IDADI YA WATU WALIOSOMA HABARI HII:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is to seek further cooperation with Russia during his two-day visit to Moscow.

Speaking at the Two Centuries of Independence of Latin America conference, at the Foreign Literature Library in Moscow, Chavez assured that Venezuela was not building a nuclear bomb, as the only kind of nuclear energy it is interested is peaceful.

Chavez also called the collapse of the Soviet Union a “catastrophe”.

He went on to say, “Although the world has changed, Russia and Venezuela continue to play an immense role in the world balance of powers,” Itar Tass quoted.

He also made a number of strong statements regarding the US.

“You must have heard a Mexican leader say, ‘Poor Mexico, so far from God, and so close to the United States,’” Chavez said. “All of us Latin Americans could say the exact same thing. Our poor America. So far from God and so close to the… Yankee empire that has hurt our continent so badly.”

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On Friday Chavez is meeting his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.