Local groups protest the USS Ronald Reagan’s Nagasaki port call (Video)
As this news report shows, a few of Nagasaki’s citizens were not too happy about the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan making a port call in their neighborhood:
The U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, called southern Japan’s Sasebo port in Nagasaki Prefecture on Saturday.
The 102,000-ton carrier, the latest-model of its kind, is to stay at the port for five days to provide rest and replenish supplies for its more than 5,000 crewmen, Kyodo News said.
U.S. commanders of the aircraft carrier described the port call as a promotion of exchanges with local residents and a demonstration of the United States’ commitment to protect Japan.
The aircraft carrier will operate in the western Pacific on standby after leaving Sasebo, reports said.
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The Nagasaki prefectural and city governments opposed the plan, saying the port call will stirs concerns and complex feelings among atomic-bomb victims and citizens of the bomb site. [People's Daily Online]
The last nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier to visit Sasebo was the USS Abraham Lincoln, which stayed for five days last May, which was protested in a similar manner at the time.
