Word: malacca
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...centuries, the Strait of Malacca has been one of the great thoroughfares of global commerce. In the old days of wood and sail, the 500-mile ribbon of water, which connects the Indian and Pacific oceans between Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra, carried pricey spices from the islands of the Indies to the eager markets of the West. Today, about 40% of the world's trade passes through the strait on 50,000 vessels that ply its waters every year. Oil from the Persian Gulf flows east to China and Asia's other voracious economies, which in turn...
...ample hideaways. Earlier this decade, the waterway's piracy problem reached crisis levels. Attacks ranged from small-scale robberies by lightly armed desperados to highly organized hijackings of giant vessels by teams of professionals. According to the International Maritime Bureau of the International Chamber of Commerce, the Strait of Malacca suffered 38 actual or attempted pirate attacks in 2004, the second highest total in the world after Indonesia. "We don't stand a chance" against the pirates, an Indonesian naval officer conceded at the time. In 2005, the London insurance market added the strait to its list of areas...
...Like laksa - a coconut-milk-and-prawn-laden broth thickened by the spices of China, Malaysia and India - Peranakan culture has been simmering since the Chinese began migrating to the Straits in the early 16th century. Originally small-time traders under the Portuguese colonialists of Malacca, the Chinese Peranakans subsequently parlayed their mastery of Malay and English to become compradore merchants under British rule, spawning a prosperous Anglophile and anglophone class that aspired to attend Oxford and Cambridge but which, at the same time, spoke among itself in Baba Malay. (See 10 things to do in Singapore...
...pipe it northeast through Burma to China's Yunnan province. The pipeline, along with a plan for a new deepwater port in Arakan where ships laden with Middle Eastern oil can dock and disgorge their valuable cargo, gives China an alternative to the expensive and sometimes dangerous Strait of Malacca by directly supplying energy to its landlocked west. The Shwe project is Burma's largest ever foreign-investment commitment. (The second largest is the Yadana pipeline to Thailand.) Though Arakan sits on the country's biggest oil and natural-gas fields, Sittwe only gets three hours of electricity...
...Vegas Sands' $4 billion resort and casino project. The earthmovers scoop and dump the soft soil, and workers fan out across the city-state's most coveted piece of land, which girdles the central business district and offers a sweeping view over the emerald waters of the Malacca Straits...