A convey of 350 farm tractors rumbled through Berlin on Saturday to launch a mass anti-nuclear rally, designed to influence Germany's general election in three weeks' time. About 50,000 opponents of nuclear power took part in the protest, which kicked off with an 8-km (5-mile)-long convey of tractors that passed in front of Chancellor Angela Merkel's offices and through the government quarter to the city's historic Brandenburg Gate. Determined to make nuclear power a focus of the election campaign, the protesters criticised Merkel and her conservative party, which wants to scrap a 2001 law to shut down Germany's 17 remaining nuclear power plants by the mid-2020s. "We won't tolerate any backtracking on the nuclear exit," Fritz Pothmer, a northern German farmer, said to cheers at the largest anti-nuclear rally in years. "It's nuclear insanity. How could Merkel become such a tool of the nuclear lobby?"
About 50,000 opponents of nuclear power took part in the protest, which kicked off with an 8-km (5-mile)-long convey of tractors that passed in front of Chancellor Angela Merkel's offices and through the government quarter to the city's historic Brandenburg Gate.
Determined to make nuclear power a focus of the election campaign, the protesters criticised Merkel and her conservative party, which wants to scrap a 2001 law to shut down Germany's 17 remaining nuclear power plants by the mid-2020s.
"We won't tolerate any backtracking on the nuclear exit," Fritz Pothmer, a northern German farmer, said to cheers at the largest anti-nuclear rally in years. "It's nuclear insanity. How could Merkel become such a tool of the nuclear lobby?"
How could Merkel become such a tool of the nuclear lobby?"
You have to look carefully at Tory speeches to see which views are being appeased and which are being courted. they want to co-exist but are often in sharp opposition. keep to the Fen Causeway
Well, she was always close...
What is more interesting, but not mentioned in the Reuters article, is the CSU (the Bavarian sister of the CDU) dancing away from the CDU. A top CSU guy has now demanded in the campaign that any extension of running time be attached to stringent conditions; including safety system upgrades, obligatory re-investment of half the profits in renewables(!), social price cuts, and a contribution to the decontamination of the Asse nuclear dumb site (which is hit by water leaks; total costs would be a few billion Euros). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
