He, an extraordinary 15th-century Imperial fleet commander who completed seven long ocean voyages, including beyond the Indian subcontinent, reached the Horn of Africa and what is now Tanzania and Kenya.

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Since independence in 1976, per capita output in this Indian Ocean archipelago has expanded to roughly seven times the pre-independence, near-subsistence level, moving the island into the upper-middle income group of countries.

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Such is the demand for natural gas around Fort McMurray that a consortium of companies, including Shell Canada and Imperial Oil, has proposed building a seven-hundred-and-fifty-mile pipeline from the Arctic Ocean through the largely undisturbed wilderness of the Mackenzie River Valley and down into northern Alberta.

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That assessment was reinforced by a 2009 Northrop Grumman study that found seven Littoral Combat Ships could perform anti-piracy patrols in the Western Indian Ocean more efficiently than 20 conventional warships for a quarter of the cost.

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In 1960, Piccard's father, Jacques, descended seven miles beneath the Pacific Ocean in another pressurized module to set a deep-dive record that has been matched only twice.

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This Five-Star resort is tucked away on seven oceanfront acres on the southern tip of Palm Beach Island, and the Ritz Kids AquaNuts facility is decidedly ocean-inspired the ceiling is blue and the room is decked out with fish nets, crab and fish rugs and has large murals of underwater scenes on the wall.

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