http://www.telegraph.co.uk/95/4/25/plit2504.html (The Risc Disc Volume 2, 10/1995)The Electronic Telegraph 25 April 1995 WORLD NEWS
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The Pacific Pintail is due to arrive at the port of Mutsu Ogawara in northern Japan today, where it will unload its cargo for dumping at a temporary site near the small town of Rokkasho.
Local people are outraged and one has threatened to go on hunger strike. About 150 union activists rallied yesterday chanting: "We need neither sarin nor nuclear recycling."
The prefectural government has insisted on extra safety inspections before the ship can dock. Greenpeace estimates that 1,000 people will demonstrate today against what they see as a serious threat to their health, and 38 busloads of riot police have been mobilised in precaution.
The Pintail's two-month voyage to Japan has been stormy. Chile, Spain and Portugal all refused to allow the ship to pass through their territorial waters, and sent out naval vessels to ensure that it did not.
The ship's task is to transport Japanese nuclear waste, which had been sent to France for reprocessing, back to Japan. It is part of Japan's attempt to wean itself off imported fossil fuels, which currently account for 97 per cent of its energy consumption, by switching to nuclear power.
Tokyo is committed to using fast-breeder nuclear reactors, which burn plutonium but which produce more of the world's deadliest substance than they consume, thus promising perpetual supplies of energy.
Japan sends waste from its reactors to France and Britain, where it is "reprocessed" - separated into uranium, plutonium and waste. The plutonium is sent back to Japan for use in its fast-breeder reactor programme, and the waste is also returned for disposal.
* Robin Gedye in Bonn writes: More than 5,000 police were yesterday protecting the German village of Gorleben from thousands of militant anti-nuclear demonstrators attempting to block the first shipment of nuclear waste to a nearby site.
In the largest anti-nuclear demonstrations since violent clashes of the mid-70s, running battles between police and demonstrators led to 10 people injured and nearly 150 arrested at the weekend.
21 Apr 95: Germany denies Plutonium 'set-up'
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