Halt French nuclear waste due to virus-German Green

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@EARTHLINK.NET>]

Halt French nuclear waste due to virus-German Green

  

BERLIN, March 15 (Reuters) - A regional government minister from 

the Greens party in western Germany said on Thursday that plans 

to resume radioactive waste transports from France should be 

postponed to avoid importing foot-and-mouth disease. 



"My suggestion would be to postpone the transports," Baerbel 

Hoehn, environment minister in the big western federal state of 

North Rhine-Westphalia, told NTV television. 



Hoehn is a member of the environmentalist Greens party which is 

traditionally hostile to the waste shipments, although as members 

of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's centre-left coalition the party 

has formally approved the resumption of shipments. 



Radioactive waste is expected to be shipped by rail in late March 

for the first time in four years from France's La Hague reprocessing 

plant for storage at Gorleben in northern Germany. 



"La Hague is precisely the region where they have discovered foot-

and-mouth disease," Hoehn said, referring to northwestern France, 

where the first case in continental Europe was found on Tuesday, 

three weeks after the outbreak began in Britain. 



The shipments have caused a crisis of conscience within the 

staunchly anti-nuclear Greens, pitting party leaders against 

grassroots activists angry that the government has compromised. 



Germany, which has not had a foot-and-mouth case since 1988, 

has so far escaped the spread of the disease from Britain, but a 

French case found on Tuesday has put German health authorities 

on high alert. 



The normally unmanned border crossings into France have seen 

increased vigilance since Tuesday night to prevent the spread of 

the highly contagious disease. 



Uwe Bartels, agriculture minister in the state of Lower Saxony 

where Gorleben is situated, said on Thursday that he presumed the 

transports carrying the waste would be disinfected against the 

disease before they crossed the German border. 



Police are expecting thousands of demonstrators to try and block 

the transports. During the last transports, police and activists 

fought running battles in fields near Gorleben. 



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Sandy Perle                                     Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100                                     

Director, Technical                             Extension 2306                                  

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Service         Fax:(714) 668-3149                                          

ICN Pharmaceuticals, Inc.                       E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net                                                      

ICN Plaza, 3300 Hyland Avenue           E-Mail: sperle@icnpharm.com                       

Costa Mesa, CA 92626



Personal Website: http://sandyfl.nukeworker.net

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com

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