A UN conference, which had teetered on the edge of collapse over the Middle East, adopted a global action plan against racism today.
The Middle East and the question of whether rich states owed an apology and reparations to Africa for slavery had dominated the conference, with the United States and Israel walking out on Monday over Arab attempts to brand Israel racist.
Syria, supported by Pakistan, tabled a last-minute motion calling for the conference, which had already been extended by a day, to adopt a text implicitly referring to Israel as racist.
But the motion was rejected in a conference vote, clearing the final hurdle to the adoption of the Durban Declaration which lays down a programme of action to combat racism and xenophobia.
There was no vote on the overall documents, which conference chairwoman Nkosazana DlaminiZuma, South Africa's foreign minister, declared approved when nobody objected.
"The conference shall adopt a report...I hear no objections," she said.
But Canada, Australia, Syria, Iran and others earlier expressed deep reservations over the declaration's text on the Middle East conflict. These will be included in the final report on the conference to be sent to the United Nations.
"Canada is still here today because it wants to condemn attempts at this conference to delegitimise the state of Israel and to dishonour the history and suffering of the Jewish people," a Canadian official told the conference which ended after nine days of prolonged and often bitter talks.
"We have not been deterred from making a breakthrough here in Durban," said UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson in a closing speech to the conference, the largest ever held on racism.