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Sign this petition to encourage the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to send the rest of the peacekeepers it promised to send to Darfur last year. 19000 troops were promised, and only 2000 were deployed to Darfur. This is really important, and timely; Save Darfur is looking for 500,000 petitioners by July 31.

UN Withdraws "Non-Essential" Personnel

The United Nations is pulling its non-essential personnel out of Darfur, in preparation for increasing difficulties in the region. The decision appears to be in part because of the ICC's hearing about whether or not to charge Omar al-Bashir with genocide and war crimes, and in part because of violent attacks on UNAMID employees in Darfur.

More from the BBC.

Also, more on China's role in the genocide, also from the BBC.

Gencoide Charges for Sudan Leader...

Omar Hassan al-Bashir has been charged with genocide by an International Criminal Court prosecutor. The decision has been met with mixed emotions from UN officials, who say that the charges may up the violence in Darfur, rather than eliminating it. It is the first time a sitting head of state has been charged at the Hague. al-Bashir has not yet been arrested, and will not be until the pretrial pannel has decided, which could take months.

More info from MSNBC and the BBC.

And this blog has analysis about the possible effects of the charges and more information about the ICC.