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MONDAY, AUGUST 27, 2001

Secretary of State Colin Powell, the highest ranking African-American in the history of the United States government, won't attend an upcoming international conference on racism, senior Bush administration officials said on Monday.

Powell, however, still hasn't decided whether to send a lower-level delegate to the conference, which begins later this week in South Africa. An announcement could come today.

The Bush administration had warned it would not send delegates if Zionism as racism and slavery reparations appeared on the conference agenda. State Department officials worked with United Nations negotiations to remove the issues from the agenda but they keep showing up in some form or another.

A number of indigenous groups are taking part in the summit, called the World Conference Against Racism.

Get the Story:
Powell to Avoid U.N. Forum On Racism (The Washington Post 8/27)
Missoula woman to address UN racism conference (AP 8/27)

Relevant Links:
Human Rights Issues, State Department - http://www.state.gov/g/drl/hr
World Conference Against Racism, UN - http://www.un.org/WCAR

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