When former Microsoft executive John Wood discovered the world’s need for books, he was trekking in Nepal and says he recalled what he had read in the Dalai Lama’s book “The Art of Happiness” about the importance of giving something to someone in need.

In a country where the preference for boy children dates back centuries, driven by religious custom, will a growing and stable middle class begin to give girls new opportunities and view boys and girls as being of equal value?

The militarized island of Mindanao is the only area of the Philippines with a significant Muslim presence. It is also the place where international civilians are working with local civic groups to monitor a ceasefire and advance the peace process.

Many Vietnamese priests came to the US to escape war and persecution and to help struggling Catholic parishes in small rural communities that don't have enough priests.

Clinics in India pay poor women a lot of money to be surrogate mothers, but "the contracts are usually written to protect the wealthy people who are commissioning the baby," says ethicist Arthur Caplan.

“Our church operates like orchestra. Every day we make perfect harmony and fantastic symphony,” says Yoido Full Gospel Church’s senior pastor, Rev. Young Hoon Lee.

Activist groups should bring about a greater awareness of worker rights issues and add a moral voice to global economic matters, says David Schilling of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility.

This award-winning economist is credited with bringing down Thailand’s HIV infection rate, lowering its high birth rate, reducing poverty rates, and championing sustainable development ideas that work in rural settings.

“The message is that the Buddha is within and moving about in very mysterious ways,” says James Ulak, senior curator of Japanese art at the Smithsonian Institution’s Freer and Sackler Galleries.

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.