - Authorities claimed a major breakthrough on Wednesday in their investigation of a spectacular $50 million diamond heist, detaining at least 31 people in a three-nation sweep some three months after robbers pulled off the theft with clockwork precision at Brussels Airport

    A Frenchman who is believed to have been one of the actual robbers at the airport was arrested in France, while six to eight people were detained in Geneva, and 24 in and around Brussels. Police did not indicate what the other suspects' roles might have been.

    What's more, police say they have proof that diamonds found in Switzerland were part of the cache that was spirited away in the brazen Feb. 18 robbery that ranks among the biggest diamond heists of recent times.

    After two months of investigation on some of the suspects, police moved in. Suspects in France and Switzerland were detained on Tuesday, and the following day Belgian police carried out a massive operation, with 250 police involved in 40 house searches.

    "In Switzerland, we have found diamonds that we can already say are coming from the heist, and in Belgium large amounts of money have been found. And the investigation is still ongoing," said Jean-Marc Meilleur, a spokesman for the Brussels prosecutor's office. He said police had also found luxury cars.

    Meilleur was scant on detail, yielding no clues how police got on the trail of the suspects. Authorities were expected to announce later Wednesday how many of the detainees would be charged and arrested.

    In Geneva, a police statement said that "a very important quantity of diamonds was seized" during the sweep "coming from the spectacular heist at Brussels airport." While Belgian authorities spoke of six detentions in Switzerland, Geneva police put it at eight, including a businessman and a lawyer. Authorities were alerted when suddenly a member of a major criminal organization appeared in their city. The value of the diamonds was still being estimated.

    It was the first breakthrough in a robbery that many had started comparing to an "Ocean's Eleven"-type Hollywood script for its clinically clean execution during which no one was injured.

    On a cold winter evening, the diamonds had been loaded on a plane bound for Zurich when robbers, dressed in dark police clothing and hoods, drove through a hole they had cut in the airport fence in two black cars with blue police lights flashing. They drove onto the tarmac, approached the plane, brandished machine guns, offloaded the diamonds, then made their getaway in an operation that barely took five minutes. Later that night, investigators found the charred remains of a van most likely used in the heist, but little else.

    The stolen parcels contained both rough and polished stones. The trail ran dry until the surprise announcement on Wednesday.

    Meilleur said that the man held in France is suspected to be one of the robbers. "This person has a very heavy judicial background in France and his extradition to Belgium has been requested."

    Belgian authorities said that about 10 of the 24 people detained in Belgium were known criminals. The suspects ranged in age from 30 to 50, they said.

    The diamond industry, too, was totally caught by surprise by Wednesday's developments. "But we can only be happy," said Caroline De Wolf, spokeswoman for the Antwerp World Diamond Center.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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    This story was originally published on Wed May 8, 2013 6:40 AM EDT

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • 3 dead, 7 injured in Swiss factory shooting

    Urs Flueeler / EPA

    Police can be seen at the site of a Wednesday shooting in Menznau, Switzerland. Three people, including the gunman, died in a shooting at factory during a morning break in the cafeteria, a witness told local newspaper Neue Luzerner Zeitung.

    By Emma Thomasson, Reuters

    Three people, including the suspected assailant, have been killed in a shooting at a factory near the Swiss city of Lucerne, police said on Wednesday.

    Seven others were injured in the attack, which happened just after 9 a.m. local time (3 a.m. ET) at a wood-processing company in the town of Menznau, west of Lucerne, the police said in a statement.

    Urs Flueeler / EPA

    The motive for a Wednesday morning factory shooting in Switzerland was not immediately clear, police said.

    Emergency services were at the scene and the area had been cordoned off. A news conference had been scheduled for the afternoon.

    Last month, a gunman killed three women and injured two men in the Swiss village of Daillon, stirring a debate about Switzerland's firearm laws, which allow men to keep guns after their mandatory military service.

    There is no national gun register, but some estimates indicate that at least one in every three of Switzerland's 8 million inhabitants keeps a gun, many stored at home. Citizens outside the military who are 18 and over can apply for a permit to purchase up to three weapons. Sharpshooting and hunting are popular sports here.

