Turkey is immersed in a profound social and political conflict between secularists, who have been in power since the republic was founded, and an insurgent Islamic-based movement that seeks to increase the role of religion in public life.

During the 1980s, international interest in the Nicaraguan war was intense. No conflict since the Spanish civil war had provoked such passion around the world. It was a classic good-versus-evil war.

Conflict with the United States is one of the overwhelming facts of Latin American history.

Pakistan is not about to crack down on terror groups or cut its military budget in order to build roads, schools and hospitals.

I know what it's like to have a family and not have insurance and really need it. As a comic, insurance was one of those sacrifices I made early on until I could afford it.

Mum and Dad had waited 16 years for adoption laws to change in their home state, Tasmania, so that they could apply to the authorities to create the family of their dreams. I am so thankful for their endurance and patience. Who knows what would have happened to me if they hadn't miraculously appeared when I needed them most?

In my Scandinavian-American family, we were conditioned never to sit, at least not comfortably. I was endlessly going back to work. We longed for the fleeting respite of being useful and regarded sleep as a reward for exhaustion, always to be deferred until after the sun goes down.

My father was a creature of the archaic world, really. He would have been entirely at home in a Gaelic hill-fort. His side of the family, and the houses I associate with his side of the family, belonged to a traditional rural Ireland.