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Chavez calls Bush a `devil'

``The devil came here and this place still smells of sulphur''

UNITED NATIONS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez took his verbal battle with the United States to the floor of the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, calling U.S. President George W. Bush ``the devil.''

``The devil came here yesterday,'' Chavez said, referring to Bush's address on Tuesday and making a sign of the cross. ``He came here talking as if he were the owner of the world.''

The leftist leader, who has joined Iran and Cuba in opposing U.S. influence, accused Washington of ``domination, exploitation and pillage of peoples of the world.''

``We appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat, which is like a sword hanging over our head,'' he said.

The main U.S. seat in the assembly hall was empty as Chavez spoke. But there was a ``junior note taker'' there, as is customary ``when governments like that speak,'' the U.S. ambassador to the U.N said.

Ambassador John Bolton told The Associated Press that Chavez had the right to express his opinion, adding it was ``too bad the people of Venezuela don't have free speech.''

``I'm just not going to comment on this because his remarks just don't warrant a response,'' Bolton said. ``Serious people can listen to what he had to say and if they do they will reject it.''

Chavez drew tentative giggles at times from the audience, but also some applause when he called Bush the devil.

Standing at the podium, Chavez quipped that a day after Bush's appearance: ``In this very spot it smells like sulfur still.''

Chavez held up a book by American leftist writer Noam Chomsky ``Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance'' and recommended it to everyone in the General Assembly.

He also said the U.N. in its current system ``doesn't work'' and is ``antidemocratic.'' He called for reform, saying the U.S. government's ``immoral veto'' had allowed recent Israeli bombings of Lebanon to continue unabated for more than a month.

He lambasted the U.S. Government for trying to block Venezuela's campaign for a rotating seat on the U.N. Security Council. He said if chosen over U.S.-favourite Guatemala in a secret-ballot U.N. vote next month, Venezuela would be ``the voice of the Third World.''

The Venezuelan leader, a close friend and admirer of Cuba's communist leader Fidel Castro, has sought to be a voice for poor countries and has warned that if the U.S. tries to block U.N. reform, Venezuela and others may eventually create a separate ``United Nations of the south'' to rival a body they no longer find democratic.

Chavez also said it might eventually be necessary to move the U.N. headquarters out of the United States.

He reiterated his accusations that the U.S. planned and financed a short-lived coup that briefly unseated him in 2002, and said that with Washington's backing Israel had carried out a ``genocide'' in Lebanon.

Chavez's government still earns handsomely from oil sales to the U.S., Venezuela's top export market, but he has crusaded against its capitalist system, selling millions of gallons (liters) of heating oil at a discount to low-income American families.

Dozens gathered in a downtown square in Caracas to watch Chavez on a large-screen TV as the government took over all TV and radio channels to broadcast the speech live. The crowd in the square spontaneously broke into applause during some of his harsher criticisms of the U.S. - AP

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