4 African leaders arrive in Libya for Darfur summit

This sounds promising. If they, along with Col Gaddafi and the rebels can't sort Darfur, who can? I'd love to be a fly on the wall at this meeting.

Nov 21 2006 AP report (via ST) - excerpt:

Four Arab and African heads of state arrived in Libya on Tuesday for a summit on the conflict in Darfur, Sudan, hosted by Moammar Gadhafi.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, Chadian President Idriss Deby and Eritrean President Isaias Aferwerki flew to Tripoli, the Libyan capital, where they were scheduled to hold talks late Tuesday with Libyan leader Gadhafi.

Central African President Francois Bozize was expected to arrive on Tuesday evening, making the summit a six-nation affair.

An African diplomat said the leaders would coordinate their efforts to try to resolve the crisis in Darfur, where at least 200,000 people have been killed and about 2.5 million people have had to flee their homes during the past three and a half years of fighting.

The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he isn't authorized to reveal the meeting's agenda, said the summit would urge the Darfur rebels who rejected the May peace agreement to change their position and sign it.

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New bid to solve Darfur impasse

Nov 21 2006 BBC report - excerpt:

According to Libya's head of African affairs Ali Trekki, the agenda will concentrate on how to improve the performance of the 7,000 African Union troops already stationed in Darfur, as well as to seek to increase that number to 17,000.

Speaking in Geneva, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was hopeful that the meeting would help resolve Sudan's outstanding issues about the size and make-up of the peacekeeping force.

Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi is persistently discouraging the involvement of UN peacekeepers in Darfur, calling them a colonising force, our correspondent says.