Two police injured as anti-nuclear activists protest in Germany

DANNENBERG, Germany -- Anti-nuclear activists staged a parade through this north German town near a nuclear waste dump Monday, and two police officers were injured in a skirmish with demonstrators.

Police said most of the approximately 1,000 protesters demonstrated peacefully against a shipment of 12 containers of atomic waste that left the reprocessing plant at La Hague, France, Monday night.

The train, with about 300 police aboard, was expected to reach the French-German border Tuesday afternoon. The shipment is the largest yet for dumping at Gorleben.

About 15 Greenpeace activists wearing white jumpsuits protested at the Valognes, France, train terminal as the 1,455-ton shipment left northern France.

In Germany, about 100 radicals in the group of protesters clashed with police, who responded with truncheons. About 60 people also blocked the road between the towns of Dannenberg and Gorleben, ignoring a ban on all demonstrations within 50 yards of the last part of the route.

The nuclear dump at Gorleben is 75 miles southeast of Hamburg and has been a focus of Germany's anti-nuclear lobby.

Set up camp

Over the weekend, farmers and anti-nuclear groups symbolically set up at least 12 "villages," with camp fires and bales of hay, near the route and several thousand people demonstrated at Gorleben.

This week's shipment is the first since last November, when demonstrators repeatedly defied some 17,500 police to stage sit-down protests along the route through Germany.

Those protests were smaller than demonstrations that marked the previous transport in March 2001, the first in three years. The previous German government had suspended shipments after leaks were found in some containers.

Spent fuel from Germany's 19 nuclear power plants is sent to France and Britain for reprocessing under contracts that then oblige Germany dispose of the waste.

Last year, the government and power companies signed an agreement to phase out nuclear power within about 20 years. Activists hope that protesting waste shipments will force a quicker shutdown.