This is the same history repeating itself," he says, referring to ancient Sunni-Shia enmities that played out on these plains centuries ago.
Most of the evidence for respectful two-spirit traditions is focused on the native peoples of the Plains, the Great Lakes, the Southwest, and California.
Rising up out of the plains southwest of Padua, these conical hills or colli were a popular retreat for the nobles and bishops of Venice, who built elaborate villas and palazzi here.
A long bus journey to Kalka in the plains, and then the fabulous narrow gauge railway, through a hundred tunnels and countless bridges, amid awesome sights and scenery.
Fly to Innsbruck (then a 50-minute drive) The name of this collection of cottages – Little Houses on the Prairie – may conjure up a very different image of empty mid-western plains, but it reflects the rural setting and romantic interiors.
"The Shenhua and BHP mines and coal seam gas on the Liverpool Plains are real tests for the water trigger process – an objective scientific process – but we have yet to see any of that played out to its finality," he said.
British Airways (0844 493 0787; ba.com) flies to Antigua from Gatwick from £554 return, after which Liat (liatairline.com) flies from Antigua to Dominica from £116 Mallorca's mild winter weather makes it perfect for walks up into the Tramuntana mountains, or horse rides across the plains.
Geographically, too, the land is compact: a five-hour drive over the spine of the Southern Alps will take you through a dozen entirely different landscapes – beach river valley marshland rainforest gorge foothill highland alps plains peninsula beach –and each with its own weather, its own skies, its own quality of light.
"The spooks, who once sat in cubicles steaming open the glued-down flaps of a few dozen suspect envelopes, now have more fertile plains to furrow and the marvellous means to do it.
The site of the pipeline break, six miles upstream from the high-plains city of Glendive, Montana, is almost entirely capped in ice, complicating efforts to retrieve the oil and slowing the response process.
Some property owners without flood insurance (which mortgage lenders require of most people living in flood-plains) will get relief from a federal disaster-loan programme.
