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Author: Laura Heaton

Join RAISE Hope for Congo’s Activist Call

Join RAISE Hope for Congo's Activist Call
Today, at 3 pm EST, join policy makers and activists for this month’s RAISE Hope for Congo activist conference call. Enough’s Candice Knezevic, the Congo campaign manager, will moderate the discussion, which will feature: Peter Quaranto, Legislative Assistant for African Affairs & Global Health, Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI) Sumona Guha, State Department Fellow, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) John Bagwell, Field Manager, Enough Project We’ll talk about Enough’s new Conflict Minerals initiative and upcoming legislation in the Senate, which address the links between the illicit mineral trade and sexual violence in Congo. We’ll get into the details of how activists can ...

U.S. at a Crossroads in Somalia

U.S. at a Crossroads in Somalia
The Obama administration’s stated goal to break with the Bush administration's approach to counter-terrorism faces an early test in Somalia, and an intense debate over how to address the threat of terrorism and piracy emanating from Somalia is playing out in an ongoing policy review. While Somalia presents its own set of unique challenges, the discussions over strategy are occurring in the context of a broader foreign policy conundrum: How will the Obama administration deal with perceived threats in weak and collapsed states where the United States lacks a capable partner? There are a number of global hotspots where the ...

Piracy, the Next Frontier for Al Qaeda?

NPR's Dina Temple-Raston had an excellent piece this morning that highlights an even larger problem that pirates in Somalia may pose—if they team up with al Qaeda affiliates known to inhabit the lawless East African country. Well worth a listen ...

Bashir Strikes New Tone on U.S. Relations

Apparently, the new U.S. envoy to Sudan Scott Gration and President Obama made a good first impression on the leadership of Sudan... Speaking at the opening of Parliament today in Khartoum, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir noted "positive signs" sent to the Islamic world "on more than one occasion" by President Obama, according to a Reuters article. Bashir even echoed a line from President Obama's inaugural address, saying, "Our hands remain held out to those who call for peace and justice in accordance with the standards of fairness and dignity." ...

Prendergast in WSJ

Writing in Monday's Wall Street Journal, Enough's John Prendergast and Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, explain how "Obama Can Make A Difference in Darfur." The stories are beginning to trickle in from displaced-persons camps in Darfur: increasing hunger, epidemics and -- the quietest killer -- a shortage of water in the Sahara. Last month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. His response was to expel international aid agencies that provide a lifeline to Darfurians, and with that, "never again" is being made into ...

“Camera-shy Rebels Keep Congo Crisis Out of the News”

"Camera-shy Rebels Keep Congo Crisis Out of the News"
AlertNet recently ran this post by an aid worker in Goma, Congo, which highlights the continuously grave humanitarian conditions in eastern Congo, despite numerous peace deals. When I arrived in Democratic Republic of Congo five months ago, you couldn't move for journalists, photographers and film crews. They'd come to report the mass displacement of 250,000 Congolese forced from their homes by clashes between Government troops and the CNDP, a predominantly Tutsi rebel group, led by renegade General Laurent Nkunda. Since then a surprising chain of events has led to Nkunda's arrest, his troops' integration into the Congolese army (their recent ...

Peace in Kenya Teeters as Reform Plans Unravel

Peace in Kenya Teeters as Reform Plans Unravel
News out of Kenya today sounded an alarm about a looming threat of mass violence, as plans for reforms promised by the coalition government break down. In a report updated by IRIN today, Wafula Okumu, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Security Studies, had this to say: Kenyans are not only growing far apart but also frustrated and angry at the way politicians are playing a game of Russian roulette with their future; the pent-up anger will erupt with volcanic ferocity. A rare editorial published today on the front page of Kenya's leading newspaper, Daily Nation, noted that ...

The 5 Best Stories You Might Have Missed This Week

The 5 Best Stories You Might Have Missed This Week
Here at Enough, we often swap emails with interesting articles and feature stories that we come across in our favorite publications and on our favorite websites. We wanted to share some of these stories with you as part of our effort to keep you up to date on what you need to know in the world of anti-genocide and crimes against humanity work. A Foreign Policy Q&A with Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the U.N. secretary-general’s representative in Somalia, paints a hopeful picture of the potential for Somalia to emerge from its current dysfunctional state. As the events of this week demonstrate – ...

U.N.: Civilians Face Imminent Risk in Sri Lanka

Northern Sri Lanka may be on the verge of a "bloodbath," warned U.N. chief of humanitarian affairs and emergency response John Holmes, writing yesterday in the Guardian. The Sri Lankan military has pushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam into an area so small that any shooting or shelling inevitably causes casualties among the 150,000 to 190,000 civilians trapped in the same zone. The epicenter of violence is the government-declared "no-fire zone," a 14-square kilometer area of the Vanni region. Since the government's full-scale offensive against the Tigers began in January 2008, the zone has been frequently targeted by shells ...