Time "for new world order"

       Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi urged African and South American leaders on Saturday to strive for a new world order countering Western economic dominance.
       They spoke on the first day of a 28-nation summit that was long on idealistic speeches but short on concrete steps beyond an agreement to set up a development bank for South America with an intended $20 billion start-up.
       "This is the beginning of the salvation of our people," Mr Chavez said in a speech welcoming his guests to the Caribbean island of Margarita.
       President Chavez said the meeting,coming just after the UN General Assembly in New York and the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, would help poor nations rely less on Europe and the US:"The 21st century won't be a bipolar world, it won't be unipolar. It will be multipolar. Africa will be an important geographic, economic and social pole.And South America will be too."
       The leftist leader has governed for more than 10 years and says he wants to remain in office for decades more to turn Venezuela into a socialist state.He casts himself as the leader of a global,"anti-imperialist" movement.
       Mr Gadhafi, who is celebrating four decades in office and had a white limousine flown to Venezuela to meet him at the airport, echoed his host's message.
       "The world isn't the five countries on the UN Security Council," he said.
       "The world's powers want to continue to hold on to their power. When they had the chance to help us, they treated us like animals, destroyed our land,"Mr Gadhafi added."Now we have to fight to build our own power."
       Other leaders, from influential developing nations like Brazil and South Africa, also gave sweeping, critical summaries of global problems, though in less radical terms. Analysts say Brazil and South Africa's model of businessfriendly economics mixed with a focus on helping the poor is more popular among many African countries than Mr Chavez's revolutionary approach.
       The leaders planned to sign a document yesterday urging global bodies like the UN and World Bank to give poor countries more clout.
       Mr Chavez, hoping to create an alternative to multilateral lenders like the IMF, said South American countries had agreed to start up a regional development bank, called Banco del Sur,with $20 billion.
       "Lula, now we need to find the money!" he joked to Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
       On the eve of the summit, Venezuela caused a stir by saying it was working with its ally Iran to find uranium deposits in the South American nation.
       A Chavez aide, Jesse Chacon, who is minister of light industry, sought to play down the issue on Saturday.
       Mr Chacon told reporters attending the Margarita conference that Venezuela was investigating its mineral deposits with a variety of nations.
       "We want nuclear energy for medicine and peaceful purposes," Mr Chacon added.
       Analysts say Venezuela is more than a decade away from being able to generate nuclear power.
       Mr Chavez says he opposes nuclear weapons but insists the developed world does not have the right to stop other countries from developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
       Venezuela's opposition called Mr Chavez irresponsible for reaching out to what it said were unsavoury regimes around the globe.
       "Venezuela's dangerous friendship with autocratic and totalitarian governments like Belarus, Sudan, Libya,Zimbabwe, show Mr Chavez's irresponsibility in seeking ties and alliances at any cost, without regard to the pariah state of these regimes," opposition group Mesa Unitaria said.