    A shooting in the Zug regional parliament in 2001, in which 14 people were killed, prompted calls to tighten laws, but the majority of Swiss citizens rejected a proposal in 2011 for extra measures such as mandatory locked storage of guns not in use.

    Related:

    Three women killed after gunman's drunken rampage in Swiss village

    This story was originally published on Wed Feb 27, 2013 6:41 AM EST

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • Three women killed after gunman's drunken rampage in Swiss village

    A 33-year old man is under arrest after going on an alleged drunken rampage, killing three people and wounding two others in Daillon, Switzerland. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

    By Reuters

    GENEVA -- Three women were killed and two men were wounded late on Wednesday when a gunman opened fire in the Swiss village of Daillon, Swiss police and prosecutors said on Thursday.

    The 33-year-old gunman, who has not been named, threatened police when they tried to arrest him and was shot in the chest before being arrested and taken to hospital, police in the Swiss canton -- or region -- of Valais said. No police officers were wounded.

    Gun ownership is widespread in Switzerland and voters rejected a proposal in February 2011 to tighten the country's liberal firearms laws.

    The women killed in Daillon were aged 32, 54 and 79. They were all shot at least twice, in the head and chest. The youngest was married to one of the injured men and they had young children together, regional public prosecutor Catherine Seppey told a news conference.

    The injured men were aged 33 and 63, respectively.

    The gunman was a local resident who had been in psychiatric care in 2005 and was unemployed and living on welfare benefits, police said. His only previous conviction was for marijuana use.

    He used at least two firearms -- an old Swiss army carbine and a rifle capable of firing lead shot -- even though his weapons had been seized and destroyed in 2005, and he was not currently listed as having any guns.


    He began firing from his apartment, shooting at people in the street and in neighboring buildings, but later came out into the street, police said, adding that he appeared to have fired more than 20 shots.

    French-language Swiss website 20minutes.ch quoted villagers as saying the gunman had been drinking heavily. It also said he was armed with an assault rifle, but the public prosecutor did not confirm that information.

    Police were alerted by a caller who said several people were lying wounded on the ground at about 8:50 p.m. local time (2:50 p.m. ET) on Wednesday.

    Daillon is close to the town of Sion, the capital of the canton Valais.

    Mass shootings are rare in Switzerland, although gun possession is widespread -- some estimates run to at least one for every three of its 8 million inhabitants. Many are stored in people's attics, a legacy of Switzerland's policy of arming its men to defend its neutrality.

    Denis Balibouse / Reuters

    Police officers stand near a crime scene in the Swiss village of Daillon on Thursday after a gunman shot five people.

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  • Swiss bank UBS hit with $1.5 billion fine after admitting fraud, paying bribes

    By Reuters

    ZURICH - Swiss bank UBS was hit with a $1.5 billion fine on Wednesday, admitting to fraud, paying bribes to brokers and "pervasive" manipulation of global benchmark interest rates by dozens of staff in a deal with international authorities.

    The penalty agreed with U.S., UK and Swiss regulators is more than three times the $450 million fine levied on Britain's Barclays in June, also for rigging the Libor benchmark rate used to price financial contracts around the globe.

    It is the second-largest fine paid by a bank and comes a week after Britain's HSBC agreed to pay the biggest ever penalty - $1.92 billion - to settle a probe in the United States into laundering money for drug cartels.

    Michael Buholzer / Reuters

    A logo of Swiss bank UBS is seen on a building in Zurich.

    'Unethical behavior'
    The revelations are another blow to UBS, which has had a tough 18 months after suffering a $2.3 billion loss in a rogue trading scandal, management upheaval and thousands of job cuts.

    "We deeply regret this inappropriate and unethical behavior. No amount of profit is more important than the reputation of this firm, and we are committed to doing business with integrity," UBS Chief Executive Sergio Ermotti said in a statement disclosing the extent of the wrongdoing, which took place over six years from 2005 to 2010.

