Chavez predicts the “end of the US empire”

Chavez made his remarks in response to Washington's announcement of a plan for a post-Fidel Castro transition to democracy in Cuba which will "discourage" third countries ? allegedly Venezuela - from obstructing "the will of the Cuban people for freedom and democracy".

"The empire not only threatens Cuba ... with its political transition plan" but also threatens Venezuela when "it says that it will undertake to 'discourage' any third country that wants to support Cuba's Castro regime", said Chavez.

The George W. Bush administration "believes that Fidel Castro is going to die, that's why it insists with the transition plan. I recently went to Cuba ... and saw Castro looking stronger than ever: clear minded, in good spirit, working like a boy ... Look out, if Fidel Castro lives past 100, God wants it to be that way" Chavez highlighted.

Washington announced Monday that it would allocate 80 million US dollars in the next two years to hasten the end of the Castro regime in Cuba, support the opposition and anticipated economic incentives to a future transition government in Havana.

Chavez condemned the "obscene, immoral and genocide-prone U.S. empire" suggesting that instead of a transition plan for Cuba "it should begin thinking about its own transition plan because this century the U.S. empire will come to an end".

"I recommend "Mister Danger" (President Bush) reads Paul Kennedy's "Rise and fall of the Great Powers" to see in the mirror of history what became of great empires".