President Ahmedinejad of Iran, who has called for Israel to be wiped off the map, rubbed shoulders with President Chávez, the Venezuelan leader who has branded President Bush a dangerous imperialist. In the background, top-ranking Syrian, North Korean and Belarussian politicians drummed up support for their regimes.

Officially, this is the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, an organisation of 116 Third World nations set up during the Cold War as a counterbalance between the US and the Soviet Union. But the constant stream of America-bashing has led some to dub it the “Axis of Castro”.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the movement has been struggling to find a role. Several members have, however, become big international players since the grouping was founded in 1961: some used the meeting to trumpet their defiance of the sole superpower.

While ill-health prevented Señor Castro from staging more than a photo-opportunity with Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, his brother, Raúl, the acting President, maintained the family’s tough anti- American stance as he predicted that Washington’s “irrational pretensions for world dominance” would bring about its downfall. “When there no longer is a Cold War, the United States spends $1 billion a year in weapons and soldiers and it squanders a similar amount in commercial publicity,” he said. “To think that a social and economic order that has proved unsustainable could be maintained by force is simply an absurd idea.”

The agenda will also raise hackles across the Florida Straits: support for Iran’s programme of uranium enrichment, criticism of the US sanctions that have crippled Cuba’s economy, and backing for Venezuela’s bid to gain a seat on the UN Security Council.

However, while Señor Chávez used the summit to grandstand against the US, other members such as India and South Africa, as well as dozens of smaller nations that enjoy closer ties with Washington, urged a more moderate line.

Havana has been spruced up for the summit, with buildings restored, streets swept and local bars closed, but dissidents complain that they too have been cleared out of the way. Magali Broche, one of the “Ladies in White” — women who march every Sunday in protest at the incarceration of their husbands, brothers and sons for political reasons — told The Times that she had been prevented from leaving her province south of Havana by security police.

Dissident groups had hoped that Mr Annan would take time to meet some of their leaders in a show of solidarity. Instead he was photographed shaking hands with Señor Castro, recovering from gastro-intestinal surgery a month ago. The 80-year-old revolutionary gave Mr Annan a copy of a book called 100 Hours with Fidel.

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