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In response to David Aronson's op-ed last week, "How Congress Devastated Congo," The New York Times published four rebuttal Letters to the Editor this morning titled, “A Conflict Over ‘Conflict Minerals’.” ...

A new U.N. report published last month caused a few tremors in an already politically precarious region of East Africa. The Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea, which was charged with examining compliance with arms embargoes on the two countries, submitted a meticulously documented 417-page report that sheds light on official Eritrean complicity in an expansive network of illicit activities, ranging from arms trafficking, to people smuggling, to support of armed groups in neighboring countries, and raises questions of Eritrea involvement in the new state of South Sudan ...

A weekly round-up of must-read stories, posted every Friday (or on occasion, on Saturday) ...

In response to mounting pressure by the Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers, the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable and four eastern Congo-based civil society groups sent letters last month to the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, calling on the SEC to quickly adopt final rules to implement 1502. Importantly, both letters ask the SEC to adopt rules that do not include phase-ins or delays in implementation ...

The notion that minerals stopped fueling war in eastern Congo does not square with the facts on the ground, and a broad consensus has agreed on this conclusion—from regional heads of state, to many local civil society groups, to the United Nations Groups of Experts, to the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, to investors, to electronics companies ...

While numerous issues between the states of Sudan and South Sudan remain unresolved, questions regarding citizenship rights for southerners in the North and northerners in the South have had some of the most direct and immediate effects on the people of these countries. As Enough has previously reported, the lack of agreement on citizenship has not only led to a degree of uncertainty, prompting many southerners to seek safety in the South, but has also created space for the northern government to place restrictions on southerners’ ability to work and live in the North, despite the fact that many have ...

Professor Drew Westen, a professor of psychology and the author of The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation, wrote an opinion piece in the NYT’s Sunday Review last weekend that struck a chord. Broadly, Westen’s commentary looks at how the president’s non-confrontational approach to domestic issues has left people on both sides of the political spectrum feeling like he doesn’t advocate for them. Is it mainly a communications issue, or an inability to take sides? Eric Cohen of Investors Against Genocide, a partner in Sudan Now, sent around an email with an interesting ...

Amid calls for uniting opposition in northern Sudan with the goal of overthrowing the regime of Omar al-Bashir, one voice has begun to stick out from the usual opposition rhetoric. Daniel Kodi, governor of South Kordofan from 2007 to 2009 and SPLA commander, offers a different view on what should be done to bring peace to Sudan. He went public recently with comments that sounded conciliatory but that have also been interpreted as abetting the Khartoum government ...

Michael Mattocks and John Prendergast, co-authors of Unlikely Brothers, recently sat down for a conversation with Today Show host Ann Curry at McNally Jackson, a bookstore in the Soho neighborhood of Manhattan. Like the book, the talk touched on Michael and John’s unlikely brotherhood and friendship, which has spanned a quarter century. CSPAN2’s Book TV will air a recording of the event twice this weekend. Tune in at 7 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, Aug. 13 or 10 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 14 ...

Ending the world's deadliest conflict is no easy task, but a growing consensus of Congolese civil society, electronics and metals companies, investors, and governments are now taking action to do so. A chief driver of their work is the Dodd-Frank legislation on conflict minerals, which is why a coalition of 40 Congolese human rights groups called it "the leverage needed to instill and impose ethical business practices in the Great Lakes region." David Aronson's op-ed "How Congress Devastated Congo," misses the critical link in eastern Congo: the continuing role of the minerals trade as a fuel for violence and a ...