Exclusive: Case in Pimlico is latest instance of tensions between small countries seeking a space in capital and residents

It is not a classic neighbour-from-hell dispute, what with the protagonist inviting everyone over for evening drinks and canapés. But the sudden conversion of a five-bedroom family home in Pimlico, central London, into the embassy of Montenegro has triggered a neighbourhood row that has gone all the way to the desk of a high court judge.

The first stirrings of trouble came when one resident argued in a submission to the council this spring that the new embassy’s “flagpole and rather tacky-looking flag stick out like a sore thumb” among Cambridge Street’s Grade II-listed homes.

Exclusive: Case in Pimlico is latest instance of tensions between residents and small countries seeking a space in the capital

It is not a classic neighbour-from-hell dispute, what with the protagonist inviting everyone over for evening drinks and canapés. But the sudden conversion of a five-bedroom family home in Pimlico, central London, into the embassy of Montenegro has triggered a neighbourhood row that has gone all the way to the desk of a high court judge.

The first stirrings of trouble came when one resident argued in a submission to the council this spring that the new embassy’s “flagpole and rather tacky-looking flag stick out like a sore thumb” among Cambridge Street’s Grade II-listed homes.

Many Muslims saw their places of worship destroyed or abandoned during the sectarian violence of India’s partition in 1947. Now villagers of many faiths are coming together to revive them

Gajju Khan is smiling as he sits in an unfinished building in the northern Indian state of Punjab in the late afternoon. The 87-year-old is hopeful that before he dies he will hear the azaan, the Muslim call to prayer, echo across his village once again when the mosque is completed.

The last time he heard it here was when he was eight years old, living with his parents in Tira Maloya, a village in Chandigarh, not far from where he lives now.

Bibi Rajinder Kaur, a Sikh, donated family land to build a mosque in her village. ‘There is no deed better than giving someone a place to worship,’ she says