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

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