UN chief promises renewed push for Darfur negotiations

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon promised to step up efforts to end the four-year-old conflict on his first visit to Darfur today and urged the world to be more sympathetic to the millions of people whose lives have been uprooted.

He said the deployment of a 26,000-strong African Union-UN peacekeeping force in Darfur was now on a “good track” and “it is crucially important that a political negotiation process start now”.