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Gibraltar Bay from the Space Station: From the top: As an aside, the other "Pillar of Hercules" is Monte Hacho, in Ceuta, a "Spanish enclave in North Africa". Monte Hacho is not as imposing as Gibraltar. It's the hill overlooking the harbor in the picture below. However, the alternate Pillar is Jebel Musa (in Morocco, not the Sinai Peninsula!). I like this one. The picture is Jebel Musa viewed from Gibraltar. I think the key difference is that Monte Hacho is owned by Spain and Jebel Musa isn't.

Controversy and hostility dog American task force in Islamist hotbed By David Blair at Camp Lemonier, Djibouti Last Updated: 2:52am GMT 10/11/2006 At the point where the Red Sea meets the Indian Ocean, giant super-tankers pass under the shadow of arid mountain peaks. Every day, they carry 3.3 million barrels of oil through these straits, known as the Gates of Tears, where Africa and Arabia are only 17 miles apart. Some 17,000 ships use this natural corridor every year, making it strategically vital and a prime target for terrorists. The tiny African country of Djibouti, found alongside the straits, has...

China is building up military forces and setting up bases along sea lanes from the Middle East to project its power overseas and protect its oil shipments, according to a previously undisclosed internal report prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

San Diego's leaders have denied for more than a year that the city could be headed for bankruptcy, but a report this week suggests that officials are creeping closer to being unable to pay the bills. In a report the City Manager's Office issued Wednesday, the City Council is being asked to consider restructuring a $152 million sewer bond by delaying payments on it by one year and stretching the terms of the loan to 2011. The plan, which includes acceptance of a $10.1 million state loan, is almost the only way for the city to avoid having to begin...

16 July 2005: The Burmese navy is conducting a survey near the Andamans to set up a patrol base and a small port, but officials and diplomats suspect an intelligence operation is underway both to map the Andaman Sea at the behest of China and to study deep water movement of big ships. Western intelligence experts said that China trained nearly three hundred Burmese naval personnel in the Jinan military region in 2003 for sea patrolling and intelligence-gathering, on the basis of a framework agreement for joint intelligence sharing and operations signed between the two countries in 1995.

14 May 2005: Deepening its “strings of pearls” strategy of acquiring bases and cultivating ties from the Middle East to Southern China, China is now planning a submarine facility on one of the Indonesian islands close to the Malacca Straits, and Australia has protested this. Diplomatic sources said that China ostensibly wants to protect the sealanes of communication in the Indian Ocean, especially the transit of oil tankers from the Persian Gulf, but it is also seen as a measure to preempt a US blockade of China’s energy sources in the event of a war with Taiwan. In January, The...

US reveals China arms build-up By Hamish McDonald Beijing March 7, 2005 American intelligence agencies have revealed a huge build-up in Chinese assault forces - apparently designed to invade Taiwan - as China's leaders made new overtures for a peaceful agreement with the island republic. US officials said China was racing to complete 23 amphibious ships able to ferry tanks and troops across the 160-kilometre-wide Taiwan Strait and 13 submarines to protect them, according to a New York Times report. "Their amphibious assault shipbuilding alone equals the entire US Navy shipbuilding since 2002," one official said. The US revelation came...