USA and Two Latin American Countries Expel Each Other's Ambassadors

And, in support, Honduras refused to accept the credentials of our new ambassador designate to that country .

Colombia says its action was in retaliation for alleged attempt by Washington to oust their government.

Venezuela claims Bush administration tried to incite a military coup in that country.

USA retaliated by expelling both the Bolivian and Venezuelan ambassadors from Washington.

The US States Department considers the actions of the leftists regimes a sign of weakness and desperation. And it has imposed sanctions against senior Venezuelan officials, all aides to Hugo Chavez, for aiding Colombian drug traffickers.

Two of them, Hugo Carvajal Barrios and Henry Rangel Silva are senior intelligence officials. The third one, Ramón Rodríguez Chacin, till recently was Venezuela's minister of interior. All their assets in this country will be confiscated.

Venezuela claims their talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) are for the release of hostages held by them and not for trafficking weapons or drugs. Farc incidentally is under the terror watchlist of both USA and the European Union.

The leftists claim USA accuses them of drug trafficking purposely to interfere in their affairs.

Now a fourth country has jumped into the fray - Nicaragua. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has announced moral support to his fellow leftist comrades.

What is interesting is that two Russian long range TU-160 bombers have arrived in Venezuela for air force exercise this week.

For sometime we were hearing about Russia resuming these flights to Cuba which Cuba denied. Now, it appears they were sent to Venezuela.

And to make matters worse, Russians intend to conduct regular military exercises with their Latin American comrades hereafter.

Probably, this is in retaliation to our government's intention to station missile batteries in Poland and Romania as well as our support for Georgia.

Rightist governments in Latin America also will find it difficult to choose between the two: Venezuela's concessional oil OR USA's monetary aid.

So, it appears, we have more than hurricanes to watch for from beyond our Southern borders.