Former US President Jimmy Carter was involved in a public row with officials who tried to stop him meeting Darfur refugees today.

Armed men ambushed an aid convoy in Darfur, injuring three humanitarian workers, the United Nations mission to Sudan said today.

Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Darfur human rights activist Mossaad Mohamed Ali were today named winners of the Olof Palme Prize for 2006 for their work to protect human rights, peace and security.

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.

Darfur rebels have attacked an oil field in Southern Kordofan, making a rare extension of their campaign eastwards toward Khartoum, the rebels and government said today.

The Norwegian Refugee Council today said it is closing down its humanitarian operations in Darfur because it is impossible to work in the troubled region of Sudan.

The US and Britain pressed Sudan’s government and Darfur rebels to meet today’s deadline for a peace deal, even as ground units stepped up fighting that has killed at least 180,000 people and left millions more homeless.

The African Union has accused Sudanese government forces of attacking civilians in Darfur, committing acts of “calculated and wanton destruction” that have killed at least 44 people and displaced thousands more during the past two weeks.

Almost a 100 people were killed and wounded in a Sudanese air force bombardment in South Darfur on Wednesday, a UN spokeswoman said today.

The UN World Food Program suspended food convoys to the Darfur region in western Sudan after rebel forces attacked the market town of Ghubaysh and the government retaliated, UN humanitarian officials said.

SUDANESE government troops attacking a town in the country’s volatile Darfur region shot dead an aid worker in front of a warehouse used by the international medical aid group Médecins Sans Frontières, the organisation charged yesterday.

Sudan has claimed 25 people, including 22 policemen, were killed in rebel attacks on Monday on several camps housing tens of thousands of people displaced by the 21-month Darfur conflict.

SECURITY in Sudan’s Darfur region is a “farce” with the government engaged in ethnic cleansing and rebel groups looting and abducting civilians in violation of an April cease-fire, a rights group said yesterday.

DESPITE international attention and visits by foreign dignitaries the humanitarian situation in Darfur and eastern Chad remains critical, international aid agency Oxfam warned yesterday.