Four Russian vessels and 1,000 Russian military personnel are to participate. The move could further strain Washington-Moscow ties.
The Venezuelan government announced Sunday that four Russian naval vessels will participate in joint exercises in the Caribbean this year, a move that could heighten already strained relations between Washington and Moscow.
Venezuela’s naval intelligence chief, Adm. Salbatore Cammarata [...]

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President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday that Russian President Dimitri Medvedev wants to send a Russian naval fleet to visit Venezuela.
“Russia has informed us they intend to visit Venezuela, that is, the intention that a Russian fleet should come to the Caribbean,” Chavez said on his weekly radio program.
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A New Cold war in the Caribbean?
The significance of the Izvestia bluster isn’t that the Russians could be coming again — Moscow’s Defense Minister later said any air force arrangement in Cuba would most likely involve stops for fuel rather than actual bases — but that they’ve returned to the idea of using the Caribbean [...]

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Moscow officials hinted through the media on July 21 that Russian Tu-160 and Tu-95 strategic bombers, armed with nuclear-tipped long-range X-55 cruise missiles, may be deployed on Cuba, as an asymmetric response to the planned US deployments of missile defense systems in Europe. The bombers could refuel at one of Cuba’s airfields, where Russian [...]

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Speak fraternally but carry a stick. Is there a new arms race—or just overdue retooling of armies?
Even as its leaders talk, Latin America is re-arming—or rather some South American countries are. In the broader region, including Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, total defence spending shot up to $38 billion in 2007 from $25 billion [...]

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The US is, so far, the single most important bilateral player in the LAC region. US-China relations and the growth of China as a global superpower, and maybe eventually, the global superpower, is perhaps the single most critical strategic issue facing the global community over the next two or three decades. The recent visit of [...]

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More than 12,800km from Beijing, Chinese workers are putting the finishing touches to stadiums for a sport they’ve never played.
Living in temporary plastic huts and taking a single day off each month, about 1,000 employees of state-owned Chinese companies have sweated away the past year on the Caribbean islands of Jamaica, Antigua and Grenada [...]

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