German nuclear clashes intensify

Greenpeace occupied a bridge at Dannenburg

German anti-nuclear protesters and police have been engaged in a series of confrontations as a train carrying nuclear waste from France approaches a storage site in northern Germany.

Thousands of demonstrators are determined to stop the train from delivering the reprocessed nuclear fuel to the site in the town of Gorleben.

Protesters are determined to halt the shipment

At one site, near the town of Lueneburg, riot police are threatening to use water cannon to remove up to 500 protesters staging a sit-in on the railway line.

Another attempted sit-in nearby was broken up by massive police force, and the BBC's Patrick Bartlett, who is at the scene, says the protests mark an escalation in the efforts to block the train's passage.

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The German Government - including its Green Party ministers - argues that the country has a moral duty to take back its reprocessed nuclear waste, but opponents see disrupting the shipments as the most effective way of forcing an early shutdown of the nuclear industry.

More than 15,000 police have been deployed - the biggest such operation in Germany's post-war history.

Protestors have set up camps along the track

The six nuclear fuel containers left by rail from La Hague in France at first light on Monday and are due at Gorleben on Wednesday.

A bridge at Dannenberg, 24km from Gorleben, was occupied on Tuesday by a group of Greenpeace activists.

"Our aim is clear. We want to obstruct this transport as long as possible," Veit Buerger of Greenpeace said.

Heated debate

Police below the bridge tried to persuade the protesters to come down.

In Gorleben itself, police pulled hundreds of demonstrators away from the track on Monday night.

Police pull a protester away

The looming confrontation at Gorleben follows 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 the nuclear industry would allow some reactors to remain in service for more than 20 years - far too long for some anti-nuclear campaigners.

Flares

Elsewhere, police clashed with demonstrators on another section of the track near the village of Nahrendorf.

According to one report, police sources said the track had been damaged by protesters.

A police spokesman said that officers had tried to intervene but the group of protesters fled into nearby woods, throwing flares at police.

In the village of Dahlenburg, police detained about 150 protesters for breaking the ban on activists masking their faces.

This is the first nuclear waste shipment to come to Germany since 1997, when pitched battles raged for days between riot police and protesters.

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