Nuclear waste train prompts protests

25/11/11 06:13 CET

world news

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Clashes bewteen police and anti-nuclear protesters broke out on Thursday night in the north German town of Metzingen. The trouble started just hours before a train carrying processed nuclear waste was expected to cross into Germany from Normandy in France.

The train has been en route from a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in France since Wednesday when scuffles broke out between riot police and several hundred protesters near the town of Valognes.

The train was in Remilly on Friday morning some 70km from the German border. A spokesman for the French nuclear group Areva said the stop had been planned. Two routes into Germany could now be taken to a storage facility in Gorleben in the north west.

It is the last shipment of 12. An expired contract between Areva and German nuclear power producers is not expected to be renewed since Germany has now voted against the transportation of nuclear waste after the disaster at Fukushima in Japan.

More about: Areva, France, Germany, Nuclear Energy, Review of the year 2011

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