    UBS said it will pay $1.2 billion to the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), 160 million pounds to the UK's Financial Services Authority and 59 million Swiss francs from its estimated profit to Swiss regulator Finma.

    Full business coverage from NBC News

    "The core thing is it compares very poorly with Barclays' fine as it's three times the scale. It suggests there's more egregious behavior," said Chris Wheeler, analyst at Mediobanca in London

    The bank said the fines would widen its fourth quarter net loss but said it would not need to raise new capital as a result and traders said the fines were largely priced into the bank's shares, which were expected to open slightly higher in Zurich.

    Britain's financial regulator said at least 45 people were involved in the rigging across three continents, which took place across a range of Libor currencies. It involved senior managers at UBS directing traders to keep Libor submissions low in order to give the impression that the bank was able to borrow more cheaply than it would actually have been able to do so.


    The British FSA said that after August 2007, when the U.S. sub-prime crisis raised doubts about the financial health of banks, UBS told its staff to "protect our franchise in these sensitive markets".

    The extent of the wrongdoing was highlighted in documents released by the FSA which showed that in January 2007, a trader asked a manager who supervised the submitter for Yen Libor and asked him to "...try to keep 6m and 3m libors up".

    The manager responded: "standing order, sir".

    The FSA said "the manipulation was conducted openly and was considered to be a normal and acceptable business practice by a large pool of individuals".

    'Done ... for you big boy': How emails nailed Barclays

    The Libor benchmarks are used for trillions of dollars worth of loans around the world, ranging from home loans to credit cards to complex derivatives.

    Tiny shifts in the rate, compiled from daily polls of bankers, could benefit banks by millions of dollars. But every dollar a bank benefited meant an equal loss by a bank, hedge fund or other investor on the other side of the trade - raising the threat of a raft of civil lawsuits.

    In a memo to staff on Wednesday, Ermotti said it was too early to determine whether or how clients were affected, pending further regulatory probing of the rate fixing.

    The steep fine for UBS is despite the bank, since 2011, cooperating with law-enforcement agencies in their probes. The bank said it received conditional immunity from some regulators.

    A similar admission by Barclays in June touched off a political firestorm that forced its chairman and chief executive to quit. Ermotti said around 40 people had left UBS or been asked to leave the bank as a result of the investigation.

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  • Swiss army prepares for euro zone unrest

    By Matt Clinch, cnbc.com

    With anti-austerity protests across Europe resulting in civil unrest on the streets of Athens and Madrid, Switzerland -- the European country famed for its neutrality -- is taking unusual precautions.

    It launched the military exercise “Stabilo Due” in September to respond to the current instability in Europe and to test the speed at which its army can be dispatched. The country is not a member of the union or among the 17 countries that share the euro.

    Swiss newspaper Der Sonntag reported recently that the exercise centered around a risk map created in 2010, where army staff detailed the threat of internal unrest between warring factions as well as the possibility of refugees from Greece, Spain, Italy, France, and Portugal.

    The Swiss defense ministry told CNBC that it doesn't rule out having to deploy troops in the coming years.

    “It's not excluded that the consequences of the financial crisis in Switzerland can lead to protests and violence,” a spokesperson told CNBC.com. “The army must be ready when the police in such cases requests for subsidiary help.”

    Some 2,000 troops were part of the drill exercise in eight different towns across the country. Infantry soldiers were used as well as the air force and special forces personnel in an assignment that took years to organize.

    The decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to the EU was met with confusion among those who have witnessed Europe's economic crisis, and deep unrest. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    Quoted in a Schweizer Soldat magazine, Defense Minister Ueli Maurer warned of an escalation of violence in Europe.

    "I can’t exclude that in the coming years we may need the army," he said.

    Does the EU deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?

    According to the minister, some European countries - under pressure to save - didn't renew their armies as they could no longer afford the upkeep of modern systems. 

    He said that the situation could amplify dramatically, with countries that couldn't defend themselves facing the possibility of “blackmail.” In the paper, he also asked how long the crisis could be calmed with money alone.

