Campaigners hit timing of Japan nuclear shipment
Date: 03-Jul-02
Country: JAPAN
Media have reported that a ship carrying mixed plutonium and uranium oxides (MOX) will sail from western Japan on July 4.
This would coincide with America's Independence Day and would come just days after the U.S. State Department warned there was continuing potential for terrorist attacks.
"For this to be leaving in the midst of the alerts that the United States have put out is really the height of foolishness," said Tom Clements, a Greenpeace campaigner attached to the group's vessel, Arctic Sunrise.
Greenpeace plans to use its ship to stage a protest at Takahama some 300 km (190 miles) west of Tokyo, from where the British ship Pacific Pintail is expected to sail.
The fuel is being returned to British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) after a scandal in 1999 when Japan's Kansai Electric Power Co discovered that BNFL had deliberately falsified data on the fuel it had shipped to the company.
The fuel is being returned under an agreement between the Japanese and British governments.
A spokesman for Kansai Electric, which had planned to use the fuel in commercial reactors, said it was not revealing the ship's departure date due to security considerations.
Greenpeace also criticised the security arrangements for the ship, which is equipped with a machine gun and will be accompanied on its trip by another armed freighter.
"We think that is inadequate. Consideration mostly took place before September 11," Clements said.
Although the planned route has also been kept under wraps, leaders in countries that may find the shipment passing nearby have also expressed concerns about safety.
The ships will likely be escorted out of Japanese waters by coast guard vessels, but a coast guard spokeswoman declined to give any details of security arrangements.
"We will be taking the necessary safety measures," she said.