Following a violent slave rebellion in the neighbouring French colony of Saint Domingue (now Haiti) in 1791, many French plantation owners fled to Cuba fearing for their lives.

BBC: Cuba��s eclectic architecture

About 250km (150 miles) to the north, in neighbouring Shanxi province, in Pingdong, a much poorer village, 250 people live along battered dirt roads, and try to grow wheat, corn, soyabeans and winter melon on the dry, rocky mountain land.

ECONOMIST: Farmers pay the price for decades of wasteful water use

While the rebel National Liberation Army (NLA) wanted the civilians evacuated to neighbouring ethnic Albanian dominated Kosovo, village leaders objected to a government evacuation plan.

CNN: Matejce

In neighbouring Estonia (also hard bitten by history) support is well over 90%, says Luukas Ilves, a defence ministry official.

ECONOMIST: Conscription

His support base lies elsewhere: in neighbouring Kufa, and in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City (named after his late father, a top cleric).

ECONOMIST: Can the new government uphold the rule of law?

It was felt along the length of Sumatra but, unlike the one on December 26th, did not trigger a great wave and so devastated only a relatively small area: the islands of Nias and Simeulue and neighbouring islets about 130km (80 miles) off the coast.

ECONOMIST: Another earthquake, but no wave, strikes Sumatra

The trust bought a neighbouring stubble field called Hullback's Grove in 2005 to expand Arger Fen to 120 acres (40 hectares).

BBC: Suffolk Wildlife Trust appeal to buy land for dormice

Some neighbouring countries were not able to monitor the manoeuvres (Lithuania, with a handful of observers in Belarus, was an exception).

ECONOMIST: NATO and Russia