Last week, the electronics industry updated its list of audited conflict-free smelters to 29. This is up from 11 smelters in the Conflict-Free Smelter program, or CFS, at the start of 2012-nearly tripling the size of the program over the past year. The smelters were audited by independent auditors chosen by the Electronics Industry Citizenship Coalition-Global-eSustainability Initiative, or EICC-GeSI, Audit Review Committee, which includes HP, Motorola Solutions, a non-industry academic, and a handful of other companies.

This is a particularly important topic, because smelters are the key chokepoint in the conflict minerals supply chain, with only 151 main smelters worldwide, according to EICC-GeSI. Smelters know where their minerals come from, so having conflict-free smelters is critical ...

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Editor's Note: This op-ed originally appeared on Foreign Policy.

Only in the Alice in Wonderland world of war-torn eastern Congo would the withdrawal of M23 rebels from Congo's eastern provincial capital of Goma be cause for major celebration. The truth is that the retreat is just the latest chapter in a long story involving competing mafia-like political and military alliances controlled by leaders in the capitals of Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda, all of whom justify their actions in terms of national security concerns to mask economic and political interests. Sometimes these competing elites fight each other and sometimes they cooperate for control of lucrative resources such as land, livestock, minerals, and timber.

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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.

In a feature for Newsweek magazine, Goma-based reporter Melanie Gouby considers, "What Does M23 Want?" The piece highlights the complexities and the contradictions through which the rebels rose to prominence and managed to overtake the provincial capital.

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If you have been reading about eastern Congo lately, one name has been stealing headlines: M23. In a dramatic show of force, the Rwanda-supported rebel militia group led by ICC indictee Bosco Ntaganda took control of strategically important Goma in mid- November and then earned a place at the ongoing peace talks in Kampala by ending their 11-day occupation earlier this week.

However, focusing on the M23 belies the complexity of the highly militarized politics of eastern Congo. Currently, a kaleidoscope of armed groups control swathes of territory across the Kivus. According to a new report from Oxfam, over 25 armed militia groups operating in eastern Congo have made communities in the region the latest "commodities of war."

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Editor's Note: This opinion piece was written in Prendergast's personal capacity, not on behalf of the Enough Project, and originally appeared on Politico.com.

One of the usual victims in the politics of personal assassination is the truth. This phenomenon holds in the current extrajudicial "trial" of Susan Rice. Her record is being examined with a microscope and a telescope, at times refracting the light so completely that original facts become completely obscured. Such is the case with much of the examination of Ambassador Rice's record on Africa, particularly when she was the Clinton administration's lead diplomat toward that continent.

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"Razing a village is a war crime, and the torching of now at least 26 Nuban villages, plus the systematic destruction of crops and grasslands for cattle, is a crime against humanity," said George Clooney, Co-founder of Satellite Sentinel Project. "What we're seeing here is a widespread campaign of village and crop burning."

The Satellite Sentinel Project, or SSP, confirms eyewitness reports that the government of Sudan engaged in scorched-earth warfare in the war-torn border state of South Kordofan, Sudan, through November. New DigitalGlobe satellite imagery shows that from November 17-27, a total of at least 26 Nuban villages, as well as food crops and grasslands for cattle grazing, across approximately 54 square miles (140 square kilometers), were systematically destroyed.

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Today, the Enough Project joined a coalition of organizations from central Africa, the U.S., and Europe in releasing a report that assesses the implementation of the U.N. Regional Strategy developed in June to address the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, threat. Nearly six months later, progress to date in implementing the strategy has been minimal, and no clear plans to address the myriad challenges facing the strategy appear to be underway.

The U.N. strategy is comprehensive, encompassing a wide range of critical objectives: enhance regional efforts to apprehend the LRA's top leaders and protect civilians; encourage LRA rebels to defect; improve the humanitarian response to LRA violence; and promote peacebuilding, human rights, and development in LRA-affected areas. If implemented fully, ...

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GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo -- A semblance of normal life is returning to Goma, with a few banks, shops, and schools reopening. But despite the presence of 600 policemen and a battalion of government forces who deployed to the city following M23's withdrawal, people are still petrified that M23 might return. Ahead of talks with the Congolese government, the rebels have continued to posture by threatening to retake Goma if their demands are not met.

The M23 withdrawal ended an 11-day occupation of the city and came after a peace accord negotiated by the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region that set the stage for talks. Hundreds of M23 troops pulled out of the city late Saturday, with one company of troops remaining at the Goma airport alongside Congolese government ...

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During my recent three-week trip to eastern Chad to visit the Darfuri refugee camps Djabal and Goz Amer, I had lots of conversations. The meetings under trees, in classrooms, and community centers throughout the camps made me realize how much I took education and what it means for granted. The ability to read, write, count, speak, understand an official language, and comprehend the world around me-these are abilities so integrated into daily life that I rarely stop to consider them as skills. And I think a large number of us do the same without realizing it. We understand the need and importance of education, yet we underestimate its power and potential to radically improve the human existence.

The time I spent in Djabal and Goz Amer refugee camps in Chad served as a great reminder of how ...

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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 new video from Nuba Reports, a team of citizen journalists covering the conflict in South Kordofan, shows in devastating detail the impact of the ongoing government air raids and fighting between Sudanese army and SPLA-N rebels that have forced the remaining Nuba residents into the mountains seeking shelter under the rock formations. "My people who died, I will tell you frankly no one was sick. They were just hungry," says a father who lost three of ...

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