German police, protesters clash at nuke protest

AP) BERLIN — Police used water cannons to disperse about 300 protesters hurling rocks and fireworks during an attempt to disrupt a shipment of nuclear waste in northern Germany on Saturday, officials said.

Another 50 activists tried to sabotage the rail tracks that will be used by a train this weekend to transport the nuclear waste to the storage facility near the northern town of Gorleben, police spokesman Stefan Kuehm-Stoltz said.

On Friday, police clashed with some 200 protesters near the northern town of Dannenberg. Some 20 officers were injured during the clash, police said.

Police said several thousand protesters were gathering in Dannenberg Saturday to hold a peaceful protest rally. Organizers said some 23,000 people already joined the protest.

The train carrying the shipment of 11 containers of nuclear waste reprocessed at France’s La Hague facility entered western Germany on Friday after delays in France, where activists damaged railway tracks in an attempt to halt the cargo.

On the German side, protesters repeatedly staged sit-ins on the railway tracks, slowing down the shipment until police carried them away. The shipment is expected to reach its destination sometime over the weekend.

Some 20,000 German police officers are on hand to secure the shipment.

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