UN racism meeting recommits to goals but renews old divides

Members of a delegation’s entourage wait outside a security checkpoint in front of the United Nations headquarters (AP Photo/John Minchillo, Pool)

The UN General Assembly has pledged to redouble efforts to combat racism around the world, commemorating a landmark but contentious 2001 anti-racism conference by holding an anniversary meeting once again riven with divisions.

Looking back on the two decades since the conference in Durban, South Africa, the assembly adopted a resolution that acknowledged some progress but deplored what it called a rise in discrimination, violence and intolerance directed at people of African heritage and many other groups — from the Roma to refugees, the young to the old, people with disabilities to people who have been displaced.