Word: straits
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...barely clearing the hills above the Pacific port of Vladivostok, less than 40 miles from China. At the same moment, on the Bering Strait across from Alaska, the easternmost edge of the Soviet world is well on the way to an Arctic noon. And in Moscow, ten time zones to the west over an endless expanse of tundra, forests and inland seas, it is half past midnight, and yesterday has just ended. Not for eight hours will the commuters to the left head for their jobs in the capital from suburban Zagorsk. In the Soviet Union, more than anywhere else...
...intelligence first spotted the missiles last March along the Iranian banks of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow strip of water through which all shipping must pass on its way into and out of the gulf. Though Iranian officials have frequently threatened to close the strait, such a scenario is considered unlikely, since much of Iran's own oil exports must pass through the waterway...
...shipping against primitive but effective mining. That was an improvement from the summer days when American sailors could only stand futile watch with rifles as a defense against mines. Since the Bridgeton debacle, the U.S. has safely escorted nine U.S.-reflagged tanker convoys past Iranian missile batteries in the Strait of Hormuz...
...charge. The tethers were set to keep the mines, waiting unseen but lethal, within 40 ft. or less of the surface. Navy specialists said the same type of mines had damaged the Bridgeton in the shipping channel to Kuwait in July and the Texaco Caribbean just outside the Strait of Hormuz in August. The same type of mine destroyed a supply boat in the Gulf of Oman last month, killing five crewmen...
...with a vengeance, while simultaneously there was new activity on the diplomatic front. By week's end United Nations Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar was packing his bags for a trip to Iran and Iraq that could lead to a lasting cease-fire. Meanwhile, the gulf and the Strait of Hormuz were littered with blasted, battered, shell-pocked ships from a dozen nations...