But the usually balmy port city of Durban - the conference venue - was dark and damp Thursday, as if to suggest that the scars of racism, discrimination and intolerance run deep and that South Africa's legacy of racism remains to be overcome.

The U.S. decision not to send a high-level delegation to the talks cast a pall as other northern governments - Canada and some European states - seemed as if they would follow suit in protest over efforts to censure Israel at the conference.

With violence intensifying in the Middle East, clashes between Palestine and Israel loom large over the conference. At the NGO Forum, a pre-conference gathering of non-governmental organisations, the competing rights to statehood of Israel and Palestine dominated.

Jewish Zionist youth protested the "U.N.-fair" conference, while orthodox jews and Palestinian activists held silent vigils.

The run up to the conference also revealed tensions between those inside and outside the official sessions.

Inside the main conference, government delegates - especially those from wealthy nations - will continue to press for a focused, minimalist agenda that targets legislative change, education and awareness building as key outcomes.

Outside the conference, in the more radical Social Forum and in parts of the NGO Forum, the call has been for a more fundamental understanding of the related forms of racism and intolerance.

NGO Forum spokesman Major Kobese argued it was impossible to have a meeting that does not take into consideration "global apartheid" - meaning the gaps in wealth between poor and rich regions that, in the view of many, have grown wider since the advent of a more global economy in the past 10 years.

Popular calls for reparations for slavery and colonialism can be understood in the same light, proponents argued. In their view, developing countries are underdeveloped because of their colonial past.

To underline the point that no modern-day examination of racism can be done without looking at its economic roots, civil society groups planned to march Friday under the banner of "Asinamali" - we have no money. Their call: end racism; fight poverty.

It is a point that Annan and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson have conceded. Speaking about poverty, HIV/AIDS, disability, youth, gender, trafficking and prostitution, Annan said, "Racism intersects with every one of these issues."

However, because Robinson is a no-nonsense Irish woman, she said, she wants "concrete action" from this conference and would prefer a narrow platform for action.

"Durban must make a difference," said her spokesman, Tefera Shiawl, who added the commissioner's optimal outcome would be for member states to pledge themselves to specific programmes, be they legislation or changes in the school curriculum or other effective and proven strategies.

Robinson has stated a preference for a collective acknowledgement of the legacy of colonialism, but even this will be a hard sell at the conference, said a diplomat, because international law is not clear on whether lawsuits can flow from such an action.

As host nation, South Africa is trying to convert calls for individual reparations into a lobby for changes to international trade rules, more aid, and support for the Millennium Africa Recovery Programme.

By the time the conference opened on Friday, the draft declaration and platform for action was still being negotiated.

Analyst Neuma Grobbelaar of the South Africa Institute of International Affairs said the conference was "highly politicised".

A South African diplomat said the long conference title meant there was a lot of fine-tuning and editing necessary - there were still key areas where consensus had not been reached. Officially, the conference is called the U.N. World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

The final declaration will include an audit of current victims and forms of racism, racial discrimination and intolerance; preventive measures and how to pay for them as well as strategies to address these social maladies.

Some delegates expressed concern that the focus on Zionism will mean not enough attention falls on xenophobia; the trafficking of women and children; the intersection of gender and race and the position of vulnerable groups including indigenous people and the Roma of Europe. (END)