Annan presses Sudan over UN force

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has called on the Sudanese government to allow a UN assessment team into the war-torn region of Darfur. Annan says the international community needs to move rapidly to have the right impact on the ground. BBC News reports that top UN humanitarian official Jan Egeland is due to arrive in Sudan today to tour the troubled region. His visit comes a day after Khartoum and the largest rebel group in Darfur signed a peace deal. Two smaller rebel groups rejected the deal, after intense talks in Nigeria. The three-year conflict has killed about 200-thousand people and left millions homeless.