New Peace Envoy Clooney Pleads for Darfur

Actor George Clooney was officially designated a United Nations peace envoy yesterday—but he had already wrapped up his first mission. "If I'm going to go somewhere that cameras are going to follow me, they might as well follow me to places that people should be looking at," said Clooney, just back from a trip to Africa. Clooney spent two weeks in Darfur and other war-torn areas, where he pleaded for member nations to contribute funds to help UN peacekeepers do their job.

Clooney has been a passionate advocate of helping the people of Darfur, where violence has killed hundreds of thousands of people and made many more homeless. He said UN peacekeepers have brought hope to the region. "They feel for the first time that this is the moment the rest of the world, all the nations, united, are stepping in to help them," he said. (More George Clooney stories.)