Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir gestures during a joint press conference with Italian Premier Romano Prodi, not seen, at the end of their meeting at Chigi palace, Premier's office, in Rome, Friday, Sept. 14, 2007. President Omar al-Bashir, who came to power in 1989 in a military and Islamic coup, arrived in Rome a few weeks before the expected deployment of an international peacekeeping force to try to improve the security situation in the war-ravaged western Sudanese region of Darfur. More than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been uprooted since ethnic African rebels in Darfur took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in 2003. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)