As President Bush arrived in the Middle East yesterday to help mark Israel's 60th anniversary and speak at a peace conference, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly called the Jewish state a "stinking corpse," among other sentiments. "The Zionist regime is dying," Ahmadinejad said in a speech. "The criminals imagine that by holding celebrations ... they can save the Zionist regime from death."
"They should know that regional nations hate this fake and criminal regime and if the smallest and briefest chance is given to regional nations they will destroy (it)," he added.
President Bush said it was clear that Iran was undermining democratic elections in Lebanon by supporting a coup by the terrorist group Hezbollah, a view shared by Saudi Arabia. "Of course, for Iran to back the coup that happened in Lebanon and support it will have an impact on its relations with all Arab countries," Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said yesterday.
Across the Atlantic, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez set the tone for the Latin American - European Union Conference in Lima by linking German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Hitler's Nazi Party. "She is from the German right," said Chavez. "The same that supported Hitler, that supported fascism. That's the Chancellor of Germany today."
Earlier in the week Chavez announced he had purchased military planes from China, expanding both its arms and its relationship with Beijing. "We continue working on the issue of military equipment, even though they accuse me of launching an arms race," he said. "I'm not launching an arms race. Military expenditures are necessary for the country's defense."
The purchase coincided with a visit to Caracas by the Chinese to discuss the construction of an oil refinery in China to process Venezuelan oil. The meeting was held within days of a cultural confab between Iran and China in Tehran.
