It's a sunny morning and there's maybe a hundred people gathered here for the start of the marathon.

But it's an unusual race this one. It's officially the southernmost marathon in the world.

I'm Matthew Teller, and for the BBC World Service I'm in Stanley,

capital of the British overseas territory of the Falkland Islands,

or in Spanish, Las Malvinas.

Everybody ready?

Three, two, one.

And there they go, the runners in the Stanley Marathon streaming past me.

The favorites those expected to win come from the nearest neighboring country which is about 500

kilometers west of here across the wild waters of the South Atlantic,

Argentina.

The foreign office in London say a group of Argentina landed on an island in the disputed Falkland group at the weekend and established a camp.

I have to confirm that Port Stanley is now occupied by Argentine military forces.

The memory of the short but devastating war of 1982 in which 907 people lost their lives still hangs over the Falklands,

and the dispute between Argentina and Britain over the island's sovereignty that caused it,

remains unresolved These are Magellanic penguins. They make their burrows in these Tussaki dunes outside Stanley.

I'm here to try and look past the war to find out more about the links between the Falklands

and South America, shared links of culture and history and identity that came under intense pressure in the years before and after 1982.

But which now seem to be creating something new here,

a contemporary culture still tied to Britain,

but freer to redraw connections with South American neighbours.

The Falklands is the size of the US state of Connecticut, but whereas Connecticut has a population over 3.5 million,

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