“Human rights” can sound like an abstraction, something spoken of only at the highest levels of government. But the work governments do on human rights has consequences and can even make the difference between life and death. As we celebrate Human Rights Day on December 10, we look at how international campaigns in four human rights areas improved the lives of people around the world.

Invoking religion in an unusually direct manner, Kerry said understanding the importance of faith is essential in diplomacy and working with religious leaders can help solve complex problems in foreign countries.

President Obama is delivering remarks at a mosque in Baltimore on Wednesday afternoon, in the first visit to an American mosque he's made during his presidency. His visit, which will also include a roundtable with Muslim community members, is intended to "reaffirm the importance of religious freedom" to life in America, the White House says.

U.S. President Barack Obama will appear in public at an event attended by the Dalai Lama in Washington in the coming week, the White House said Friday, a move sure to anger Beijing.

And Obama didn't just lecture on the need for tolerance of religious minorities. He spoke of the importance of women's rights in a country where shocking abuses still endure. (...) These are unobjectionable remarks, and a point of view shared by likely everyone who crowded in to hear the American president speak. But don't expect Obama to share the same message with the United States' Saudi partners, whose cooperation on matters of counterterrorism in the Middle East and energy policy are vital for Washington's interests.

The United States on Monday denounced what it called a spike in anti-Islamic sentiment in Europe and Asia, pointing to restrictions and violence against Muslims including the faith’s minority sects...Secretary of State John Kerry also voiced alarm at what he called rising anti-Jewish sentiment, and filled a position of special envoy to combat anti-Semitism.

The US State Department has released their International Religious Freedom Report for 2011 which covers 199 countries including Georgia. The report reads that the Georgian Government demonstrated a trend toward the improvement in respect for and protection of the right to religious freedom.