Nuclear protesters blockade rail line
About 1,000 anti-nuclear protesters have occupied a stretch of the route to be taken by a hotly contested shipment of nuclear waste that is rumbling through Germany.
The demonstrators ran across an open field onto the rail line near the town of Wendisch-Evern, and sat on bales of straw along a 500 yard stretch of track.
Police did not try to prevent them occupying the line, but hundreds of officers with helmets, batons and dogs slowly surrounded the group.
Nearby, police had cut down Greenpeace activists who attached themselves by ropes to a rail bridge.
The protesters had dangled above a river about 15 miles from the Gorleben nuclear waste dump where the 60 ton shipment is headed.
The activists and about 30 others who took them to the bridge in boats were detained after the six hour protest, Greenpeace said. Police said there were no injuries, though some activists apparently fell into the river.
The transport is due to arrive at a rail terminal where trucks will bring the six containers - each with about 10 tons of radioactive waste sealed in 28 glass casks - to Gorleben.
The train crossed into southwestern Germany from France, delayed by small groups of demonstrators who were cleared from the tracks by police.
After the delay at the border, the train continued its 375 mile trip northeast to the Gorleben dump, the focus of Germany's anti-nuclear movement. Police reported no incidents along the route.
The shipment is radioactive waste left over after spent nuclear fuel from German power plants that was reprocessed at a French plant.
German and French leaders agreed on a resumption of nuclear waste traffic last January, with the German government saying it has tightened safety rules for the transports since the previous administration suspended shipments in 1998 because of radioactive leaks on some containers.