    Der Sonntag newspaper also reported that army chief André Blattmann is set to submit a proposal in December to utilize four battalions of military police. This will consist of 1,600 soldiers guarding strategic points in the country including the airport, industrial plants, and the international organizations in Geneva.

    Protests have taken place in numerous European cities since the financial crisis hit the continent in 2008. In September, 70,000 people marched to the Greek Parliament in Athens and the protests ended with demonstrators clashing with police.

    Complete World coverage on NBCNews.com

    Last week, at least 7,000 plainclothes police and hundreds more undercover agents were mobilized to lock down Athens. Snipers, commando seals, frogmen, and helicopters were also present as German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the country and thousands of protesters streamed into Syntagma square.

    A reason to exist?
    The military is a hot topic in Switzerland, which has mandatory military service. Under Swiss law, all able-bodied men at age 19 have to undergo five months of training, followed by refresher courses of several weeks over the next decade.

    Countries with the highest unemployment rates

    A referendum is likely to take place next year to decide the fate of this conscription policy. The current number of recruits stands at 200,000 — the biggest army in Europe relative to population size.

    While Greece gears up for more protests against austerity cuts, the health care system is in tatters with little cash for drugs or doctors. ITV's James Mates reports.

    Josef Lang, the vice president of the Swiss Green Party and leader of the country’s pacifist movement, told CNBC.com that the defense ministry was using the euro zone crisis for political purposes ahead of this key vote.

    “They’re using social unrest and instability in Europe to give more credibility to the army,” he said. “Switzerland for many years has never fought anyone else. This is what we call in Switzerland interior actions — actions by the Swiss army against their own citizens. There is a long history of this in Switzerland.”

    Lang added that he didn't believe the streets of Switzerland would see the unrest that has been seen in Spain or Greece. GSOA, a group working to reduce the military activities of Switzerland, had similar thoughts.

    Austerity upon austerity doesn’t work: IMF’s Lagarde

    “The Swiss army is looking desperately for a reason to exist, this is why they always try to find new tasks,” a spokesperson said. “There are some very small groups which like smashing up windows, but this happens only two or three times per year and the police can handle it more or less well.”

    One former soldier in the Swiss army told CNBC that his superiors would often ask him to use ammunition liberally in training scenarios.

    “That meant: ‘Use up everything, have fun, if we don't use it all up they're going to think we need less and cut the budget,’ ” he told CNBC.com. “Sometimes they make up a kind of alternate Europe with made-up countries and stuff, just to give a frame for tactic games and exercises.”

     

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  • Five climbers dead after fall in Swiss Alps

    By msnbc.com staff

    Five climbers have died in an accident in the Swiss Alps near the Italian border, according to news service reports.

    The mountaineers successfully reached the 13,155-foot high Lagginhorn summit on Tuesday but plunged several hundred yards to their deaths after beginning their descent, police in the southern Valais region of Switzerland told The Associated Press. 

    A sixth member of the group, who had stopped before reaching the summit, alerted rescue authorities about the fall, but the five climbers had already died.

    "They all died at the scene of the accident," AFP reported, citing a statement from police in Valais.

    Details and the cause of the accident were not immediately available. The victims were not identified, but Swiss police said they were all foreign nationals.

    The Associated Press reported that prosecutors had opened an investigation.

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  • Swiss politician loses post, job after urging 'Kristallnacht' against Muslims

    By msnbc.com staff

    Right-wing Swiss politician Alexander Müller is out of a party post as well as his private job after using Twitter to call for “Kristallnacht … this time for mosques.”


    The Zurich man also faces a criminal investigation and police searched his home and confiscated his computer, according to media reports and his own blog.

    The prosecutor’s office said Müller, 37, admitted tweeting in response to the May acquittal on hate-speech charges of a Muslim man who said it was "Sharia-compliant” for a  man to beat his wife if she refused to have sex with him, the newspaper Tages Anzeiger (Daily News) and others said. Otherwise, Aziz Osmanoglu had said, the man might be unfaithful.

    Müller tweeted from his @dailytalk account, “Maybe we need a new Kristallnacht … this time against the mosques.”

    The tweet was erased, but newspapers, including 20 Minuten, recovered it and other posts.

