Word: strait
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...early hours of August 2, 1943, the American patrol torpedo boat PT 109, skippered by John F. Kennedy, was running slowly on one engine - to avoid detection - in the Blackett Strait, off Kolombangara Island. Its mission, like that of other PT boats, was to harass a fast-moving convoy of Japanese supply ships. On a moonless night, with little warning, Kennedy's 25-m wooden boat was rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri. PT 109 burst into flames, two men were killed, and the 11 surviving crew members had to abandon the boat. Four hours later, after swimming almost...
...Despite the difference in their status and prospects, what Rahimi and his comrades share is their romance with the notion of Iranian power. Rahimi can rattle off the range of the Shahab-5 missile and fantasize about what closing the Strait of Hormuz would do to U.S. oil supplies. "We really should not have signed the additional protocol to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty," he laments. "Iran's legitimate right to nuclear technology should not be checked by the West's politics...
...Taiwan the only potential trouble spot? Perhaps not. The Pentagon argues that China is developing military capabilities that extend farther. It says the estimated 650 to 730 Chinese short-range ballistic missiles placed along the Taiwan Strait could be deployed to other positions. And improvements in the Chinese air force's ability to refuel airborne fighters and its navy's acquisition of destroyers and submarines could help make China a threat farther afield. Still, says Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies: "The threat to the region is [currently a matter...
Shaping up as an important milestone is the demolition of two large dams in Washington State's Elwha River, which flows from the mountains of Olympic National Park into the Juan de Fuca Strait. Their removal, scheduled to begin in 2008, would occur in stages, and if it goes as planned, the Pacific Northwest will lose only a tiny amount of hydropower and regain a legendary salmon fishery. But there could be problems. Behind the Elwha dams are some 18 million cubic yards of accumulated sediment, enough to fill four superdomes, and if a lot of that sediment starts...
...danger of an Iranian blockade has lent special importance to Oman, which lies on the strait's southern shore. An Omani naval base at Ras Masandam monitors all ship movements through the channel, while the sultanate's fast and flashy Province-class patrol ships, each armed with eight radar-guided Exocet missiles, are on constant alert, occasionally shooing away Iranian intruders. Qaboos has also seen to it that Oman's 21,500-man volunteer army, navy and air force do not lack for equipment. He lavishes 46% of the national budget on the military and keeps it supplied with...