The Panama Canal authorities say they will take special precautions next month for the passage of a British freighter carrying highly radioactive nuclear waste.

International and local environmental groups have expressed concern at the shipment -- the first of its kind to pass through the canal.

But officials say they'll make sure it the Pacific Swangoes through the eighty-kilometre waterway in daylight and that no ships are travelling in the opposite direction.

The vessel, on its way from France to Japan, will be carrying sixty glass-encased cannisters of reprocessed nuclear waste for use in a Japanese reactor.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
 

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