UN approves Darfur force

Updated 23.08 Tue Jul 31 2007

Keywords: poverty, UN, Ban Ki Moon, Gordon Brown

The UN Security Council has voted unanimously to authorise up to 26,000 troops and police in an effort to stop attacks on millions of displaced people in Sudan's Darfur region.

The combined United Nations-African Union operation, which is expected to cost more than $2 billion in its first year, aims to quell violence.

The resolution allows the use of force in self-defence, to ensure freedom of movement for humanitarian workers and to protect civilians under attack

The resolution allows the use of force in self-defence, to ensure freedom of movement for humanitarian workers and to protect civilians under attack.

The African Union and United Nations peacekeeping force is to deployed to Darfur by October 1.

More than 2.1 million civilians have been driven from their homes and an estimated 200,000 have died over the last four years.

The announcement comes just hours after Gordon Brown called for "emergency action" to combat global poverty.

The Prime Minister urged world leaders to meet UN Millennium Development goals, tackling issues ranging from world poverty to HIV/Aids.

He made his comments during a speech at the UN in New York after earlier meeting the organisation's secretary-general, Ban Ki Moon.

He said: "We cannot allow our promises that became pledges to descend into just aspirations, and then wishful thinking, and then only words that symbolise broken promises.

"We did not make the commitment to the Millennium Development goals only for us to be remembered as the generation that betrayed promises rather than honoured them and undermined trust that promises can ever be kept. So it is time to call it what it is: a development emergency which needs emergency action."

Mr Brown announced that 12 world leaders and 20 top businessmen and women have signed a new "commitment to action" to meet the development emergency.

He went on: "Together we are calling on all - not just governments but also private sector, civil society and faith groups - to come together in a worldwide initiative to form new partnerships to help accelerate our progress.

"I want us to come together as one world. I want us to call an emergency meeting next year at which we report on where we are and what we have to do."

He also called for action to revive the stalled World Trade talks and for agreement this year on a new "outline for a bold climate change plan".

Mr Brown's speech comes a day after he held talks with US President George W Bush at Camp David.