8 November - 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. Gorleben is the 'ground zero' of the nuclear waste issue in Germany - it is the site of an old mine that the German government is hoping to turn into a permanent nuclear waste disposal site. For decades, the local people in and around Gorleben have been welcoming outside activists onto their land and into their homes, to help strengthen a movement whose aim is to force the German government and the nuclear industry to take responsibility for their decisions to propagate a dangerous and unnecessary power source.
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