    Müller also had tweeted that “we should take this pack out of the country. I do not want to live with such people” and “I would like to stand certain people up against the wall and shoot them. Less dirt on the earth would be good.”

    Müller’s tweets now are open only to confirmed followers, according to his Twitter profile page.

    On Wednesday, Müller held a news conference in which he apologized and resigned from the Swiss People's Party executive committee for Zurich districts 7 and 8 and from his seat on the local school board.

    Roger Liebi, the party's Zurich leader, said the comments were “unacceptable.”

    Watch World News videos on msnbc.com

    Müller said in his blog that he was fired from his job at a credit insurance firm after his employers learned of his tweets through the media.

    Abdel Azziz Qaasem Illi, spokesman for Islamic Central Switzerland, was quoted in Islamaphobia Today as saying that Müller's party is no friend to religious Muslims. In 2009, the party had supported a constitutional ban against the construction of minarets in Switzerland.

    Islamaphobia Today reported that Illi said statements against Jews are avoided in Switzerland, but "it is more common to hear anti-Muslim hate speech.”

    Dr. Herbert Winter, president of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities, called Muller’s Twitter statement “totally unacceptable,” the Jewish Telegraph Agency reported. He said it was “very offensive” to both the Jewish and Muslim communities because it “implies that Muslims deserve Kristallnacht treatment as the Jews deserved it in 1938.”

    Kristallnacht, or “the night of broken glass,” took place Nov. 9-10, 1938, when mobs throughout Germany and parts of Austria killed nearly 100 Jews, ransacked and burned more than 1,000 synagogues, destroyed more than 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses, and vandalized Jewish cemeteries and schools, the Jewish Telegraph Agency news group explained. Some 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps, JTA said.

    Msnbc.com's Jim Gold contributed to this article. Follow him on Facebook here. 

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  • Kidnapped Swiss couple escapes from Pakistan Taliban

    Farooq Naeem / AFP - Getty Images

    Swiss couple Olivier David Och and Daniela Widmer wave upon their arrival at the Qasim base in Rawalpindi on March 15, 2012. A Swiss couple held captive by the Pakistani Taliban for more than eight months were recovered safely, claiming they escaped their captors in the lawless tribal belt.

    By msnbc.com news services

    A Swiss couple kidnapped by the Pakistani Taliban last July has escaped and will return home soon, the Swiss foreign ministry said on Thursday after the two reached a military checkpoint near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

    Olivier David Och, 31, and Daniela Widmer, 29, were kidnapped in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan and had been held by the Taliban in the North Waziristan region.

    "A few minutes ago I was able to speak to Daniela and David, and yes, they are free. They are in a safe place," Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter told a news conference. "Daniela and David said they managed to escape this morning."

    He denied Switzerland had paid to secure the couple's freedom: "Switzerland does not pay ransoms, and Switzerland did not pay a ransom."

    According to Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung (link in German), a Pakistani intelligence official who wished to remain anonymous said the Swiss government did in fact pay a ransom. He told the paper the Pakistani government had also released prisoners in the exchange, but it was not clear how many.

    A spokesman for the Pakistan Taliban, Ihsanullah Ihsan, said the group released the couple after a council of elders was convened, CNN reported.

    Swiss authorities declined to give the full names of the pair, who were named by Pakistani media.

    Pakistan Army spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas told Reuters the pair had reported to a checkpoint and were then questioned in Peshawar. Abbas refused to refused to say whether a ransom was paid for the couple's release, or if other demands kidnappers were met, NZZ reported.

    According to intelligence sources in North Waziristan, the two were found at a military checkpoint on a main road in Miranshah, the region's main town, at about 5:30 a.m. and were then sent to the city of Peshawar by helicopter.

    The Swiss foreign ministry said in a statement the couple would return to Switzerland as soon as possible.

    Targets
    Pakistan's Taliban had claimed responsibility for kidnapping the couple, who were seized in the Loralai district of Baluchistan on July 1. The two were traveling in their Volkswagen bus from India to Iran.

