Blog

The State Department announced yesterday the creation of a Sudan negotiation support team, which will assist the U.S. diplomatic mission in Sudan in facilitating the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) implementation process. The support team, led by veteran U.S.

According to reports by the Washington Post and Foreign Policy magazine's Turtle Bay blog, the Obama administration will push for a commission of inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma.

Press coverage of STAND's national day of action has begun to trickle in. Today's Cape Cod Times features an article about tonight's protest in Hyannis, Massachusetts.

As we mentioned yesterday, Foreign Policy magazine's The Cable blog reported divisions in the Obama administration over Sudan policy decisions. At a time of escalating violence in Darfur and the potential for all-out war between Northern and Southern Sudan, STAND activists are organizing in their communities to convey the urgency of the situation to administration officials.

A recent report by Foreign Policy magazine's Josh Rogin suggests that the Obama administration is divided over the implementation strategy for the administration's Sudan policy, which was released to last October. The administration--in particular, President Obama's special envoy to Sudan, retired Maj. Gen.

Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. On the morning of July 26th, two members of STAND and a U.S. Major entered Oklahoma Senator Inhofe's office. I caught up with them after the meeting, and Jenn Polish’s adrenaline rush was vigorous, her energy infectious. “It’s interesting, honestly, because it was a really good exchange of views...people have to come to conclusions in their own time, their own space. That’s what social change is.”

Big news for the anti-genocide movement!

This morning, Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Susan Collins (R-ME) introduced a resolution calling for the development of an interagency genocide prevention strategy. The resolution is the result of extensive work by the anti-genocide community to develop a bipartisan consensus around genocide and mass atrocities prevention. Students have played an integral role in this process.

The Enough Project's John Prendergast, and Sasha Lezhnev, of the Grassroots Reconciliation Group, have published an op-ed on CNN's website lauding Congress' recent progress on conflict minerals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Prendergast and Lezhnev are optimistic about the impact of the conflict minerals legislation on the conflict resolution process in the Democratic Republic of the Congo:

Last week, STAND hosted over sixty chapter leaders from around the country at STAND Camp 2010. Over four days at a retreat center in Maryland, students heard from John Prendergast, Omekongo Dibinga, Carl Wilkens, and many other anti-genocide activists and policy specialists.