The organizers of a South African anti-racism conference in the run up to the soccer World Cup have postponed the gathering after protests about its refusal to grant the Dalai Lama a visa to attend the event.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has said he will pull out of a Johannesburg conference to fight racism after a "disgraceful" decision by Pretoria to ban the Dalai Lama from attending.

The Dalai Lama has had a series of meetings in the UK, with figures including Gordon Brown, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Prince Charles.

Gordon Brown will meet the Dalai Lama at Lambeth Palace, the home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, today. The British Prime Minister has been accused of "kow-towing" to China by meeting the exiled Tibetan leader in his capacity as a spiritual leader.

Bartholomeos I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, has joined the Dalai Lama as one of two international religious figures named in the "Time 100" list, the people deemed by Time magazine to be the world's most influential persons.