Its new international airport notwithstanding, the tiny British territory of St. Helena, which sits in the southern Atlantic Ocean about 2,000 kilometers from the African coast, remains as isolated as it was in 1815, when Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled there after losing the Battle of Waterloo.
Potentially dangerous, erratic winds, discovered just before the United Kingdom government-funded airport was due to open this May, have kept the new 1,850-meter-long runway closed to all but a few special flights.