US News

Dictators’ toxic spew at summit

WASHINGTON — The UN climate-change meeting in Copenhagen has gone from summit to sideshow for strongmen.

World leaders aren’t making much headway on an accord to curb emissions, but the event has been a successful sounding board for corrupt leaders like Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe to bash the United States.

Chavez — whose anti-US tirade occasionally drew applause — took to the world stage to blast President Obama, capitalism and US involvement in Afghanistan.

“The cause of all this disastrous situation is the destructive capitalist system,” the Venezuelan socialist leader said in his speech, according to the Toronto Star. “Capitalism is the road to hell.”

Then he blasted Obama — who arrives in Copenhagen today — as a warmonger who should not have won the Nobel Peace Prize.

“He got the Nobel Peace Prize almost the same day as he sent 30,000 soldiers to kill innocent people in Afghanistan,” Chavez whined.

He offered no proof, but said, “Europe should know that the North American empire is filling these islands with weapons, assassins, American intelligence units, and spy planes and warships.”

Also strolling through the summit corridors to express his twisted worldview, was Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, who flouted travel sanctions imposed because of his human-rights abuses.