Iranian Prez Dropped Holocaust Denial From UN Speech

It didn't stop a mass walkout, but Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually toned down the speech he gave at a UN racism conference yesterday, the UN said today, dropping language denying the reality of the Holocaust. In the original text of his speech, he said of Western nations: "Following World War II, they resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless on the pretext of Jewish sufferings and the ambiguous and dubious question of Holocaust.”

Why drop the second half of that? Could be because Ban Ki-moon met with Ahmadinejad before the speech. The UN secretary-general said he reminded the Iranian prez that the UN had adopted resolutions "to revoke the equation of Zionism with racism and to reaffirm the historical facts of the Holocaust." A stream of delegates still walked out, but many, including those from the Vatican, stayed. (More Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stories.)