CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday embraced socialism as his ideology of choice in a political statement that sharpened his antagonism against the United States.
Chavez, a firebrand nationalist who has governed the world's No. 5 oil exporter for six years, has persistently declined to define the precise ideology of his self-styled "revolution."
But, addressing an international meeting on poverty in Caracas, he said Western-style capitalism was incapable of solving global economic and social problems.
"So, if not capitalism, then what? I have no doubt, it's socialism," said Chavez, who also rebuffed U.S. criticism of his left-wing rule in Venezuela and denounced U.S. President George W. Bush as the "great destabilizer of the world."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americ...eut/index.html