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A West German provincial leader placed a nuclear waste dump near the border with communist East Germany out of revenge for the East Germans doing the same on their side of the border. So claims a retired geology professor involved in the 1970s search for a salt deposit to be made a nuclear dump. Gerd Lüttig told the ddp news agency that's how Gorleben came to be chosen in 1977 by the Conservative premier of Lower Saxony state, Ernst Albrecht. Out of 100 salt deposits investigated, all of them in northern Germany, Gorleben was in the final shortlist of eight. Lüttig says Albrecht wanted a location near the border because the East Germans "got us into hot water with their final repository at Morsleben". Gorleben and Morsleben are about 95 kilometres apart as the crow flies, by road Morsleben is 120 kms south of Gorleben. Both villages were close to the border that separated the two Germanies at time when the communist regime still killed people trying to escape across what was regarded as the world's deadliest border.

"Greenpeace said it had obtained partly classified documents which prove that Gorleben should not have been used as a nuclear waste site. The environmental activist group Greenpeace said on Wednesday that it had obtained official documents, which prove that the salt mines in the German town of Gorleben should not have been used as a disposal site for nuclear waste. "There was never a scientific selection procedure that concluded the salt mines in Gorleben would be the best choice," Greenpeace nuclear expert Mathias Edler told reporters at a press conference in Berlin. "Geological criteria for a nuclear disposal site in the salt mines played a minor role." Greenpeace said the more than 12,000 pages of partly classified documents, which date back to the mid-1970's, are from the Lower Saxony state chancellery, environment ministry, and the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources. "

"Germany is restarting exploration of its highly controversial potential nuclear storage site at Gorleben after a ten-year moratorium. Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen said Monday further security analyses would take another seven years and no one could say today if the disused salt mine in central Germany was suitable for holding the radioactive waste from the country's 17 nuclear plants. Roettgen added even if Gorleben turns out to be suitable, the storage facility will not open before 2030. Gorleben was chosen as a nuclear storage site three decades ago and was partially explored until 2000 for an estimated euro1.5 billion ($2 billion)."

A crowd of 16 000 people demonstrated against the Castor transport in Gorleben today, marching through the town and eventually settling just outside of it, near to the gates of the "Zwischenlager" - the temporary nuclear waste disposal site (also located in Gorleben) - to listen to speeches and music. Madsen, a very popular band, ended the event to a very lively and dance-happy crowd. The protesters were accompanied by at least 400 tractors - a powerful testament to the sense of solidarity that exists around the issue of nuclear power and nuclear waste in this region.

The Castor Transport protests that took place in November 2008 were not only about the transport of nuclear waste to the Gorleben temporary disposal site - they were also meant to highlight the still unsolved problem regarding the final disposal of Germany's, and the world's, nuclear wastes. In Gorleben itself there are several nuclear facilities: a temporary disposal site for low- and medium-level radioactive waste, a temporary disposal site for high level radioactive waste, an experimental conditioning facility, and a salt mine currently referred to as a "research" final disposal site for radioactive waste - however this site is almost certainly going to become one of the German government's official final disposal sites.

"Germany has been looking for a permanent storage site for its nuclear waste for over 30 years. The history of the Gorleben salt dome, a potential nuclear repository, is one full of deception and political maneuvering. And if opponents to the plans have their way, the search might even have to start again from scratch. The ride down into the Gorleben salt dome takes less than two minutes. When the elevator stops at 840 meters (2,755 feet) below ground, the folding gates open onto a scene that looks like it could be in a modern art museum. A sculpture made of old soft drink cans and other scrap metal welcomes visitors as they step out of the elevator. The artwork is meant to symbolize society's unresolved waste disposal problem."

Hundreds of German students protest the dumping of reprocessed nuclear waste at a storage center in the town of Gorleben. Germany annually sends the spent fuel of its nuclear power plants to France and Britain for reprocessing and later the waste is returned to Germany for dumping at nuclear storage centers. A train carrying the toxic remains was to leave France on Friday, and arrive at a storage facility in the town of Gorleben on Monday. The Friday protest took place in the nearby town of Luechow.

Where to store Germany's nuclear waste? The issue - decades old and still unresolved - has injected controversy into campaigning ahead of Germany's federal election on 27 September. Farm residents at Gorleben in northern Germany have long opposed a proposal that salt caverns under their feet be used as the nation's long-term underground nuclear waste disposal site. Driving tractors, they have begun a week-long road trek to Berlin to press their anti-nuclear case. Equipped with a rolling kitchen, they aim to spearhead a demonstration in the capital next Saturday. En route, the tractor trekkers plan stopovers at three other sites used variously as nuclear storages and all controversial - the former Konrad iron mine near Salzgitter; Asse, a mine with water leaks near Wolfenbüttel; and Morsleben, an old salt mine near the former East-West-German border. Nuclear industry proponents accuse detractors of exaggerating the risks.

Thousands of protesters held up a truck convoy carrying nuclear waste in Germany Monday, repeatedly invading a 20-kilometre road leading to a secure storage warehouse. Police said the protests, the biggest since 2001 during the waste transport operations, which take place every few months, were also more violent than usual. Protesters had tried to undermine a railway, seize a truck and shot signalling flares at a police helicopter. Federal police commander Thomas Osterroth said, "A few of them are willing to be very violent." The 10,000 police at the scene were ordered to clear the road before the trucks departed from a railway freight yard carrying the 11 containers. They were bound for the storage site at Gorleben where tons of similar waste are already guarded round the clock.

