"Asia is the cradle of great religions that share noble values pursued by all humanity - values such as mercy, justice and peace. And yet, mankind has created so many conflicts in the name of religion ... All the great religions have a role to play in building peace."

- Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary general

NEW YORK - A high-level, two-day conference on the "culture of peace" is being held this week at United Nations (UN) headquarters this week. Attended by some 70 world leaders and senior officials from dozens of nations, including US President George W Bush and Israeli President Shimon Peres, the enlightening initiative come as recent UN reports have highlighted growing levels of xenophobia, gender, ethnic and racial discrimination, and outright cultural intolerance and religious bigotry around the world.

The conference's stated aims are to promote the world's "common humanity" and the "innermost values of tolerance, diversity, and reciprocity", and aims to tackle these notions from the perspective of "faith-based" as well as other "ethical, philosophical traditions", said the head of UN's General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto. Although he emphasized that the event is not strictly about religion, which he said "can be a very divisive subject".

"Our world is experiencing an extremely difficult period, the worst since the founding of the United Nations," D'Escoto said in his opening remarks. "It is a time of numerous bankruptcies, but the worst is the moral bankruptcy of humankind's self-proclaimed 'more advanced societies', which has spread throughout the world."

The fact that the "faith-based" conference is an initiative of Saudi Arabia, which forbids the public practice of other religious faiths, and which is regularly accused of systematic discrimination against women and religious minorities, has fueled controversy at the UN. The recent news that Riyadh has been brokering dialogue between the Taliban and Afghan government has also not helped, given the Taliban's appalling record of human-rights violations against women and ethnic and religious minorities.