Geopolitical Monitor - Region: Latin America

March 6, 2008 (Bloomberg) - Colombian rebels bombed an oil pipeline and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he may seize assets of the neighboring country's companies after a Colombian raid into Ecuador killed a rebel leader.

RIO DE JANEIRO March 5, 2008 (Xinhua) - Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim Tuesday denied charges from an opposition politician that Brazil had been exporting a relatively large amount of weapons to Venezuela.

March 4, 2008 (ElUniversal.com) - Minister of Agriculture and Lands Elías Jaua Monday said the Venezuelan government has ordered closing down the border with Colombia, following President Hugo Chávez's instructions to move 10 tank battalions to the border area and to expel the Colombian Ambassador and diplomatic staff from Caracas.

CARACAS March 2, 2008 (Saul Hudson, Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez moved tanks to the Colombian border and mobilized fighter jets on Sunday, warning Bogota could spark a war after its troops struck inside another of its neighbors, Ecuador.

HAVANA February 19, 2008 Anita Snow (AP) - An ailing, 81-year-old Fidel Castro resigned as Cuba's president Tuesday after nearly a half-century in power, saying he will not accept a new term when parliament meets Sunday.

February 14, 2008 (AFP) - Cuba has demanded the US return Guantanamo Bay to the island nation and denounced the "war on terror" prison, where six detainees could face the death penalty.

February 8, 2008 (AFP) - ExxonMobil has won a court order freezing 12 billion dollars in worldwide assets of Venezuela's state oil firm as part of its battle for compensation over Caracas's nationalization of key oil fields.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba February 7, 2008 (AP) - Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills on this sprawling Navy base, separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even more closely guarded - a jailhouse so protected that its very location is top secret.

February 7, 2008 (Aleksey Nikolskiy, Vedomosti) - Russia and Venezuela are at the final stage of talks on a deal to sell three Kilo-Class Project 636 submarines to Venezuela's Navy, which could be clinched in April.

January 30, 2008 (Kiraz Janicke, VenezuelAnalysis.com) - The 6th Summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America (ALBA), a joint Venezuelan-Cuban initiative based on fair trade as an alternative to the U.S.-sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas, concluded in Caracas on Saturday.