Sudan must stop trying to “scale back” a hybrid international force for Darfur, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said as she flew to Paris for talks on the humanitarian crisis in the western Sudanese region.

Saddam Hussein’s cousin and two other former regime officials were convicted Sunday of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to hang for the brutal crackdown that killed up to 180,000 Kurdish civilians and guerrillas two decades ago.

Five UN peacekeepers were killed by a car bomb in southern Lebanon on Sunday, further rattling security as another 11 people died in fighting with Islamists in the north.