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A plan by the United States, Brazil and other countries to develop alternative fuels from organic matter is said to be at a “turning point” that will help the participating nations lower their dependence on foreign oil. State Department official Dan Sullivan tells USINFO that “major diplomacy” at a recent conference helped push forward a broad U.S.-Brazil biofuels partnership with these other countries and organizations.  A second element of the plan, he says, involves the United States, Brazil, the European Union, China and India developing industrywide standards and codes that could lay the groundwork for a global biofuels market.

Cyclone Sidr’s deadly landfall wreaked havoc in southern Bangladesh November 15, killing thousands, displacing hundreds of thousands, and adding pain and desperation to a nation whose population of 133 million already struggles with poverty and disease. To help with the latest crisis and meet longer-term health challenges, the U.S. Agency for International Development has committed $19.5 million to relief efforts since the cyclone, Kent Hill, the agency’s assistant administrator for global health, tells reporters in Dhaka, Bangladesh.  The agency also plans to contribute $115 million for health programs in fiscal year 2008 -- an increase of $39 million over fiscal 2007.

Food security in Mozambique and the nutrition of people affected by HIV/AIDS are improving, thanks to close cooperation between U.S. and U.N. agencies, says U.S. diplomat Gaddi Vasquez. The collaboration also is helping establish an early flood warning and response system, Vasquez, the U.S. representative to United Nations food agencies, tells USINFO at the end of a four-day December visit to the country. Mozambique frequently is hit by Indian Ocean cyclones that cause severe flooding. The coordinated responses of agencies to Mozambique's problems "is some of the best I've seen," says Vasquez, a former Peace Corps director.

Visitors to U.S. consulates and embassies soon will be able to watch a short film, I Am America, that introduces them to America’s people and landscapes, conveying the simple message that America is a diverse, interesting and friendly place.  “People overseas think we’ve been barricading ourselves” since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, “but it’s not true,” says Cari E. Guittard, executive vice president of the nonprofit organization Business for Diplomatic Action, which commissioned the film as a gift to the U.S. government.  “We want people to come here.”

She may not have had the power to stop the brutality of the Burmese regime against peaceful demonstrators, but Shari Villarosa, chargé d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Rangoon, ensured that the world, as well as the citizens of Burma, was aware of the injustices against pro-democracy demonstrators in late August and September. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice notes Villarosa’s efforts at a ceremony December 10 at the State Department in Washington, where Villarosa was named runner-up for the first Diplomacy for Freedom Award. The award honors U.S. diplomats for outstanding efforts to advance human dignity, end tyranny and promote democracy.

U.S. embassies around the world organized 16 days of activities focused on the problem of violence against women to draw a symbolic link between the International Day Against Violence Against Women -- November 25 -- and International Human Rights Day -- December 10.  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in her directive to all U.S. embassies, called for engagement with host country governments, civil society and media. Unfortunately, violence against women is accepted in many cultures that regard such behavior as “a private family matter,” says Andrea Bottner, the senior coordinator for the U.S. Department of State’s Office of International Women’s Issues.

A group of dedicated Zimbabwean lawyers that defends victims of politically motivated persecution in Zimbabwe is honored by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with her first Freedom Defenders Award. Lawyer Arnold Tsunga, who fled his country after learning that he was on a government hit list, accepts the award on behalf of the nongovernmental organization Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights at a special ceremony in Washington.

Expect continued intensive diplomacy from Washington as Palestinian and Israeli leaders build on the success of the U.S.-sponsored Annapolis Conference, says a top U.S. diplomat. "There are a lot of historical reasons to be skeptical, but we see this as an unprecedented moment of hope and opportunity for Israelis and Palestinians," Thomas Goldberger, director of the State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs, says in a USINFO webchat.

Muslim, Jewish and Christian leaders in the United States join together in an interfaith peace-building effort to condemn terrorism and the violence it causes.  In supporting this initiative, the Fiqh Council of North America -- the highest judicial body in the Muslim community in the United States -- issues a fatwa, or religious edict, saying "there is no justification in Islam for extremism or terrorism."

For many who live in rural areas throughout the world, the basic technologies necessary for education, public health and economic development are not feasible because of a lack of electricity.  But in Nicaragua, a U.S.-based nonprofit company, blueEnergy, is developing a model for low-cost, sustainable electrification of remote rural communities that can be replicated around the world.

