1.   And medieval villages like this one, built on plateaus in the basin and seemingly unchanged in centuries, become islands surrounded by water and rice paddies.

2.   As the well-organized Zionist militias took town after town from the divided and badly-equipped Arab forces, villages like Bayt Thul emptied.

3.   Belgrade, in a desperate attempt to stanch the rebel advances, has been pounding border villages like Junik with heavy artillery in the last three days.

4.   A month later, miles away, another quake leveled entire villages like Verapaz and Guadalupe, forcing a dusty exodus from houses to tents.

5.   But for a man who spent his lifetime railing against the legacy of Western colonization, its waning years brought unprecedented change to sleepy villages like his.

6.   But here, and in many villages like it, the household, the basic fact of peasant Russia, is coming unglued.

7.   But in villages like this one, it has been easier to reverse the Ceausescu madness and go back to the land.

8.   But to most people who live in villages like Orient, Orient Point and East Marion, the sounds are the accompaniment to disaster.

9.   But what the immigration service has not done until now is reach right down into remote villages like San Felipe to warn Mexicans to stay home.

10.   Camels still turn primitive olive presses in Berber villages like Chenini, at the edge of the Sahara.