Washington?s biggest enemies, from communist Cuba to North Korea, called on developing nations on Saturday to challenge US dominance through a revived Non-Aligned Movement labeled a Cold War relic by critics. More than 50 leaders from over 100 Third World countries, among them Iran and Venezuela, rejected U.S. use of the ?axis of evil? label and supported Tehran?s right to nuclear technology for peaceful use.

?American imperialism is in decline. A new, bi-polar world is emerging,? Venezuela?s leftist President Hugo Chavez said. ?The non-aligned group has been relaunched to unite the South under its umbrella,? Chavez, who will host a visit in Caracas by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday, told Venezuelan television from Havana.

But governments with friendly ties to Washington, among them India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Chile, Peru and Colombia, sought to steer the summit way from confrontation and finger-pointing at the USA.

?I don?t regard this summit as anti-US, or for that matter anti-anybody,? Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi told a news conference. Cuba, which hosted the summit under the new leadership of Raul Castro because his brother and iconic revolutionary Fidel Castro was still recovering from life-threatening surgery, said the movement was reborn.

?The idea that the movement must go beyond statements and take action in international forums has gained force here. Our strength must emerge from our numbers,? Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque. NAM nations are almost two thirds of the UN.

Leaders took turns at the podium to criticize global poverty, unfair trade practices and ?arbitrary? actions by powerful nations that ? they complained ? controlled the United Nations. Some said NAM should be strengthened as an alternative.

Human rights issue

North Korea took the opportunity to blast the USA for unilateral actions against individual countries and joined the call for a revitalized NAM to raise a united voice.?The United States is attempting to deprive other countries of even their legitimate right to peaceful nuclear activities,? North Korea?s second-ranking leader, Kim Yong-nam, said.

North Korea, which defied international warnings by test-firing ballistic missiles in July, will not return to talks on ending its nuclear programs under growing U.S. sanctions, he said.

Kim, who heads North Korea?s parliament, said in a speech that United States was ?abusing the human rights issue? to interfere in the internal affairs of countries not allied to it.

The NAM, founded in 1961 by nations that wanted to assert their independence from Washington and Moscow, backed Iran?s right to development, research and production of nuclear energy. It also urged Iran to continue cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

In one concrete result of the summit, nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan agreed to resume formal peace negotiations that were frozen after the July train bombings in Mumbai. The agreement came after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on the fringes of the summit. New Delhi had said the carnage on July 11 was plotted by a Pakistan-based group of Islamists.

Fidel Castro was supposed to preside over the summit but was too ill to attend. His brother Raul Castro shed his military uniform for a business suit to host the summit and read brief speeches.

Anthony BOADLE