Chavez calls "perfect crisis" in US a major global threat

Oct 1, 2008, 21:10 GMT

Caracas - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday said that the global financial crisis has gone beyond the economy to become 'a real threat for the world,' a sort of perfect storm.

'The world crisis is complete, because it is not just economic, it is political, it is ethical, environmental, food-related, energy- related. This crisis is something like the crisis that no one wants, the perfect crisis (in which) all variants joined into one and it is a real threat for the world,' Chavez said.

Later Wednesday, he sent a message of 'solidarity' to the people of the United States whom he called 'brothers.'

He sent 'our feeling of solidarity to the people of the United States who are going through an extremely difficult situation and on top of it have no government,' Chavez said in a political rally on Venezuela's Margarita Island.

The left-wing populist Chavez - a loud critic of Washington policies who often refers to the northern giant as 'the empire' - stressed that he hopes the United States' next president will lead his countrymen 'through the paths of equality, justice and peace, amongst themselves and with all the peoples of the world.

'The sinking of the United States is going to do a lot of harm to the world, but Venezuela had its own share. Venezuela already sank. Now we are sure that the people of the United States will know how to pull that country ahead,' he said, with reference to past crises in the South American nation.

Chavez noted that millions of people lost their homes in the US crisis and claimed that some middle-class US citizens are living in their cars because 'capitalist bankers protected by the government' took away their homes.