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The UN's making some hopeful noises about the Darfur crisis, after Sudan said it would accept a combined UN/African Union peacekeeping force of around 20,000 personnel. After months of negotiations, it's even claimed the Sudanese aren't insisting on any conditions, such as insisting all the troops come from African countries.

We've got to hope this time the agreement is actually for real, but until those boots are actually on the ground, there's no reason to expect Sudan's not just playing more games. It's time for the UN and major world leaders to set a deadline for the peacekeepers to be deployed, and if that's missed, for genuinely tough sanctions against the Sudanese government. We've heard this sort of thing from Sudan too many times before over the last four years of this crisis, to do anything less.