The New York Times Special Report on Darfur, by Nicholas Kristof, did a good job of graphically illustrating the scale of the problems in Sudan.

The situation is disturbing on a number of levels. Ten years ago 800,000 people were murdered in Rwanda, and at that time international response, including from the United States, was negligable. Darfur has been described as "Rwanda in Slow Motion" and we need to seriously consider the consequences of inaction.

The bit of good news is that the African Union voted yesterday to increase their peacekeeping force to 3,000 troops. However, the big questions now are how long will it take to get them there, what kinds of resources will they have, and how effective will they be in stopping a humanitarian disaster which may result in hundreds of thousands of dead by the end of the year.