Venezuela and Iran have increased ties with a series of new deals. On Monday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced agreements on a joint petrochemical plant and other economic cooperation. Speaking in Tehran, Chavez said the two countries are forming a “brotherly” front against the Bush administration.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez: “And I finish with this. That is why in Washington they begin to worry when they see us shaking hands, with our steel fists, because they represent the steel of the moral of our peoples.”