Chavez, Castro lash out at Bush

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez criticized the United States for recent remarks about his role in Latin America, saying in a Sunday broadcast from Cuba that it is the policies of the U.S. government that are harming the world, not his own.

Chavez spoke alongside Cuban President Fidel Castro during his weekly television and radio show from the western tip of the island, flaunting the close ties between the two leftist leaders that U.S. officials say are threatening democracy in the region.

"The grand destroyer of the world, and the greatest threat ... is represented by U.S. imperialism," Chavez said. "If the world continues on the road being imposed by imperialism, the world will head straight for destruction."

Chavez was responding to remarks U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made on his way home from visits to Paraguay and Peru last week. Referring to social uprisings in Bolivia that have pushed out two presidents in less than two years, Rumsfeld told reporters that Venezuela and Cuba have been influencing the Andean nation "in unhelpful ways."