ABROAD can seem a long way off. Foreign news is difficult to take in, requiring concentration and the atlas you can't be bothered to find. The news from overseas is often gloomy, a procession of man's inhumanity to man or tales of another natural disaster too monumental to comprehend.

A while ago a newspaper ran a list of improvements a person could make in their life. Buried in this catalogue of betterment was "read the foreign pages".

This struck a chord with me because so often I don't. The foreign pages whiz by in a blur of half-noticed headlines and unread copy, until my eyes settle on more home news, features or comment, or just about anything other than foreign news.

Vague guilt attends this skipping of abroad, with so much left ignored and misunderstood.

If September 11 has taught us anything, it is that what happens in the distance can be very important, so vital that the complicated politics and religions of far away can end up on our doorstep to monumental effect.

Television should help in this worldly education, and yet it is still all too possible to glaze over as more long-travelled misery arrives in our home.

Since the terrorist atrocity in the US, foreign news is everywhere. Maps are suddenly a useful journalistic tool to explain what is going on as President Bush plots his 'war' against terrorism. These maps are helpful to late starters everywhere, pinpointing the key countries.

Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden is said to be hiding, is usually picked out in a darker colour, in separation from adjacent or relatively nearby countries, such as Pakistan, Iran, China and India.

Yet such handy maps also tell a lie, giving the false impression that this is an ordinary war, with disputed borders and territorial claims.

The United States, with support from Britain and many other countries, is amassing an astonishing array of firepower, ready and waiting to do something, anything. Yet what seems to be missing is intelligence, the most important weapon against terrorists.

And if, as Tony Blair assures us, there is incontrovertible proof to link Osama bin Laden with the atrocity, such evidence should be put on the table for all to see. This way, the world could judge for itself what should be done next, and not just rely on the word of the massively hurt United States. Mr Blair's statesmanlike statement to the House this morning goes some way to clear up this matter.

Many Americans are more cut off than the average Brit, being even less likely to take in anything much from the foreign pages or the multiplicity of TV news channels.

I read this week that 95 per cent of Americans don't even have a passport, a statistic which, if true, suggests a country happy to be isolated and unaware of the rest of the world.

When I drove across the US some 20 years ago, we pulled into a roadside caf or bar in the middle of nowhere on Route 66. The young woman behind the counter was about our age, twentysomething.

She told us she had never been anywhere else, give or take 100 miles.

There we were, English tourists driving 3,000 miles in a week and this woman had been nowhere near that far in her life.

This is just an anecdote, I know, but the image lingers, suggesting another side of America, away from the glossy movies and the booming capitalism, the brash lovability and the loudness. Inside big America there has always been a smaller country, wrapped up in itself and looking at its own feet.

A 17th century proverb suggests: "Go abroad and you'll hear news of home."

Sometimes it's important to stay at home and hear news of abroad.