KATHMANDU, Nepal -- Can you use Facebook? Then you can work for CloudFactory Ltd., a company that accepts data-entry jobs, transcription assignments, and even the time-tagging responsibilities for films of hockey games; breaks the associated tasks into units that can be carried out on a digital assembly line;...

Munim Idris, Indonesia's top forensic pathologist, searches for the true causes of death in the bodies of migrant workers who die abroad. That may seem like a bizarre pursuit, but it's a major issue in a country that sends hundreds of thousands of people overseas every year to work --...

DHO TARAP -- The seasonal influx of migrant harvesters into Nepal's Himalaya Mountains seeking a caterpillar fungus used as a traditional medicine and believed to have aphrodisiac properties is causing environmental damage along the rural border with Tibet.

When a parasitic fungus (cordyceps sinensis) infects and kills...

Laxmi Subedi and her 11-year-old son, Nabindra, traveled by foot for six days to reach the harvesting fields of Dolpa from their home village in Jajarkot district in western Nepal. They migrated because Lakshmi's husband's health was failing and, with it, the family farm.

For years she had heard...

Standing in the courtyard at RR Campus in Kathmandu, Roshan Mahato looks relaxed and proud. This, just seven years ago, was the spot where he was teased and harassed so badly by his peers that he transferred to another college. Today the president of Nepal's LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,...

"I feel safe now," says Om, a 24-year-old who identifies as third-gender, as he walks across Bageshwori Park in Nepalgunj to buy coconut milk. "I used to come to this park at night to meet friends, but I was beaten in the bathroom one time because of how I look,...

The Global Forum on MSM & HIV (MSMGF) has announced its second global survey on the health and human rights of gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM).

Launched this week, the Global Men's Health and Rights (GMHR) survey focuses on factors that affect...

On Dec. 27, 2007, the Supreme Court of Nepal issued a decision that has been called "arguably the single most comprehensive judgment affirming protections for gender identity anywhere in the world." The decision in Pant v. Nepal was overwhelmingly in favor of the petitioners,...

Badri Pun slept in a gravel courtyard in rural Nepal for more than a week. After the first two days, he stopped eating. By night, he huddled under wool blankets, clutching a folder full of papers, some of which made his life legal -- his birth certificate, his motorcycle license,...

This week bloggers exposed a regulation passed in July that could effectively bar transgender, transsexual, and gender-variant people from boarding airplanes in Canada. While it is still unclear whether the regulations have affected any trans people at the airport, the policy as it is written is...

If you are a gay college student, when you apply for jobs, should you let it show on your résumé, or should you hide it? And what if your main achievements have been with an LGBT group? Should you include them on your résumé? These are tough questions when you...

They both packed engagement rings -- secretly. Lisa was going to propose in Indonesia. Jenni beat her to it and popped the question in the Philippines. Then the couple trekked onward across Asia to Nepal, where I caught up with them at a famous Kathmandu pizza...

NBA players are going back to work, albeit ceding some basketball-related income to owners. But for gay players in the league, what was lost in monetary value may be lightened by the celebration of new anti-discrimination protection. With the ratification of the new 10-year collective bargaining agreement, the...

Brushing dust and gravel aside with his foot, Sunil Babu Pant pulls a corrugated aluminum door open and walks through it up rough concrete stairs. As he emerges from the staircase into afternoon sun, Himalayan winds whip his hooded sweatshirt to the side. He beams an enormous, satisfied smile.

Pant...

Last summer when Bhumika Shrestha travelled to New York City to represent Nepal at the United Nations, she encountered some special questions during her layover in Doha. Shrestha, who is transgender -- or, in Nepal, third-gender -- presents as an elegant young woman. Her passport and citizenship ID card, however,...

Since Courtney Mitchell came to Nepal as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1998, the Himalayan nation has witnessed some significant changes.

From the end of a bloody armed conflict, to major political reform that turned the country into one of the world's youngest republics, to a massive social movement that...