Germany's nuclear misadventures continue

Technical problem at two more nuclear reactors in Germany have fuelled the anti-nuclear debate, with the ruling party urging against politicization of the issue.

The latest mishaps came less than three weeks after a fault at the Kruemmel reactor cuts power and water supplies to thousand of homes, breathing new life into the major campaign issue which has divided the country's coalition government ahead of the September elections.

In an interview with the Abendblatt daily on Saturday, German Minister of Education and Research Annette Schavan cautioned against the 'demonization of nuclear power' over the recent malfunctions, while a recent poll reviled more public opposition to atomic energy.

Schavan is a member of Germen Chancellor Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Party (CDU), which supports extending the life of some of the country's 17 nuclear power plants -- that are to be decommissioned by 2020 under a nine-year-old agreement.

Emsland reactor in north-west Germany, one of the country's most modern nuclear power stations, underwent an automatic shutdown at 3:00 am (0100 GMT) on Friday due to a technical fault, operator RWE said.

The reactor supplies around 3.5 million households.

Meanwhile, a section of the aging Philippsburg nuclear power plant in southwest Germany was taken off the grid following another incident.

Junior coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), as well as the anti-nuclear power Greens Party are calling on consumers to boycott Kruemmel's Swedish operator Vattenfall.

A survey published by ZDF public television on Friday suggested that the problems at Kruemmel had spiked nuclear power unpopularity in Germany by 15 percent from last year's 40 percent.

Technical faults are not the only demons haunting the country's nuclear issue.

Last week, a report by Germany's Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) questioned the safety of a controversial nuclear waste dump facility in Asse, rating the salt-mine storage facility as one of the most unreliable nuclear waste dumps in use after officials found radioactive water leak.