    The pair pleaded for their lives in two videos released in October. In one video, Och addressed the Pakistani, Swiss and American governments in English, asking them to release Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist imprisoned in the United States, and Taliban fighters in Pakistan's custody. The Taliban also demanded millions of dollars in ransom from the Swiss government.

    Kidnapping for ransom is relatively common in Pakistan, and although foreigners are not often targets, militants occasionally take foreigners hostage.

    Two Western aid workers were kidnapped by gunmen in the central Pakistani city of Multan on Jan. 19. A British doctor working with the International Committee of the Red Cross was kidnapped in the southwestern city of Quetta on Jan. 5.

    Warren Weinstein, an American aid worker, was kidnapped in the central Pakistani city of Lahore in August last year. Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for Weinstein's abduction in December.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Blog chronicles joy of Belgian kids before Swiss bus crash

    At least 22 children were killed in Switzerland after their bus crashed on the way home from a ski trip. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.

    By msnbc.com news services

    Updated at 6:06 p.m. ET: SION, Switzerland/HEVERLEE, Belgium -- A torchlight march. Ravioli and meatball dinners. Rides in a funicular railway. A sing-a-long and a dress-up casino evening.

    Those were some of the things that made last week "mega-cool" for 24 sixth graders at the St. Lambertus school in a hotel in Saint-Luc, high in the Swiss Alps.

    The good times turned tragic Tuesday when their bus, which also carried kids from a second Belgian school, crashed inside a Swiss tunnel on its way home. Twenty-two youngsters from the two different schools died, along with six adults.

    The dead included "teacher Frank," who had set up the native-language Dutch blog that had kept parents and schoolchildren who stayed home informed about all the fun.

    On Wednesday parents were flown to Switzerland to find out whether their children were still alive. Sixteen St. Lambertus students were confirmed to have survived, but the fate of eight others was unknown, at least to their families.

    Nine days earlier, they had left for the holiday of their school lives in the snow-covered Alps of Switzerland, an annual highlight for St. Lambertus kids. The school is a typical, small Roman Catholic institution of some 200 pupils in Heverlee, on the outskirts of the old university town Leuven, and represents the broad mix of social classes of the municipality.

    The week began flawlessly.

    "This is our first blog posting," wrote Frank Van Kerckhove, the teacher who set up the blog. "The bus trip was very smooth. There was little traffic. We watched the movie Avatar (and) no one became car sick on the climb" into the Alps.

    PhotoBlog: Grief, disbelief as Belgian schoolchildren learn of crash that killed classmates

    In the days that followed, the youngsters posted about their vacation with youthful exuberance.

    "This afternoon we had soup and ravioli, very delicious," one girl wrote on March 6.

    Relatives of the students were grateful that Van Kerckhove, one of six adults who died in the crash, had set up the site.

    Most of the victims were 12-year-olds returning from a ski vacation in the Swiss Alps. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    "The blog was incredible. It had so many great pictures," said Anne De Roo, whose three children are former students at the school. The fate of her nephew was now uncertain.

    "He constantly gave us news about what happened, the sked of the day," she said of Van Kerckhove. His last words came down to 'we see you back soon,'" she said.

    The kids would blog under Van Kerckhove's tutelage.

    "Today was totally the best. The adventurous walk was tiring, but mega-cool," one girl wrote. "We won first prize for cleanest room. Tomorrow it's going to be colder. Byyyeeee!"

    On March 10, another boy wrote: "Things are super here in Saint-Luc. The skiing, the weather, the food. It's not bad at all. Tomorrow I play in the Muppet Show. ... I have seen quite a few dogs. I'm now reading the book 'Why Dogs Have Wet Noses.' Very interesting! I miss you all."

    Toward week's end, the posts revealed early signs of homesickness.

    "Dear mama and papa. I like it here a lot, but I miss you. Love you. Kisses." And: "Hey, mama, papa ... It is super here and the sun shines the whole day. But I do miss you! XXX."

    The posts came with scores of photos the youngsters made during their trip.

