Nuclear Waste Shipment Sails into Pacific

["Greenbase" <greenbas@gb.greenpeace.org>]

JAPANESE NUCLEAR WASTE SHIPMENT SAILS INTO PACIFIC, LEAVING
CONTROVERSY IN CARIBBEAN AND LATIN AMERICA

Panama, 7 February 1998 --- The British-flagged nuclear waste
shipment, which has caused controversy throughout the Caribbean
and Latin America, has transited the Panama Canal today and now
heads across the Pacific despite stormy weather.  The "Pacific
Swan" and its cargo of highly radioactive nuclear waste were met
with Panamanian protesters and Greenpeace activists, while the
ship moved through the Panama Canal on its way to Japan.

The "Pacific Swan" transports 60 canisters of highly radioactive
nuclear waste packed inside three transport casks.  The cargo
contains a staggering 30,000,000 curies of radioactivity--the
waste is so deadly that a person within one meter of a single
unshielded glass block would receive a fatal dose of radiation
in less than one minute. The nuclear waste contains
approximately the same amount of the dangerous isotope cesium
which was released during the Chernobyl disaster.

The "Pacific Swan" shipment is the largest of its kind and is
part of a program to ship some 3,000 canisters of nuclear waste
from Britain and France to Japan. In addition to waste
shipments, France and Britain have clandestine plans to ship
tens of tons of weapon-usable plutonium to Japan in the next
decade.

Countries and environmental groups throughout the Caribbean and
Central America have protested the current shipment and the
Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Organization of Eastern
Caribbean States, and the Latin American and Central American
Parliaments have issued statements of opposition.

While the actual route of the "Pacific Swan" remains a secret
kept by Japanese, French and British officials, the transport
will be met with intensive protest.  While only two other waste
shipments of this kind have been made, the first in 1995 via
Cape Horn, and the second in 1997 via the Cape of Good
Hope/Tasman Sea/South Pacific, both occasioned significant
protest from Pacific nations.  

Already US Representatives from Hawaii, American Samoa and Guam
have written to President Clinton asking that he intervene
against the transport and New Zealand Foreign Minister Don
McKinnon has restated opposition to such transports entering the
waters of New Zealand.

"France, Britain and Japan are turning a deaf ear to the
rightful protests of people and politicians throughout the
Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific," said Damon Moglen of
Greenpeace. "It is outrageous that there are no environmental
assessments, serious emergency response plans or adequate
liability arrangements for such dangerous shipments."

Three Greenpeace activists boarded the Pacific Swan early this
morning as it approached the Caribbean side of the Panama Canal. 
The activists hung a banner reading "Stop Plutonium" on an
onboard crane.  The activists were removed and detained by
Panamanian authorities.  Subsequently, some 100 Panamanian
protesters met the ship at the Pedro Miguel locks as the ship
started the final leg of its passage through the Canal into the
Pacific.

Although the course of the Swan is being kept secret, it is
believed that the ship may travel near Hawaii, the Republic of
the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and
Guam, before arriving at the Japanese port of Mutsu Ogawara. 
The ship could be off Hawaii in some 2 to 3 weeks, and is due to
arrive in Japan by early March.

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Greenpeace on the Internet at http://www.greenpeace.org
Rob Wiltzen
Greenbase Information Services
Greenpeace International