Berlijn gastheer van conferentie tegen antisemitisme (en)

A conference on anti-semitism in Berlin has called for renewed and sustained efforts to fight the problem.

"Many people who, like me, lived through the Nazi era, had wished and hoped that this horrible time of war and genocide, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism no longer had a place in the world", said German president Johannes Rau opening the conference.

He said he regretted that a such meeting had to be held and that anti-Semitism had not been consigned to history.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the countries present were there "to stamp out new fires of anti-Semitism within our societies".

"Today we confront the ugly reality that anti-Semitism is not just a fact of history but a current event", he added.

The aim of the conference is to draw up specific steps to fight anti-semitism, which has been on the rise in Europe.