{"article":{"id":5736,"heading":"Germany: nuclear protest as shipment leaves France","author":"CastorBoi","created":"2001-03-27 15:08:29","modified":"2005-08-15 00:31:46","last_modified":"Mon, 15 Aug 2005 07:31:46","article":"

The demonstrators have set up so-called resistance camps close to the

railway line and are threatening to attack the tracks and stage

sit-ins at strategic points.

A 17,000-strong police force is on high alert for potentially violent

clashes with the anti-nuclear campaigners.

It is the first such shipment since 1997, when pitched battles raged

for days between riot police and protesters.

Over the weekend, peaceful demonstrations were held along the route to

the storage site.

The shipment left by rail from La Hague in France at first light, and

will cross the German border on Monday night.

This normally quiet, rural corner of Germany is now swarming with

battle-ready police - their aim, to prevent thousands of anti-nuclear

protesters from blocking the railway line leading to the town of

Dannenberg.

That is where the train from France is expected to deposit its cargo

of six nuclear fuel containers late on Tuesday.

The radioactive waste must then be loaded on to trucks for transfer by

road to Gorleben.

The well-organised activists face what is almost certainly the biggest

post-war police operation mounted on German soil.

The looming battle at Gorleben is the consequence of a highly-charged

debate in Germany about nuclear power.

Last year, the coalition government of Social Democrats and Greens

struck a deal to phase out nuclear energy.

But the compromise reached with industry would allow some reactors to

remain in service for more than 20 years - far too long for

anti-nuclear hardliners.

While the government argues that Germany has a moral duty to take back

its reprocessed nuclear waste, opponents see disrupting the shipments

as the most effective way of forcing an early shutdown of the

industry.

It is thought Germany will need to take back two shipments a year for

at least the next decade.



more information: http:\/\/www.oneworldweb.de\/castor<\/a>, http:\/\/www.x1000malquer.de<\/a>, http:\/\/www.indymedia.de<\/a>, http:\/\/www.greenpeace.de<\/a>, http:\/\/www.greenpeace.fr<\/a><\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"www.oneworldweb.de\/castor","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","summary":"Protesters have massed in northern Germany to try to block a\r\ncontroversial shipment of nuclear waste on its way from a reprocessing\r\nplant in France.","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2001\/03\/german_police_gorleben.jpg","filesize":"14.9 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2001\/03\/5736.php","image":{"original":"\/uploads\/2001\/03\/german_police_gorleben.jpg","small":"\/uploads\/2001\/03\/german_police_gorleben.jpgthumb.jpg"}},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}