Police clear track for nuclear cargo

German police have freed the last few demonstrators locked to a railway line in a protest against a controversial cargo of nuclear waste.

Police had been fighting since midnight on Tuesday to free two protesters who were chained to the tracks.

The anti-nuclear protesters, at Dannenberg in northern Germany, attached themselves to the track using chains embedded in tubes which had been sunk into the ground and filled with concrete.

Riot officers are now forcibly removng several hundred other protesters from a sit-in on the railway line.

The cargo had earlier been reversed up the track to about 25km away from the rail terminal in Dannenberg, where the nuclear waste containers must be transferred to trucks for the final journey to a storage site at Gorleben.

But with further protests anticipated, it is unclear how long that will take.

Police reinforcements

The spent nuclear fuel from German power plants is returning from reprocessing in France.

Spent fuel from German power plants is sent abroad for reprocessing, but the contracts oblige Germany to take back the resulting waste.

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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.

Sporadic battles

Riot police reinforcements were sent to Dannenburg on Tuesday after clashes involving an estimated 5,000 protesters.

About 20,000 police were in action in Germany's biggest security operation in years after protesters turned the last transport of nuclear waste in 1997 into chaos.

Protesters fought sporadic battles to try to bring the train to a halt on Tuesday and succeeded when five members of the anarchist "Robin Wood" group chained themselves to the track.

Since midnight on Tuesday, officers using pneumatic drills been struggling to free the protesters.

Protester Juergen Sattari said he considered the operation a success.

"We want to stop the convoy," he said.

"Of course we know we can't halt it indefinitely, but we can drive up the political price."

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