nuclear power

Greenpeace today held a press conference to call on the British Government and its state-owned nuclear reprocessing company, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. (BNFL) to immediately rescind the freeze on its bank account, and to end plans to expand plutonium fuel (MOX) production at BNFL's Sellafield plant in Cumbria, north England.

The Greenpeace vessel MV Sirius was ordered to leave harbour and French territorial waters, during a peaceful protest against the departure of the British flagged freighter Pacific Teal from the French port of Cherbourg this afternoon.

Escorted by a military armada of naval vessels, commando inflatables,and helicopters, the British-flagged freighter Pacific Teal departed Cherbourg today at 17h00 CET with its cargo of nuclear weapons-usable plutonium fuel (MOX).

British Nuclear Fuels Ltd is attempting to stifle public debate by seeking injunctions today in the United Kingdom and France to prevent Greenpeace protesting against a secret shipment of nuclear weapons-usable plutonium fuel from Europe to Japan, the environment group reported today.Two British freighters, the Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal, are due to leave the port of Barrow in northern England imminently to undertake the transport to Japan.

Greenpeace and other groups in Ireland, Scotland, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, United States, and the Pacific region will take part in an international protest against the plutonium shipments on Monday July 19.

"Unless reprocessing is shut down, the only way BNFL could be successfully privatised is by the taxpayer paying for the massive hidden liabilities"