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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.

The U.S. government worked closely with CNN and private U.S. medical groups to bring the 5-year-old Iraqi victim of an extremely damaging burning assault to the United States for medical treatment. Speaking of Jewell Evans, the U.S. diplomat who played a key role in helping the young boy, U.S. Embassy Baghdad consular affairs spokesman Steve Royster says: "Jewell made special efforts. Youssif's case is unique in that it is outside normal procedures. Jewell took this case and discovered a way to make this happen."

Trade and private capital flows are important economic engines for the developing world at a time when U.S. official development assistance to certain nations is being reduced. Jose Cardenas from the U.S. Agency for International Development tells USINFO that the U.S. relationship with the developing world, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, should be viewed in the “totality” of the amount of trade, investment and private flows of capital between the United States and other countries.

With the first presidential nominating contests less than a month away, candidates in both parties are stepping up their attacks on opponents. The dynamics of the primary system drive candidates to appeal to the most aggressive voters, says Pietro Nivola, director of the Governance Studies Program at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "The result is when the chips are down, the races are getting tight as they are now … it's just simply too tempting to go on the attack," he says. USINFO talks with several election watchers about the changes happening in the campaign.

Until recently, blind and visually impaired students found it extremely difficult to study certain subjects and pursue careers in science and technology because they could not see graphs and other visual representations. But now, a team at NASA has created easy-to-use software that allows students to graph equations, interact with the data and understand it all through text, tones and spoken language.

The world community has made progress in its response to avian influenza, according to a new United Nations-World Bank report whose results are announced at the New Delhi International Ministerial Conference on Avian and Pandemic Influenza. More than 600 delegates from 105 countries -- including 70 ministers from the public health and animal health sectors -- and 20 international and intergovernmental organizations convened in New Delhi to assess, review and exchange information on highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu in animals and people.

Many analysts are expressing surprise over the rejection of a referendum on a series of constitutional changes that were designed to increase Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s authority over his country, his first electoral defeat since assuming power in 1998. The setback to Chavez’s ambitions is not the first time a government has seen its quest for expanded authority defeated via referendum.

A new, joint effort by the U.S. government and private businesses will focus on creating new jobs for Palestinians, President Bush says. After welcoming Tahani Abu Daqqa, minister of youth for the Palestinian Authority to the White House, Bush says, “One of the things that interests me a lot is the fact that we are going to help the Palestinians develop youth centers, places where young Palestinians can come and learn new technical skills, or language skills, or have mentoring programs -- all aimed at saying, there is a hopeful future … a future where peace is possible.”

Although Americans feel politically divided today, this polarization is not necessarily a bad thing, political experts say. "There's no question that the partisan polarity between the Democrats and Republicans these days … runs deeper, certainly, than it did a generation ago," says Pietro Nivola, director of the Governance Studies Program at the Brookings Institution in Washington. However, "[n]ot everything about political polarization is a bad thing."

As International Human Rights Day approaches on December 10, the world must be concerned about the situation in Zimbabwe -- where defenders of freedom are under attack and where the human rights situation is becoming worse every day, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer warns, adding, “Freedom loving … Zimbabweans that are trying to return their country to democracy deserve our support and our assistance and we certainly will provide it.”

On the eve of World AIDS Day, President Bush renews his pledge to fight the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. “The pandemic of HIV/AIDS can be defeated,” he says, through international cooperative efforts such as his President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). “We continue to fund research and develop new methods of treatment and prevention,” he says, referring to PEPFAR’s five-year, $15 billion commitment to fight the disease. The 2007 message from AIDS experts is blunt, as they call for strengthening prevention programs and technologies.

In Cameroon, when 28 new buses moved from Douala, the port and commercial center, to the capital city of Yaoundé in August 2006, excitement was so high that people were lining the streets and the 200-kilometer highway connecting the two cities to cheer the convoy. The comfortable modern buses brought by Transnational Automotive Group, a Los Angeles-based company, were a harbinger of something new for Cameroonians.