The Strait of Hormuz is about 39 kilometres across at its narrowest, and every metre of it sits inside somebody's territorial sea — Iran's on one shore, Oman's on the other. There is no spare water in the middle to claim.

Four of the five stories below turn on a line that was supposed to be temporary: an armistice, a military occupation, a colonial enclave, a strait nobody has ever managed to own. The fifth is about a border made of water, and what happens when the water leaves. Everything here comes from the wires — BBC World, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle and The New York Times, reported between 13 and 16 August — with the map added.

1. Trump says he will declare the Strait of Hormuz American.

Speaking on Long Island on Friday, Donald Trump threatened to designate the Strait of Hormuz "a territory of the United States" — "pretty soon", he said. The Guardian notes it was not clear whether he was serious or signalling policy. Deutsche Welle reports he said the strait would become part of the US once Iran is defeated, and told Americans to accept higher fuel prices. Al Jazeera has Iran and Oman still in talks over the waterway. The cartographic problem: the strait is about 39 km — 21 nautical miles — across at its narrowest, and Iranian and Omani territorial seas meet in the middle. There is no unclaimed water to annex.

2. Morocco blocks a second march on Ceuta.

Moroccan police arrested 111 people trying to cross into Ceuta on Saturday, the Guardian reports, after social media posts called for another mass crossing; security was tightened on both sides. The BBC and Al Jazeera report the same operation, Al Jazeera placing it at Fnideq, the Moroccan town against the fence, noting that many died on an earlier crossing. It follows, per the Guardian, more than 72,000 people surging into the enclave two weeks ago, straining the EU and sharpening anti-immigration rhetoric. Ceuta is 18 km² of Spain on the African mainland, Spanish since 1580, and one of the European Union's two land frontiers in Africa. The other is Melilla.

3. Israel plans to move West Bank policing from the army to the police.

Defence Minister Israel Katz has ordered plans to transfer law-enforcement powers in the occupied West Bank to the Israeli police, the Guardian reports; Palestine's vice-president called it a "flagrant violation of international law" and a step towards full annexation. The accounts differ on scope. The Guardian describes powers over Israelis; the New York Times describes responsibility for protecting Palestinians, handed over after settlers besieged two families — the siege we covered last issue. Either way, the mechanism is the same. The West Bank has been under military law since 1967, and military law is what makes an occupation legally temporary. Civil policing is what makes it permanent.

4. The Danube falls, and Romania switches off its reactor.

Romania has shut its only nuclear plant because the Danube no longer supplies enough cooling water — a rare step, Deutsche Welle reports — while Hungary races to dam the river to keep its Paks reactor online. The Guardian travelled 100 miles along what it calls the EU's longest river and found residents struggling for drinking water, and the hunger stone beneath Budapest's Gellért Hill emerging: for centuries, a rock rising out of the Danube meant the mills had stopped and famine was coming. The Danube is also a border for hundreds of kilometres — Romania–Bulgaria, Croatia–Serbia, Slovakia–Hungary — and was Rome's northern limes. Rivers make convenient frontiers until they move.

5. Seoul offers to end the Korean War on paper.

President Lee Jae Myung has proposed talks to formally end the war with North Korea, frozen since the armistice of 1953. This one is reported in our feeds by the BBC alone, so treat it as single-sourced; no response from Pyongyang had appeared by the time the feeds closed. What is on the table is one of the last live cartographic fictions of the twentieth century. The Military Demarcation Line is not a border. It is a ceasefire position, roughly 250 km long, wrapped in a demilitarised zone about 4 km wide, signed by generals rather than governments. Seventy-three years of atlases have drawn it as though it were permanent.

The historical parallel

Our map of the Korean War puts that last story in perspective in four frames. On 25 June 1950 the peninsula is divided near the 38th parallel. By mid-September the North holds almost everything, with South Korean and American forces penned into a corner around Pusan. By late November the map has inverted entirely — the North reduced to a sliver along the Chinese border. And at the armistice the line is back roughly where it began, only slightly diagonal: Kaesong on the northern side now, a wedge of the east coast on the southern. Three years, four complete reversals of the front, and a frontier that finished within a few tens of kilometres of where it started. That is the line Seoul has now offered to convert into an actual border.

Sources: BBC World — South Korea proposes talks to officially end war with North, Morocco detains dozens of migrants trying to cross into Ceuta, reports say. The Guardian — Trump threatens to declare strait of Hormuz 'territory of the United States', Moroccan police arrest more than 100 people as they attempt to enter Ceuta, Israeli military plans to transfer law enforcement in occupied West Bank to police, Destroyed crops, riverbed cyclists and a 'Rock of Starvation': how drought has devastated the Danube. Al Jazeera — Moroccan police arrest over 100 migrants trying to reach Spanish enclave, Moroccan police intercept migrants heading for Ceuta enclave, Iran war live: Talks on Hormuz Strait continue; Israel kills 11 in Lebanon. Deutsche Welle — Donald Trump to declare Hormuz US territory 'soon', Romania shuts nuclear plant, Hungary dams dry Danube River. The New York Times — As Army Fails to Protect Palestinians, Israeli Leaders Sympathize With Settlers.

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