"It is the responsibility of the international community, of the global civil society, to come and take care and assist the transformation of Syria, in collaboration with the Syrian civil society," says the exiled leader of the Deir Mar Musa monastery near Damascus.

"We are together in front of God and recognize each other as believers...these Muslim, Christian and Jewish, they worship God in a kind of choir," Father Paolo Dall'Oglio told correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro in describing the work of his monastery before violence erupted in Syria.

It is a painful rite of passage for girls in many African and Middle Eastern countries. But in Senegal there has been a remarkably successful campaign to change people's attitudes towards female circumcision in an effort to eliminate the practice altogether.

World Vision’s vice president for advocacy and government relations says the leaders attending this weekend’s G8 summit in Washington should invest in agricultural and nutrition programs to lift people out of poverty because “it’s the right thing to do, it’s the moral thing to do, and it’s the smart thing to do.”

In the wake of White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan’s speech on drone ethics and targeted killing, we talk to Yale Law School professor Stephen Carter, author of The Violence of Peace: America’s Wars in the Age of Obama.

"The administration says that the drone is the smallest amount of force that we could use. They say it's accurate and therefore it discriminates perfectly," observes Yale Law School professor Stephen Carter.

In this territorial dispute between India and Pakistan in what may be the world’s most militarized region, there are direct links between water availability, rising terrorism, and religious extremism among Hindus and Muslims.

"For weeks the newspapers have included articles about the mounting deaths and suffering of ordinary Syrians. These articles implicitly pronounce a familiar imperative: something must be done. But in the face of this imperative, we are compelled by another: force is justified only where there is reasonable hope of doing more good than harm."

Working with communities of faith means “helping millions of Americans connect to the opportunity to serve vulnerable populations abroad.”

"There are a lot of people in this country who are into dialogue, education, getting to know one another, trying to live together," says Rabbi Ron Kronish, director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Jerusalem.