    On the St. Lambertus school gate Wednesday, staff put up drawings made by students to honor the teacher. "I'll never forget you, Teacher Frank," one read. "You are the greatest ever!"

    And outside the school, parents spoke highly of Van Kerckhove. Teary-eyed, some recalled his last post, dated March 11 — the eve of the return trip.

    "Tomorrow will be a busy day and I do not know if I can write a blog posting," Van Kerckhove wrote. "But on Wednesday we'll be back, all of us."

    'There are no words'
    Swiss President Evelyn Widmer-Schlumpf and Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo, speaking at a news conference Wednesday in the town of Sion near the crash site, paid tribute to the victims and the 200 rescue workers who pulled injured from the wreckage.

    "We are here to understand better, there is consternation. When a drama like this happens, when we lose a child or have a child suffering in hospital, there are no words. It is important to console the families," Di Rupo said.

    Twenty-one of the dead were Belgian nationals and seven were Dutch, according to Swiss officials. The Dutch foreign ministry said three Dutch children in the bus were injured. Most children aboard were aged about 12.

    Belgium plans to hold a national day of mourning.

    About 200 police, firefighters, doctors and medics worked through the night at the scene, while 12 ambulances and eight helicopters took the injured to hospitals in the region.

    Widmer-Schlumpf, a mother of three, said that Switzerland was doing everything to support victims and their families.

    Olivier Elsig, prosecutor for Valais canton (state), said that video surveillance images from the tunnel, where the speed limit is 100 kmh (62 mph), showed no other vehicle was involved in the accident and the road was dry and in "good condition."

    "The bus did not appear to be travelling too fast," Elsig told the news conference. "I immediately ordered an autopsy of the deceased driver."

    Police Cantonale Valais / AFP - Getty Images

    Rescuers are seen next to the wreckage of a bus after it crashed in a tunnel in Sierre, Switzerland.

    The bus had travelled only 15-20 km (10 10 13 miles) from the Swiss ski resort of Val d'Anniviers before entering the tunnel. "The children were all wearing seat belts but the shock of the crash was violent," he said.

    There were three possible causes for the crash: a technical problem; the driver may have become ill; or human error, according to Elsig.

    About 100 family members, who flew to Geneva from Belgium, were taken by buses to the Valais canton. Some began visiting injured children in Sion hospital, while others were being counseled by psychologists in crisis groups.

    A mortuary was set up and bodies were being identified. 

    Most pupils were from the towns of Lommel and Heverlee in Belgium's Dutch-speaking Flanders region.

    A police photograph showed the bus had smashed into the side of a tunnel, with the front ripped open, broken glass and debris strewn on the road and rescue workers climbing in through side windows. It was later towed away from the scene.

    Police were alerted to the accident by images on surveillance cameras in the tunnel.

    "It gives you chills down the spine. Witnessing such a drama involving children takes away my voice," police spokesman Jean-Marie Bornet told Swiss television earlier.

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • Swiss reject 6-week vacation plan; Zurich says yes to 'sex boxes'

    Arnd Wiegmann / Reuters, file

    Employees place almonds on pralines Swiss chocolate producer Lindt & Spruengli's plant in Kilchberg in this April 10, 2008 file photo. The Travail.Suisse union said the referendum on the proposal to increase employees' annual minimum paid vacation entitlement had taken place at a bad time because of serious economic concerns surrounding the euro zone crisis.

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    Swiss voters rejected a proposal to increase employees' annual minimum paid vacation entitlement to six from four weeks on Sunday after firms warned it might hurt competitiveness and threaten jobs.

    The initiative was put forward by trade union Travail.Suisse, which argued that four weeks' vacation was insufficient because the pressure of work had increased so much in recent decades, causing rising stress and health problems.

    But Swiss television said initial figures showed the proposal had been rejected by a clear 67 percent of voters.

    Referendums are central to Switzerland's political system of direct democracy, and have been held on topics ranging from health insurance to smoking bans.

    In a separate referendum Sunday, people in Zurich voted for the creation of “sex boxes” -- places where prostitutes can work -- while Geneva residents agreed to restrict street protests, BBC News reported.

