"The Sudanese government has dramatically intensified the war in Darfur in a bid to finish off the tenacious, three-year-old rebellion before a U.N. peacekeeping force can deploy there, say analysts, rebels and officials from the African Union monitoring mission.... The U.N. Security Council last week approved a peacekeeping force of up to 22,500 that would take the place of the African Union troops, but Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has sought to block it from being deployed." More