Author: Laura Heaton

Tomorrow, at 1 pm EST, join leading Darfur activists Omer Ismail from Enough, Ruth Messinger from American Jewish World Service, and Jerry Fowler from the Save Darfur Coalition on a conference call to debrief about their meeting at the White House this week. To join the meeting, call 218-936-7979. Access code: 998296# “President Obama is listening. Now is our chance to make our voices heard to bring real change to the status quo of violence and death in Darfur,” said Omer Ismail. As activists, we need to speak with a strong and unified voice. Join the discussion tomorrow to strategize ...

The Arab League officially rejected the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. The move was anticipated, since numerous Arab League states had individually expressed solidarity with the Sudanese leader accused of orchestrating war crimes in Darfur. But the announcement is nonetheless a disappointment. The rhetoric from some of the Arab League members was predictably florid. Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi accused the ICC of “a new world terrorism that is not below the standard of the other terrorism." Syria’s Bashar al-Assad: maintained, “What is happening now with regards to Sudan is a new chapter in the chapters that ...

Ambassador Susan Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, did not mince words when addressing the Security Council last week on the topic of the crisis in Sudan and the culpability of President Bashir and his government. From similar statements made by President Obama in our meeting with him yesterday and Secretary of State Clinton earlier this month, it’s encouraging to see the administration speaking with a unified voice and toeing a tough line. Watch the clip of Ambassador Rice from the State Department blog: Andrew Sweet contributed to this post ...

Enough Co-Founder John Prendergast and Enough Advisor Omer Ismail just returned from a meeting at the White House with President Obama and the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Gen. Scott Gration, a day before Gration travels to Sudan to assume his new role. "I am confident that the Obama administration is serious about keeping their word on finding a lasting solution to the crisis in Sudan," Ismail said after his conversation with the president. The White House released this transcript following the meeting: REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AFTER MEETING WITH SUDAN SPECIAL ENVOY SCOTT GRATION, SUDAN ADVOCATES, AND MEMBERS OF ...

Actress Mariska Hargitay and Enough's John Prendergast co-authored a story for the Huffington Post today about "Hell," the all-new episode of Law & Order: SVU, which airs tomorrow night. Law & Order: SVU Takes on the Issue of Child Soldiers and Sex Slaves in Africa It's midnight. We are in a studio in North Bergen, New Jersey, filming take after take of a scene for an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. We're tired. It's the fourteenth hour of what will be a sixteen-hour day. We're tired, but we're ambitious. When the episode airs on March 31st, 2009 ...

A Q&A with Enough's Colin Thomas-Jensen appeared on the blog ICC Observers yesterday. In the interview, Thomas-Jensen provides a useful primer on the challenges and breakthroughs of the International Criminal Court - past, present, and future. Check it out here ...

NBC has posted a preview for this week's all-new episode of Law & Order SVU. Enough's John Prendergast advised the episode's writers on "Hell," a (fictional) story about the Lord's Resistance Army that now terrorizes populations across Africa's Great Lakes region. Three days until showtime: "Hell" airs this Tuesday, March 31 at 10/9c. Learn more about the LRA on our special page ...

According to the basic principle of state sovereignty, international agencies have to be invited by the host government to operate in a country, and as recent events have made tragically clear, that privilege can also be take away. (It is a different question entirely as to the rights of the international community to intervene in cases where governments are systematically denying their people life saving assistance.) President Bashir's "justification" for expelling aid organizations was his claim that they contributed evidence to bolster the ICC's case against him and had overstepped their boundaries. In reality, Bashir saw the warrant as an ...

This afternoon, Fortune.com ran a piece highlighting the links between ongoing conflict in eastern Congo and the global electronics industry. "Could that be a BloodBerry or a Conflict Cell in your pocket?" the article asks. "The consumer electronics industry is the largest end user of the minerals that are fueling the fighting in eastern Congo," Enough's John Norris was quoted as saying. "These companies have an obligation to ensure they are not financing armed groups by demanding more information and better behavior from their suppliers." With our new conflict minerals initiative just around the corner, Enough was a primary source ...

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. Foreign Policy’s “Photo Essay: Portrait of a Failed State” is a stunning and tragic glimpse into Somalia today. The captions discuss the historic or present-day political context of each photo. Don’t miss the link in Photo 6 ...