Which is where it should always have been. The first thing to do is to write a biggish cheque. There are problems with the AU force beyond that I think.

Let's see what google news has to say about the UN resolution...

Reuters AlertNet: Russia criticises "hasty" UN resolution on Darfur (04 Sep 2006)

...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the U.S and British-backed resolution was drawn up without proper consultations with the Khartoum government, which has argued that the U.N. mandate's goal was "regime change".

Lavrov said the decision to hand over the AU mission to the United Nations "should have been done in accordance with the basic rule of the U.N. which envisages that such a decision should be ... agreed upon with the government of Sudan."

"Unfortunately this resolution was taken in haste without continued consultation with the government of Sudan, while we and China at the Security Council had hoped for continued consultations. But this was not done," Lavrov said while visiting AU headquarters in Addis Ababa on Monday.

Russia, along with China and Qatar, abstained from voting at the U.N. Security Council on the resolution to create a U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur last Thursday.

The resolution was passed nevertheless.

For balance:

Ria Novosti: Lavrov blasts adoption of UN resolution on Sudan (04/ 09/ 2006)

Russia's foreign minister criticized Monday a UN Security Council resolution on Sudan, saying it had been adopted too quickly and so had angered the African state's authorities.

Under the resolution adopted August 31, peacekeepers will be deployed in Sudan's western Darfur region to stop clashes between government forces, Arab tribes and rebel groups representing the interests of native non-Arab population. Since the start of the conflict in February 2003, death toll estimates have varied from 50,000 to 450,000 and more than 2 million have been made refugees.

But Russia's Sergei Lavrov said, "Unfortunately, the resolution was adopted hastily without preliminary consultations with the Sudanese government."

This resulution must not be under Chapter 7 of the UN charter, that is, it has no teeth and otherwise it might have been vetoed by Russia.

Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman

and yes. But I get the general impression it is a rather prickly subject around which everyone shuffles with their eyes cast down. Africa seems to want the AU build up by its own strength, the African way (not unlogical in my view), and the western world, suffering from a combination of post-colonial shame and neo-colonial indifference, does not want to commit itself or even offer financial assistance.

But if I now went into Over-Generalise Mode, please slap.