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.

The constant movement of a military life can be tough on children. My father was an officer in the army, and I was forced to change elementary schools six times.

The negative effects of combat were nightmares, and I'd get jumpy around certain noises and stuff, but you'd have that after a car accident or a bad divorce. Life's filled with trauma. You don't need to go to war to find it; it's going to find you. We all deal with it, and the effects go away after awhile. At least they did for me.

Study and work and work and study will keep in active exercise both the physical and mental. These two, rightly conducted, will not war against each other.

Every Sri Lankan, and almost every visitor to Sri Lanka, carries a longing for the place in some small form - hiraeth, the Welsh call it - wherever they go and whatever their background. It binds them however much the war and politics might try to divide them.