    The “sex boxes” -- as they have been nicknamed by local people -- are parking spaces with walls between them where sex workers can operate away from suburban areas, according to the BBC.

    The Swiss have a reputation in Europe for being efficient and hard-working, a trait that has helped the country attract international companies and do well in competitiveness rankings.

    'Fear-mongering campaign'
    The Travail.Suisse union said the referendum had taken place at a bad time because of serious economic concerns surrounding the euro zone crisis.

    "For many voters, it was understandable that current concerns about their own jobs took precedence over the long-term welfare of people and Swiss business," it said in a statement. "With their fear-mongering campaign, the opponents of the initiative played with the uncertainty of workers."

    The main employers' association, which had lobbied hard against the proposal, welcomed the result.

    "The 'no' to the holiday [vacation] initiative means above all a 'yes' to the maintenance of the competitiveness of Swiss companies and the securing of jobs," it said in a statement.

    "Adoption of the initiative would have pushed up already high labor costs in Switzerland and burdened business with additional costs of six billion Swiss francs ($6.5 billion) a year," the statement added.

    Average Swiss vacation entitlement is already around five weeks, as many firms offer more than the statutory minimum. In 2002, Swiss voters rejected a proposal to cut the working week to 36 hours from 42 hours.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Avalanche traps skiers at Swiss resort

    By Rebecca Ruiz, NBC News

    An avalanche has blocked the train tracks and roads leading to the Swiss resort town Zermatt, leaving skiers and vacationers trapped, according to the Daily Mail.

    The popular ski destination has reportedly been blanketed by more than 3 feet of snow in about 24 hours, triggering an avalanche.

    The Ski Club of Britain, a nonprofit website for snow sports enthusiasts, reported that a storm surged across Europe, dumping snow across the Alps. "Access roads into resorts have been closed, and some areas are on lockdown due to the heavy snowfall increasing the risk of avalanche," according to the site.

    The major storm came a month after Swiss resorts started the season with very little snow on the ground. Several ski resorts were forced to delay opening their slopes. (See: Ski season in Switzerland stalled by lack of snow)

    Zermatt is on the Swiss-Italian border and is perhaps best known as the village at the foot of the Matterhorn, one of the highest peaks in the Alps.

    The avalanche reportedly happened on Thursday afternoon. A spokeswoman for the local tourism board told the Daily Mail that rail staff were assessing whether workers could dig out the train tracks on Friday.

    Belinda Hadden, 53, told the paper that the closed roads caused her to miss a flight home to London.

    "I had no idea until I went to the train station and was told there was no way I was getting out," she told the Daily Mail. "There are worse places to be trapped, but it is a bit worrying that we are properly stuck."

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  • Fabrice Coffrini / AFP - Getty Images

    Members of the Group for Switzerland without an Army (GSoA) demonstrate in front of boxes with some 107,280 signatures collected for a popular initiative to end military conscription, outside of the Swiss House of Parliament on Jan. 5, 2012 in Bern.

    Swiss activists call for end to conscription, abolition of army

    By David R Arnott, NBC News

    Agence France Presse reports that an activist group has gathered over 100,000 signatures for an initiative to end military conscription in Switzerland. At present, all able-bodied Swiss men between the ages of 20 and 36 must serve 260 days of military service. The proposal from the Group for a Switzerland without an Army (GSoA) will be put to a nationwide vote.

    The GSoA, which was founded in 1982, has declared a goal of "civilizing" Swiss society by abolishing its army.

    Later on Thursday, meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is expected to disclose the strategy guiding hundreds of billions of dollars in Pentagon budget cuts. The New York Times reports that Panetta has concluded that the Army should shrink to 490,000 soldiers over the next decade.

    Panetta's British counterpart, Philip Hammond, has pinpointed the debt crisis as a driver in moves to scale down military capability in both the U.K. and the U.S., according to a draft speech handed to The Guardian.

    "Without strong economies and stable public finances it is impossible to build and sustain, in the long-term, the military capability required to project power and maintain defence," Hammond is expected to tell the Atlantic Council thinktank during a visit to Washington.

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