November 01, 2008	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 2, 1429

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 31: Dozens of world leaders, including King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, US President George Bush, King Juan Carlos of Spain and President Asif Zardari, are expected to attend a United Nations interfaith conference on Dialogue of Civilisations on Nov 13-14, UN officials told Dawn.

The conference is being held at the initiative of King Abdullah as a follow-up to Madrid interfaith conference held in July which delegates representing Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other faiths from across the world attended.

They called upon the United Nations to convene a special session on dialogue.

The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Mr Zalmay Khalilzad, confirmed on Thursday that President Bush would come to the world body on Nov 13. Mr Bush has been a proponent of faith-based initiatives in the United States.

The Madrid conference adopted 10 principles that included unity of humankind and the equality of human beings irrespective of their colour, ethnic background and culture; purity of the nature of humans as they were created liking good and disliking evil, inclining to justice and avoiding injustice; diversity of cultures and civilisations.