Nuclear files could "paralyse" German regional government A German regional government says it could no longer function if it gives public access to cabinet files about the establishment of a nuclear waste dump in its area. The admission comes from the Christian Democrat (CDU, conservative) government of the northern state of Lower Saxony, where 32 years ago a previous CDU government licensed the dump near the village of Gorleben, which at the time was close to the border with former communist East Germany. Asked to make the files available to the environment committee of the Lower Saxony parliament, the premier's office refused, arguing that the government's ""Handlungsfähigkeit" would be endangered. The word translates variously as legal capacity, ability to act, capacity to act, capacity to contract. The refusal was revealed by an opposition Social Democrat MP, Andrea Schröder-Ahlers, after the latest sitting of the committee. She says she suspects that something is being hidden.

Demonstrators cut through fences and drove farm tractors into a compound they claim is an illegally built nuclear waste dump at the village of Gorleben in northern Germany. The local resistance group, Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Lüchow-Dannenberg (BI), reported more than 1,000 demonstrators and 30 tractors, a posting on IMC Germany had 1,000, a user of the site quoted local radio with 350, national radio 500, adding that pictures certainly didn't suggest 1,000. But adding, too: "The number's not important, it's super that a demo involving direct action followed so fast on the new revelations about the salt deposit. That generates hope! We don't need to boast about numbers - we have the better arguments, many years of resistance and have always been good for surprises like today's. Thanks to all!" The IMC post says at around noon fences were cut and people went into the waste storage compound with shovels, hammers and wheelbarrows to flatten the installations.

"German Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen is reportedly considering stripping the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) of its nuclear waste duties to expedite storage at the controversial Gorleben site. Daily newspaper Die Tageszeitung reported on Tuesday that sources at Röttgen's ministry said he may take away responsibility for the final disposal of nuclear waste from the BfS by creating another government agency or privatising the process. The potential change resulted from a conflict between Röttgen and BfS President Wolfram König. Whereas Röttgen on Monday announced the Environment Ministry would end a moratorium on exploring possible storage at the controversial underground site at Gorleben in the sate of Lower Saxony, König has said the site fails to meet international safety standards. "

A shipment of nuclear waste is expected to arrive at a dump in Germany despite mass protests from environmentalists. Eleven containers of treated waste were on Monday transferred from a train onto lorries in Dannenberg for the final journey to the northern Gorleben site. The train was delayed for hours after setting off from La Hague in France on Friday, as protesters clashed with police trying to block the shipment.

Thousands of anti-nuclear demonstrators were trying to obstruct a tightly guarded convoy of spent nuclear fuel on its way to a German storage facility. Near the warehouse in Gorleben in northern German, where many tons of radioactive waste are stored, more than 6,000 protesters thronged roads on Saturday, Nov. 8, just before a protest rally.

The 10,000 police at the scene were ordered to clear the road before the trucks departed from a railway freight yard carrying the 11 containers. They were bound for the storage site at Gorleben where tons of similar waste are already guarded round the clock.

Transport of radioactive waste to an interim storage facility near the German town of Gorleben from a reprocessing plant in La Hague in France has been cancelled for the coming year, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on Tuesday.

LAST week Germany's nuclear waste storage site, which has so far cost nearly $2 billion, was pronounced 'dead' by the Environment Minister, and he was backed by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection. German newspapers had been reporting that the conservative government of the 1970s, led by Chancellor Kohl, had altered a scientists' report that came to the conclusion that the location in Lower Saxony was not suitable for long-term storage of nuclear waste, so that Gorleben could indeed be chosen.

Anti-nuclear activists in Germany are gearing up for another transport of highly active nuclear waste to run through France and Germany from 7 to 9 November for dumping at the north German village of Gorleben. About 20,000 police will be deployed to guard the consignment against thousands of demonstrators. At http://www.castor.de/ticker/index_en.html is a newswire run by the protest movement. It already has some run-up stories on it.

A shipment of radioactive waste from German nuclear plants arrived at a storage site on Tuesday morning after being delayed by fierce protests from nuclear activists. The demonstrations are partly in response to conservative calls for a rethink of the planned phaseout of nuclear power stations. German riot police confronted activists along the route of the nuclear waste transport. Eleven trucks carrying radioactive waste from German nuclear power stations arrived a day late at their destination, a storage site near Gorleben in northern Germany, early on Tuesday morning after thousands of anti-nuclear activists tried to stop the convoy.

Some 50,000 anti-nuclear protestors demonstrated in Berlin on Saturday against Germany possibly reversing a decision to abandon atomic energy and extending the life of its nuclear power plants. The marchers, backed by 400 tractors, demanded that Germany stick to its commitment to close all nuclear plants by 2020 and also called for the closure of a radioactive dump at Gorleben in eastern Germany. The police refused to give an estimate of the crowd but organisers - ranging from the Greens to members of the Protestant church - put the figure at 50,000 people, marching from the Berlin train station to the Brandenburg Gate.