Jane Holl Lute, assistant secretary-general for UN peacekeeping operations, says the joint United Nations/African Union peacekeeping force for Darfur is an “unprecedented” operation and the full force will not be deployed until 2008.

Sudan’s U.S. ambassador says Western states need to give the National Unity Government space to solve the Darfur crisis.

U.S. Special Envoy Andrew Natsios says there is a risk of new large-scale bloodletting in Darfur unless peace talks intensify and peacekeepers are deployed.

Princeton N. Lyman says that despite calls for military intervention in Darfur, he does not believe that such an approach would be practical. He hopes the U.S. special envoy to Darfur will be able to get the parties back to the negotiating table.

Millions of Sudanese continue to live in fear of violence because of the unsettled conflict in western Darfur. Also, a one-year-old peace deal ending a long civil war between Sudan’s mainly Muslim north and the animist and Christian south has still not produced a national unity government as planned. The International Crisis Group’s John Prendergast tells cfr.org international pressure is needed for real change in Sudan.

Although there is no real choice in the April 2010 Sudanese elections, The Economist emphasizes that this was the first time that most Sudanese had been able to vote since 1986, and minor delays here and there wasn't going to dampen the generally festive spirit.

J. Peter Pham recounts Sudan's recent history relevant to the April 2010 elections there.

Foreign Policy's Barney Jopson reports on the current status of southern Sudan as it gears up for a referendum on southern self-determination due next January, in which the majority of southerners are expected to vote for secession.

John Prendergast explains why increased U.S. leadership is needed for an independence referendum in southern Sudan to succeed.

Edward Thomas reports on the need to broker a better Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan,  the necessary role of the international community, and the potential ramifications of failure.

A Gallup Poll shows that Sudanese are nearly three times more likely to hold "very unfavorable" opinions of the United States (37%) than of China (14%).

Darfur online forum features a debate between Sudan experts Alex De Waal and John Prendergast.

A report prepared by CSIS on the foreign policy and national security implications of global climate change.

This article tells the story of farmers and herders in Niger who are working together to stop the advance of the Sahara Desert, avoiding conflicts such as the case in Darfur where competition for resources has reached deadly level.

Lee Seymour, of the German Institute for International and Strategic Affairs, argues that events in Darfur may weaken the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and lead to a collapse of Sudan's tenuous peace settlement.

In this report the US Institute for Peace (USIP) details proceedings at its Sudan Peace Forum in December 2006 in which Dr Chester Crocker and Dr Francis Deng co-chaired a discussion of overlapping crises in Darfur, Chad and the Central African Republic. The meeting was prompted by recent comments of the United Nations Under Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland, who warned that the crises in Darfur, Chad, and CAR are "intimately linked" and could lead to a "dangerous regional crisis."

In this report Amnesty International says that thousands of women have been raped in Sudan and Chad since the armed conflict began in Darfur in 2003. There have certainly been thousands. The names of 250 women who had been raped, and harrowing information about their cases, were recorded by Amnesty International on a 10-day visit to just three refugee camps in Chad in 2004. Recent months have seen a dramatic increase in the numbers of rapes as Darfur has been plunged into new fighting. In just one camp in Darfur, Kalma camp, the International Rescue Committee reported that rapes of women rose from under four to 200 a month during five weeks in July and August 2006. Overall, despite  the presence of an African Union peacekeeping force (African Union Mission in Sudan, AMIS) and international awareness of what is happening in Darfur, in 2006 rapes and other violence against women and girls have increased, not diminished.

In this report Amnesty International says that the presence of an African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur (AMIS) since 2004 has failed to stop the mass killings, rapes and forcible displacement of civilians in the region. Amnesty says that despite the presence already in Sudan of 10,000 UN peacekeepers, whose mandate was extended to include Darfur by the UN Security Council in August 2006, the Darfur region is now so insecure that one third of those affected are inaccessible to humanitarian agencies. Amnesty International’s agenda for effective protection of civilians sets out a 16-point programme that should be implemented by any peacekeeping force in Darfur.

In this report, Amnesty International argues that the Darfur Peace Agreement of May 2006 has created a new conflict, pitting the government and its allies against the non-signatories.

To understand the drivers of conflict and the keys to sustainable peace in eastern Sudan, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), in partnership with the Nairobi Peace Initiative Africa, hosted a discussion workshop in Nairobi in August 2006. This briefing summarizes the main discussions and the background to the conflict.