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At UN, Zimbabwe's Mugabe And Iran's Ahmadinejad Line Up Against West


President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, whose countries were once designated "outposts of tyranny" by the U.S. administration, met Tuesday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly and called for developing nations to unite against Western "domination."

Iranian state media said the two leaders discussed "the need for unity of the developing states against…U.S. and British neocolonialism." The Iranian report said President Mugabe lashed out at what he described as “the unilateralist approach and misuse of the U.N. Security Council by the bullying powers.”

He urged countries in the developing world to “confront such approaches by the big powers," according to the Iranian dispatch. The report said the Iranian president expressed appreciation for Zimbabwe’s “active presence” in the Non-Aligned Movement ministerial session on human rights held in Tehran recently.

Offering perspective, independent political analyst Hermann Hanekom of Cape Town, South Africa, told reporter Carole Gombakomba that the alliance between Mugabe and Ahmadinejad was unlikely to bring about much of a response from developing countries, which stand to benefit from aid provided by the major powers.

On Tuesday, U.S. President George Bush in remarks to the General Assembly called Mr. Ahmadinejad's government a "brutal regime" that denied "fundamental rights" and said the behavior of Mr. Mugabe's "tyrannical regime" was "an assault on its people and an affront to the principles of the Universal Declaration" of human rights.

More reports from VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe...

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