" More German nonsense " [FW]

["Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj@AECL.CA>]

Sent: Wednesday March 28, 2001 9:43 AM

Subject: More German nonsense



http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010328/wl/nuclear_germany_dc_13.html

Wednesday March 28 8:38 AM ET

Police End German Nuclear Waste Rail Blockade Photos 

By Kai Pfaffenbach

SUESCHENDORF, Germany (Reuters) - Police on Wednesday removed the last of

five anti-nuclear activists who forced the halt of a train shipment of

nuclear waste to north Germany by chaining themselves overnight to the

tracks.

Authorities said repairs to the rails would have to be carried out before

the train, now nearly a full day late after repeated bids to sabotage the

transports, could continue the last leg of its journey to a depot near the

Gorleben waste dump.

A Reuters cameraman said the male protester, aged around 30, was taken away

in an ambulance after police wielding pneumatic drills and heavy bolt

cutters freed him from chains stuffed into a tube that was cemented into the

bed of the rail line.

A 16-year-old girl, one of four others from an anti-nuclear group called

Robin Wood that took part in the 15-hour blockade in near-freezing

temperatures, had earlier been carried away on a stretcher to receive urgent

medical care.

``She looked in a bad way,'' said one onlooker at the scene in Sueschendorf,

16 miles from the Dannenberg depot where the waste is due to be unloaded

onto flatbed trucks for its final journey by truck to the Gorleben dump on

the Elbe river.

The three other activists involved in the action, which drew several hundred

other protesters onto the tracks in support, had earlier been removed.

Protesters Hail Blockade Coup

The train, traveling since Monday from a waste-reprocessing plant in La

Hague, northern France, had withdrawn to nearby Dahlenburg for refueling and

maintenance and police said it was not clear when its journey could

continue.

``I hope it can move off today but it all depends how long the repairs

take,'' said police spokesman Wolfgang Klages.

The so-called ``Castor'' containers of reprocessed nuclear waste were

originally scheduled to have arrived in Dannenberg late Tuesday afternoon

before being unloaded onto trucks for the 16-mile road journey to Gorleben

Wednesday.

``It's an amazing success to force the Castors to turn back,'' said one

protester, saying this was the first such retreat since controversial

transports of reprocessed waste started in 1995.

Photos 

Some 20,000 police have been deployed to guard the shipments in one of

Germany's largest peacetime security operations.

A group of around 200 activists briefly staged a separate sit-in protest on

the tracks in Dannenberg before being charged by baton-wielding riot police.

A small number of protesters responded by firing flares and throwing stones

before retreating. One was knocked unconscious during scuffles.

``It was a shame. We could have had a good peaceful occupation of the track

with two or three hundred people,'' said Matthias Hofmann, a 27-year-old

student from Hanover who said he had taken part in many anti-nuclear

protests.

Police deployed water cannon and detained nearly 600 people Tuesday evening

after protesters fired flares and threw stones. They said the scuffles were

provoked by left-wing militants, some of whom used slingshots to pelt police

with stones.

Under pressure from France to reduce a backlog of German waste at its La

Hague reprocessing plant near Cherbourg, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in

1998 lifted a transport ban that had been imposed on safety grounds.

Two cargoes a year are now planned.

The transports are part of a deal struck with industry last year to phase

out Germany's 19 reactors by about 2025 -- a timeline considered too long by

anti-nuclear activists. Germany has no reprocessing facilities of its own.

Most people in the European Union (news - web sites)'s most populous country

are opposed to or at least wary of nuclear energy.

The German media have struck a largely neutral tone toward the blockade,

noting that the overwhelming majority of protesters were peaceful. 

<><><><><><><><><><><><>



Comment : is calling a waste storage site a "waste dump," considered using a

"neutral tone" now ?

Jaro

frantaj@aecl.ca

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