Barack Obama Acknowledges US 'Racial Tensions' in UN Speech

United Nations: US President Barack Obama on Wednesday acknowledged that the United States had its own racial and ethnic tensions, in a speech at the United Nations mainly focused on world conflicts.

The killing in August of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer in the St Louis suburb of Ferguson led to nightly protests and prompted a national debate about race and law enforcement.

The US Justice Department has also launched a broad civil rights probe into the actions of the police department in the Missouri town.

"I realize that America's critics will be quick to point out that at times we too have failed to live up to our ideals; that America has plenty of problems within our own borders. This is true," Obama said.

"In a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, I know the world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson," he said.

"So yes, we have our own racial and ethnic tensions. And like every country, we continually wrestle with how to reconcile the vast changes wrought by globalization and greater diversity with the traditions that we hold dear."

Some African-Americans feel they are victims of unfair racial profiling by law enforcement agencies, half a century after the civil rights movement and the end of official segregation.

There have been demands that the officer involved in Ferguson, Darren Wilson, be put on trial for murder.

Police claim 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot after a struggle after he allegedly stole a box of cigars from a convenience store.

But some witnesses in Ferguson -- a suburb of 21,000 with an African-American majority and an overwhelmingly white police department and town council -- say Brown had put his hands up to surrender when he was shot at least six times.