Panama Canal opens for Russian warship

Austin News.Net
Wednesday 3rd December, 2008

Russia has confirned it will send a warship through the Panama Canal for the first time since World War II.

The symbolic journey will see the Russian ship dock at a former US naval base.

In a humiliating gesture to the US, the Russian Navy announced it would visit the Rodman naval base; a name that Panama changed after it confiscated the base from the United States in 1999.

The destroyer Admiral Chabanenko will enter the Panama Canal on Friday morning and arrive late in the day at what Panama now calls the Balboa Naval Base.

US officials have not expressed any concern over the visit, seeing it as payback for US involvement in Georgia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe.

The canal was a symbol of America's growing global reach when it opened in 1914, and it was a major US military outpost for many years.

The 10-mile-wide, 51-mile-long strip along the canal was once considered US territory.

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