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Creation of a Palestinian state and resolution of long-standing Arab-Israeli issues are the focal points of a U.S.-sponsored international conference November 26-28.  The meeting, however, will not lead to Palestinian statehood immediately nor even in the next few months, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says in discussing expectations for the meeting.

Innovative U.S. companies are transforming the business paradigm through products, services and operations that address social and environmental problems. “We have a different definition of success,” says the founder and chief executive officer of a company that supplies and markets organic products made of the açai fruit from the Amazon rain forest in Brazil. “Being financially strong but weak on ecological conservation and social equality is not a success for us.”

While young Americans often are criticized for not voting, many are showing that young people can be political leaders despite their age. USINFO talks with a 26-year-old congressional candidate and two young mayors about their experiences. Young people "are the future of your country," 20-year-old Mayor Michael Sessions of Hillsdale, Michigan, tells his contemporaries. "So you need to start shaping it now and get involved somehow." Sessions was elected to lead his town of 8,200 while still in high school.

The United States is sending naval ships and $2.1 million in emergency relief supplies to Bangladesh to help the victims of Cyclone Sidr that ravaged the southern coast of Bangladesh. President and Mrs. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice express their condolences and sympathies to the victims, while the USS Essex and USS Kearsarge, each carrying 20 helicopters for relief and rescue operations, steam toward the coast of Bangladesh.

Debate continues on calls from human rights and press freedom groups for a boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympics to protest the Chinese government's repression of journalists and human rights activists and its policies toward Sudan, but some argue that a boycott would accomplish nothing and could be counterproductive.

The world is benefiting from the expansion of democracy and stands to gain even more through greater stability as democracy and development spread in the future, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte tells delegates to the Community of Democracies ministerial forum in Bamako, Mali. "Advancing these principles is not only morally right; it is a strategic and practical interest for us all," he says.

Increasingly, U.S. colleges and universities are making efforts to internationalize their campuses by welcoming more students from other countries and collaborating with international institutions on study abroad and other programs. There is no single blueprint for successful internationalization, given the size and diversity of the U.S. educational landscape, but common themes emerge from a look at two winners of the International Institute of Education’s Andrew Heiskell Awards for Innovation in International Education in the category of Internationalizing the Campus: George Mason University and the University of Delaware.

Emergency rule in Pakistan is undermining years of successful reforms, says Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, who met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf November 16-17 to underline U.S. concerns about a key regional ally.  "Emergency rule is not compatible with free, fair, and credible elections, which require the active participation of political parties, civil society and the media," Negroponte says in Islamabad, Pakistan.