Environmental campaign group Greenpeace on Tuesday handed over its iconic protest ship Rainbow Warrior II to a Bangladeshi charity which will turn it into a floating hospital. Greenpeace said it hoped that Friendship would continue to use the ship as a beacon of hope.
"This ship has carried people from around the world and has stood as an icon of hope over pessimism and as an emblem of action over complacency," Rainbow Warrior II captain Mike Fincken said during a sombre handover ceremony in Singapore. "It is time to pass that task on."
Friendship has renamed the vessel Rongdhonu, which also means Rainbow, and will turn it into a hospital ship. From plying the high seas to protest against whaling and nuclear testing, the ship will now stay close to shore to deliver medical assistance to impoverished communities in Bangladesh, Greenpeace said. Greenpeace's original Rainbow Warrior was sunk by French intelligence agents in 1985 in New Zealand in a bid to stop activists from protesting against France's nuclear tests in the Pacific Ocean.
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