The bombers are in Venezuela as part of a joint manoeuvre that appears to be a tit-for-tat response to the US delivery of aid to Georgia, which fought a five-day war with Russia last month. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez welcomed the arrival of the bombers, telling a live television audience: "The Yankee hegemony is finished." Russian news agencies said the two Tu-160 strategic long-range bombers carried no nuclear bombs, after an earlier refusal to comment on whether the...

MANTA, Ecuador - Military and diplomatic sources see a link between the Manta air base, operated by the United States in Ecuadorean territory, and this month’s bombing raid by Colombia on a FARC guerrilla camp in Ecuador. The U.S. air force was granted a 10-year concession in 1999 to use the base, located in the port city of Manta on Ecuador’s northern Pacific coast, in its counter-drug trafficking activities in the region. A high-level Ecuadorean military officer, who...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has ordered troops, tanks and fighter aircraft to his country's border with Colombia in a row over a cross-border attack. The Colombian army raided a jungle camp just inside Ecuador - an ally of Venezuela - where it shot dead a leader of the leftist rebel group FARC. Chavez called the rebel leader's death the cowardly assassination of a good revolutionary. Meanwhile, an indignant Ecuador government complained that the Colombian army raid violated its...

In Venezuela, leftist president Hugo Chavez apparently plans to spend several billion dollars on rearmament. Details have been slipping out over the last year, as an increasing number of sales teams (mostly Russian), travel to Venezuela, and return boasting of splendid results. Chavez has apparently decided to get three dozen Russian helicopter, two Russian subs, and some Russian high tech jet fighters. One reason for getting mostly Russian gear, is because much Western stuff off limits if...