A comprehensive economic dialogue has helped the United States and China broaden their perspectives on bilateral relations and deepen their understanding of each other’s concerns, according to U.S. experts. The U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) was launched in 2006 by President Bush and President Hu Jintao to deal with the complexity of the U.S.-China economic relationship. The SED is conducted through twice-a-year, Cabinet-level meetings and follow-up engagement. “There is no question the dialogue has provided a mechanism for much more serious, high-level consideration of big issues than ever before,” Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, tells USINFO.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hails Congress’ passage of a U.S.-Peru free-trade agreement. “Peruvian access to the U.S. market, which had to be renewed by Congress periodically, will become permanent. This permanent access will help build a more efficient and effective economic engine to create growth, jobs and economic opportunities both in Peru and in the United States,” Rice says in a statement. The U.S. Senate December 4 voted 77 to 18 in favor of the free-trade agreement with Peru, clearing the pact for final action by the president.

The weather was freezing in Minnesota, but Mohamed Benaissa was happy to be back in that snowy northern state for a visit that he called “very emotional, very moving.”  A former foreign minister of Morocco and former Moroccan ambassador to the United States, Benaissa is also a graduate of the University of Minnesota, and he returned on December 4 to receive the highest honor the university can bestow: an honorary doctor of laws degree for public service. In accepting the honor, Benaissa said the United States and Morocco are a good example of “mutual respect between diverse cultures.”

Young Americans are paying attention to the 2008 presidential race, and many are ready to help their preferred candidate achieve victory, a poll by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics shows.  Young Americans share many of the concerns of those in other generations, with the war in Iraq and health care as their top concerns, the poll indicates.

Eight nations and the European Commission pledge $605 million in the continuing fight against the spread of H5N1 avian influenza in birds and people for efforts focusing on halting the virus at its avian source, bolstering disease surveillance and integrating animal and human health services and capabilities. The pledges come on the final day of the New Delhi Ministerial Conference on Avian and Pandemic Influenza, hosted by the government of India in collaboration with the International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza, launched by President Bush in 2005.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says a comprehensive cease-fire agreement between Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and nonextremist political groups will help facilitate the delivery of much-needed humanitarian aid in the country, and she urges the TFG to “renew and revitalize efforts towards a lasting political solution.” Meeting with African and international leaders in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, she outlines the U.S. commitment to seeking peace, building democracy and fostering prosperity in conflict regions including the Great Lakes, Sudan and the Horn of Africa.

Stella Chikava distributes advertising pamphlets on the streets of Johannesburg, South Africa. It’s a long step down for the 41-year-old graduate with more than 10 years’ experience as a physics and chemistry teacher in Zimbabwe. But after undergoing detention, rape and torture under Robert Mugabe’s government, she feels lucky to be alive. Because of increased repression in Zimbabwe under the Mugabe regime, the United States is imposing additional sanctions against the country’s worst offenders, while continuing aid that will help ordinary Zimbabweans.

Haiti, long associated with desperate poverty, political instability and rampant violence, now has reason to see a better future, two U.S. officials say. Velia De Pirro of the State Department and Paul Tuebner from the U.S. Agency for International Development say in separate interviews with USINFO at the December 3-5 Miami Conference on the Caribbean Basin that an improved economy in Haiti is tied to the better security the country now has, especially in the capital of Port-au-Prince.

Providing medical and dental care, teaching English, fixing buildings and strengthening military ties between the United States and Cambodia were among the projects the USS Essex and a Marine expeditionary unit attached to the ship undertook during a recent port visit to Sihanoukville, Cambodia.

Barely a month before important state party caucuses begin in the new year, Democrats from around the United States converged near Washington for the Democratic National Committee fall general session -- the last such meeting of Democrats before early caucuses signal who the likely Democratic and Republican 2008 presidential nominees will be. Candidates courted a diverse set of voters at the session, giving speeches and meeting privately with delegates. “Here we are in a suburb of Washington, and a man or a woman who just worked the day shift can come in and listen to, perhaps, the next president of the United States. … Everyone in America can get involved, whether Republican or Democrat,” one participant tells USINFO.