15,000 clash with police in German nuclear blockade

[Disco_Destroyer]

15,000 clash with police in German nuclear blockade
Posted Mon Nov 10, 2008 8:47am AEDT

Police wielding truncheons beat back around 15,000 environmentalists trying to block a train carrying highly radioactive nuclear waste from western France to a dump in Germany, authorities said.

In the largest and most violent anti-nuclear protests since 2001 in Germany, activists set fire to barricades on the tracks in the north of the country, which police extinguished with water cannon.

Several protesters and police were injured in the confrontation, police said, without giving any numbers of victims.

Railroad crews scrambled to repair the damage overnight to allow the shipment of the 23 tonnes of treated, but still extremely toxic, nuclear waste to continue on to the Gorleben disposal centre.

The train had resumed its journey after being stopped for nearly 12 hours Saturday (local time) near the Franco-German border by three protesters, German police said.

About 15,000 demonstrators rallied along the tracks, most of them in the Gorleben region, joined by a caravan of 300 tractors festooned with anti-nuclear banners.

Some 16,000 police were deployed across Germany to ensure the load reached the dump safely.

Anti-nuclear group x-tausendmal quer, which organised the demonstrations, argues that the shipments are dangerous and that Germany has not found any permanent solution for what to do with the waste from its nuclear reactors.

"This is a strong sign of the renaissance of the anti-nuclear movement," group spokesman Jochen Stay said of the weekend protests.

The organisation calls for the quick phase-out of the country's nuclear power plants.

By late Sunday (local time), at least 200 anti-nuclear protesters continued to block access to the dump, having decided to keep up their sit-in until Monday, the earliest the convoy could arrive at the site, according to police.

The German Government has approved plans to mothball the last of its 17 reactors by about 2020.

But Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for slowing down the process over fears it will be impossible to slash greenhouse gas emissions without nuclear energy, which emits no carbon dioxide and produces a quarter of the country's electricity.

The opposition Greens and the far-left Die Linke party called on their members to join the protests.

Polls show most Germans oppose nuclear power but skyrocketing energy costs have sparked the calls to reconsider the phase-out.

- AFP
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/10/2414747.htm