THE dateline here says “Sudan”, but in a few weeks it will likely read “South Sudan” or “Cushitia” or “Azania”.

Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir today offered a ceasefire in Darfur and promised to disarm militias in a new push to show the government is serious about ending the conflict.

Sudan President Omar al-Bashir today announced a unilateral cease-fire by government forces in the war-torn Darfur region and called for rebels to join in peace negotiations.

CHINA is finally beginning to feel some heat over its shameful silence on atrocities in Darfur. President Hu Jintao has been stirred to call on the Sudanese government to take steps toward peace.

British foreign secretary David Miliband called today for Sudan to speed up the deployment of peacekeepers to Darfur and to end aerial bombing in the troubled region’s western districts.

A SENIOR officer with the African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur in western Sudan was attacked yesterday by gunmen who seriously wounded his driver, the force said in a statement.

Sudan’s president accused Britain, the US and Europe of interfering over crisis-torn Darfur, saying they were interested only in his country’s “riches and resources”.

Sudan President Omar al-Bashir today said his government was ready for a cease-fire with rebel forces at the start of peace talks scheduled for next month in Libya over the conflict in Darfur.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir today announced that new peace talks to end the four-year conflict in Darfur will start October 27 in Libya.

AID agency GOAL said it has little enthusiasm for the planned hybrid force for Darfur.

SUDAN will watch from a distance today as world powers, including ally China, gather in Paris to seek ways to end the violence in Darfur at a conference Khartoum rejects as a distraction from peace efforts.

Sudan has dismissed as unjustifiable the threat of slapping new sanctions because of the Darfur conflict, vowing to do everything it can to protect what it sees as its national security.

The janjaweed militia that is accused of widespread atrocities in Darfur is actively supported by the Sudanese government, US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said today.

Police have arrested a man armed with a knife who hijacked a Sudan Airways plane today while flying from Libya to Sudan.

A Sudanese accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court made his first press appearance in a local newspaper today to profess his innocence.

The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor will today name suspects in war crimes and crimes against humanity in cases expected to include rape and murder in Darfur.

ONE of the biggest remaining Darfur rebel alliances yesterday said it would respect a ceasefire and was ready to resume peace talks with Sudan’s government.

Sudan braced for a diplomatic showdown today as the government confirmed it intended to secure the chairmanship of the African Union.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon today backed an initiative by Italy to push for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir today rejected the deployment of UN troops in Darfur, saying they were not required and that African Union troops could maintain order in the war-wracked region of western Sudan.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan today told the UN Human Rights Council to immediately address the escalating atrocities in Darfur by sending an independent team of investigators to the volatile Sudanese region.

The chief of the only Darfur rebel group that signed a peace agreement with the Sudanese government set an ultimatum today for Khartoum to disarm the feared janjaweed paramilitary group by the end of December.

Darfurian rebels have partially destroyed an oil field in a rare eastward extension of their campaign toward central Sudan, the rebels and government said.

THE International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor has nearly completed an investigation into war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region and has sufficient evidence to file charges soon, he said yesterday.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan today opens an international meeting in Ethiopia to discuss the situation in Darfur and to push again for UN peacekeepers to replace a beleaguered African force in Sudan’s troubled western region.

IF only Muslim leaders had been as vociferous about the plight of the people of Darfur as they have been about the Pope’s recent speech, then the lives of many of their fellow Muslims could have been saved.

A TRUE measure of the Irish Government’s commitment to conflict resolution in our aid programme is their effort in Darfur, as pointed out in your editorial headlined ‘Government must act on Darfur crisis’ (Irish Examiner, September 19).

The United Nations said today that Sudanese government forces have indiscriminately bombed areas of North Darfur in recent weeks, forcing hundreds of civilians to flee their homes.

European Union foreign ministers today told Sudan government and rebel fighters they would be “held accountable” for war crimes in Darfur and called on both sides to end violations of a cease-fire there.

DARFUR rebels said Sudanese planes and troops attacked villages in the western region yesterday, hours before the UN Security Council voted on the deployment of UN peacekeepers to the region.

The African Union stepped up pressure on Sudan’s holdout rebels to sign a deal to end Darfur’s three-year civil war and appealed for a stronger African peacekeeping force to monitor implementation of the peace agreement signed by the government and the main rebel group.

The annual Arab League summit was sharply divided even before it began in Sudan today, with late-night wrangling over the wording of the final declaration and the absence of a number of key leaders at a meeting meant to tackle the region’s tricky problems.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is trying to shore up one fragile peace accord in Africa while preserving hopes for another in the Middle East.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged donors yesterday to fund a bigger African force to help end bloodshed in Darfur, where experts say hundreds are still dying daily nine months after the mission first deployed.

DONORS promised $4.5 billion (€3.5bn) yesterday to help Sudan recover after Africa's longest civil war, but Washington told Khartoum to end atrocities in Darfur or risk a slide "back into the depths".

Sudan has indefinitely postponed the expulsion of the local directors of two British humanitarian organisations, the British Embassy confirmed today.

THE European Union yesterday said there was no indication that Sudan had acted to disarm armed militias in the war-torn Darfur region and agreed to press for a UN investigation into whether genocide was being committed.

A UN report yesterday called for a quick increase in the international monitoring force in Sudan, saying the government has not stopped attacks against civilians or disarmed marauding militias.

As a UN deadline expires for Sudan to ease the crisis in Darfur, the situation on the ground remains bleak – villagers forced from their homes by gunmen on horseback still cower in camps for the displaced, and reports the Sudanese military is bombing villagers continue to surface.

The United Nations begins a three-day fact-finding mission in troubled Darfur today to establish whether the Sudanese government has fulfilled its pledges to improve security and rein in Arab militia accused of months of atrocities.

SUDAN’S government agreed in a breakthrough at peace talks yesterday to allow more African Union troops enter the Darfur region to confine rebel fighters to their bases, a possible precursor to disarmament.

Darfur peace talks made little headway today as Sudanese insurgents insisted they would not lay down their weapons until pro-government Arab militiamen stop targeting largely black African civilians in their country’s troubled western region.

An African Union force in Sudan’s western Darfur region could help disarm insurgents and pro-government militias accused of killing civilians, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said before the start of AU-sponsored peace talks today between the Sudanese government and Darfur rebels.

SUDANESE President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said yesterday that Western nations were exploiting the Darfur conflict to gain control of resources like oil and gold in the arid region.