From: MV Solo

Date: MON 6-MAR-95 1500 GMT -- Day 12 Part I

Media/Position update from Greenpeace vessel Solo

..........IN BETWEEN LIBERIA AND BRAZIL

POSITION 1500 GMT: 1 degree and 30 minutes North and 30 degrees West, 1,080 miles southwest off the coast of the city Freetown in Liberia, Africa and 540 miles northeast off the coast of Natal in Brazil, South America.

Provided that we maintain our current course of 180 degrees and our speed of 14 knots: (at 1500 GMT Monday) The nearest land to us lies 60 miles southeast, small islands of rocks called the "Penedos de Sao Pedro", which I believe is Brazilian territory which we would reach at approximately 0100 GMT Tuesday). In any case we will definitely be passing into the Brazilian Economic Exclusion Zone of 200 miles at 0100 GMT Tuesday 07 March 1995, when we expect to find ourselves 200 miles northeast of the "Archipelago de Fernando de Noronha".

The Pacific Pintail has now sailed passed, Cape Verde, Senegal, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. All's well on board the Solo. Tomorrow, campaigner Tom Clements will hold a press conference on board the Rainbow Warrior near the Panama Canal as it looks certain that the Pintail will not take the Caribbean route. A press release will follow tomorrow.

I hear from Greenpeace campaigner Tom Clements that he will hold a press conference today on board the Rainbow Warrior near the Panama Canal. He will join with Caribbean government leaders and the public whose outspoken protest against this shipment in their territorial waters have successfully forced the nuclear waste ship to take another route. We learned last week that they had indeed filed the necessary papers to travel through the Canal but have since changed course and avoided it. We consider this a success for those in the Caribbean region and now call on other countries in South America and Africa to voice the same opposition. Only when France, Japan and the UK know that this trade will not be accepted by nations worldwide will they be forced to end it.

That's it for today. More as we continue on our journey tomorrow.

Best regards and No Nukes!

Ulf Birgander (Captain)

Bas Bruyne (Campaigner)

Date: MON 6-MAR-95 19:15:16 GMT -- Day 12 part II

TOUCHING THE EQUATOR -- SAILING TOWARDS CAPE HORN OR CAPE GOOD HOPE

The position of the Pacific Pintail at 1900 GMT was 0 degrees and 40 minutes North and 30 degrees and 1 minute West. The Pacific Pintail is still steering a compass course of 180 degrees South at a speed of 13.5 knots. We are now less than 500 miles northeast of the Brazilian city Natal.

Today, on day 12, we concluded that the Pacific Pintail will definitely not go through the Panama Canal, and that the ship is sailing towards either Cape Horn, or towards Cape Good Hope --however the Pintail would have to change is course considerably for that route.

At around midnight we will be sailing from the northeast into the Brazilian Economic Exclusion Zone of 200 miles around the "Archipelago de Fernando de Noronha." On February 24th, the Brazilian government issued a statement of concern in which it declared that their coast and waters "mustn't be exposed to eventual risks of accidents involving such cargoes." It is unclear if the Brazilian Navy will set to sea to prevent the Pacific Pintail from coming closer to Brazil's coasts. Thus far both Spain and Portugal prevented the Pacific Pintail from coming closer than 100 miles from their coasts and enforced this demand by escorting the radioactive waste ship out of their jurisdictional waters.

That the Pacific Pintail has received instructions not to attempt the Panama Canal is a victory for the public and the governments of the small island states in the Caribbean. It shows how small states can form a united front to successfully ward off an unwanted and unethical by-product of our consumptive nuclear society.

Although our particular journey -- following this ship with radioactive plutonium waste -- will not be shorter for it, the common journey that our society needs to take, if it is to rid itself of the nuclear menace and increasing stockpiles of nuclear waste, has hopefully become shorter by the united action of the Caribbean nations. Greenpeace encourages the Caribbean community to establish, through its 13-member regional forum CARICOM, a zone that prohibits plutonium and nuclear waste shipments from entering the Caribbean.

Greenpeace is encouraging all countries around the world to call for a halt to the plutonium industry at the United Nation's April Extension Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in New York.

Greenpeace will issue a press release to some of the African and South American countries today ensuring that they know this radioactive waste ship is in their vicinity.

That's it for today. Best regards and No Nukes!

Ulf Birgander (Captain)

Bas Bruyne (Campaigner)