Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, on a visit to Iran as the G20 summit opens in London, denounced capitalism and announced the founding of a Iranian-Venezuelan binational bank. Chávez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad officially opened the Tehran-based commercial bank April 3, aimed at spurring trade and industrial projects between the two countries. The two leaders facetiously referred to their nations as the "G2."

The Venezuelan leader has encouraged bilateral ties as part of what he calls a South-South dialogue, or Southern Hemisphere alliance. In comments to Venezuelan state TV, Chávez ridiculed the G20 summit as a "failed forum," dismissing its pledge of $500 billion to enlarge the International Monetary Fund as "entrusting beef to vultures." He added that G20 pledges of a trillion dollars in aid to the developing world amount to "the same medicine that's killing the patient... more money for a bottomless pit." He called the IMF and World Bank "tools of imperialism" that must be eliminated

"It's impossible that capitalism can regulate the monster that is the world financial system, it's impossible," Chávez said. "Capitalism needs to go down. It has to end. And we must take a transitional road to a new model that we call socialism." (VOA, AP, Radio Nuevo Mundo, Chile, April 3)

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