Venezuela's Maduro attacks Trump UN address

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro hit back at his US counterpart Donald Trump's aggressive speech to the UN on Tuesday.

Addressing a rally in support of his government outside the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Mr Maduro condemned the “aggression of the new Hitler, Donald Trump, the racial supremacist.”

“He will not dominate the brave homeland!” he declared in his bombastic speech.

“Despite the words of hate and war from Donald Trump, the socialist revolution will continue” he said.

“Do you want to speak of peace? Never have we bombed the people of the world,” Mr Maduro said. “Do you want to speak of human rights? We did not torture prisoners in Guantanamo bay.”

Thanking some 200 international guests from 60 countries for their support, Mr Maduro said: “Solidarity is more important than any braggadocio in New York.”

Mr Trump's UN address echoed George Bush Jr's declaration of an “Axis of Evil” 15 years earlier, singling out North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela as “rogue states.”

He said if the US was “forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea."

The US president claimed Iran's chief export is "violence, bloodshed and chaos" and called the 2015 nuclear accord an “embarrassment for the US, hinting he may soon withdraw from it.

He slammed Tehran for supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's “criminal regime” along with Lebanon's Hezbollah and Yemen's resistance against the Saudi-led invasion.

His confrontational rhetoric caused disquiet among the General Assembly and later drew condemnation from many nations – raising questions of whether it was aimed at a domestic audience or the US Congress.

Mr Trump urged leaders to use their "national sovereignty to do more to ensure the prosperity and security of their own countries,” saying they should put their interests first as he put “America first,” but warned the US would not be “taken advantage of” in treaties.

He said the “socialist Maduro regime" was on a "path to impose authoritarian rule on the Venezuelan people” and urged the UN to intervene in the country – despite ongoing talks with the US-backed opposition in the Dominican Republic.

In New York Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arrreaza, who was in a solidarity meeting with Palestine when Mr Trump was speaking, said the his threats “disrespect the UN, Venezuela, and the international community” and promote a “return to the cold war.”

And Bolivian President Evo Morales, who visited Mr Maduro in Caracas on Sunday told the General Assembly: “Our region is nobody's back yard.”

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