Plus I think people might be watching this war of words over the Strait of Hormuz.
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At its narrowest point, the Strait of Hormuz is only 21 nautical miles (40km) wide.
The island city-state sits at the mouth of the strategically vital Strait of Malacca.
The canal today is taken for granted, much like the Bosphorus or the Strait of Gibraltar.
He said Bush was trying to foment tensions in the Persian Gulf over the Strait of Hormuz confrontation.
In 2012, Raddatz was on a USS destroyer as it made its way through the Strait of Hormuz.
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Iran has previously threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil shipping lane, over the sanctions issue.
He wants to build a bridge over the Strait of Messina to Sicily, but his green allies say he cannot.
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But in reaction to those sanctions, you have one politician in Iran renewing the threat to close the Strait of Hormuz.
Oil companies, in particular, ought to be be paying for the cost of the Fifth Fleet, which protects the Strait of Hormuz.
The country is a crossroads, a place where East meets West and Africa shakes hands with Europe across the narrow Strait of Gibraltar.
What was once a voyage of under 20km across the Strait of Gibraltar can now be more than 1, 000km from ports in Senegal.
He and Gallagher bought a house on the Olympia Peninsula overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and they married on June 17, 1988.
Or is it farsighted planning to provide resources in exactly the kind of a temporary Strait of Hormuz emergency that now seems entirely possible.
But threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a quarter of the world's oil supplies passes, send shivers through oil markets.
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Tehran threatened this year to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil shipping lane, if sanctions were imposed on its exports of crude oil.
In recent days, Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, the channel through which about a third of global seaborne oil exports pass.
And if plans for a rail tunnel under the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain to Morocco are finalized, trains could link Europe and Africa by 2025.
Of the 74, 000 vessels, carrying one-third of global seaborne trade, that passed through the Strait of Malacca last year, most also plied the South China Sea.
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As you know, if you range back about seven or eight years, we had a significant piracy problem that was manifesting itself in the Strait of Malacca.
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The NSR cuts the voyage from Shanghai to Hamburg by 6, 400km (4, 000 miles) compared with the southern journey through the Strait of Malacca and the Suez Canal.
American sovereignty, an unfettered Navy, and where applicable, customary international law, remain our best tools for ensuring stability in critical ocean pathways like the Strait of Hormuz.
If the Iranians were to carry out their threat to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, China would suffer directly, through a likely surge in the oil price.
"Bad news would be a supply shock - if you did have a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz or a war in the Middle East, " Koll said.
In fact, neighboring Morocco, separated from Spain by the narrow strait of Gibraltar, is home to 4.5 million Islamic fundamentalists, who may become angered at Spain's generous support of America.
And it was the nations of Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand that came together and began to patrol in earnest the Strait of Malacca and quelled piracy quite a bit.
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For example, Murmansk to China's Ningbo port near Shanghai is 13, 000 km via the NSR, compared with 22, 000 km via the Mediterranean Sea, Suez Canal, Indian Ocean and Strait of Malacca.
Three Saudis and seven Moroccans went on trial this week in Casablanca, Morocco, accused of planning an attack against NATO ships in the Strait of Gibraltar and plotting to kill tourists.
Earlier this year, Tangiers opened an expanded storage facility for oil, gas and other refined materials aimed at the more than 70, 000 ships that pass through the Strait of Gibraltar each year.
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