"China is changing the way that espionage is being done," said Carolyn Bartholomew, the chair of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

In its wide-ranging annual report to Congress, the commission reported a steep rise in the disruption and infiltration of websites of the US government and perceived Beijing rivals such as Tibet's exiled leader the Dalai Lama.

Colonel Gary McAlum, a senior military officer, told the commission the US Defense Department detected 54,640 malicious cyber incidents to its systems in 2008, a 20 percent rise from a year earlier. The figure is on track to jump another 60 percent this year.

While the attacks came from around the world, the commission said China was the largest culprit. Some Chinese "patriotic hackers" may not receive official support, but the report said the government likely planned to deploy them in a conflict to disrupt a foreign adversary's computers.

The commission found that China was the most aggressive nation in spying on the United States and was trying to recruit more Americans as spies.

While China historically tried to tap Chinese Americans -- believing, often incorrectly, that they would be sympathetic -- it was now turning to the Soviet model of seeking to bribe informants with cash and gifts, the report said.

It said the Chinese were also expanding "false flag" operations, in which sources are deceived into thinking they are providing information elsewhere.

The commission also found that China has launched an effort to influence US think-tanks and academia by rewarding scholars with access and depriving visas to more critical voices.

"It becomes self-censorship. If you're in graduate school and want to become a China scholar, you need to go to China. And if you criticize the Chinese government on certain things, you won't get in," said Bartholomew, a former top aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"What it means is that we have a generation of China analysts who are being created who don't necessarily have the freedom or the ability to think through a broader range of questions," she said.

The commission also criticized China on its trade policy, recommending that the United States press Beijing to make its yuan more flexible and to turn to the World Trade
Organization to fight what it termed predatory trade practices.

"Just look at the sheer statistics," Bartholomew said.

"Two-hundred-and-sixty-eight billion dollars in 2008 was the US trade deficit with China -- you can't say this (trade policy) has been working."

President Barack Obama this week paid his first visit to China, which is now the top holder of the ballooning US debt. His administration has sought cooperation with China on battling the global slowdown and declined to accuse Beijing of manipulating its currency.

The commission paid a field trip to Rochester in upstate New York, where it said core industries such as machine tools, auto parts and optoelectronics were struggling against Chinese competition that often enjoys state support.

"For 20 years we have watched China policy be controlled really by a handful of large multinational corporations. They're the ones who determine the interests," Bartholomew said.

"But there are a lot of constituency interests out there -- particularly small and medium-sized enterprises -- that are being hurt by the current US-China policy," she said.

Louise Slaughter, the Democratic congresswoman representing Rochester, hailed the report as evidence that China "systematically subsidizes their industry" to target foreign markets.

"These predatory trade practices violate international trade law and reinforce my belief that we need to strengthen our trade enforcement efforts and rethink our trade relationship with China," she said.

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Pakistan dispatched 30,000 troops into battle on October 17, vowing to crush the Tehreek-e-Taliban network and blaming the faction for some of the deadliest bomb attacks that have killed more than 2,500 people in 28 months.

The offensive has been welcomed by the United States, which has dubbed Waziristan and the rest of Pakistan's tribal belt on the Afghan border the most dangerous place on Earth where Al-Qaeda are plotting attacks on the West.

Military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told reporters flown by the army to the former rebel bastion of Sararogha that the army had captured most of the population centres and disrupted the militants' food supply line.

"The myth has been broken that this was a graveyard for empires and it would be a graveyard for the army," Abbas said.

"Major town and population centres have been secured," he added.

In Sararogha, which was previously home to around 10,000 people and is surrounded by hills, streets were destroyed, the market reduced to rubble and no civilians in sight, said an AFP reporter.

Commanders said troops were locked in fighting Tuesday at Janata, about six kilometres (four miles) north of Sararogha, which they described as a former bastion of Uzbek and Arab fighters.

Overall, 550 militants and 70 soldiers have been killed since the army launched the offensive on October 17, Abbas said.

The army provides the only regular information from the frontlines. Few of the details can be verified because communication lines are down and journalists and aid workers barred from independent access to the area.

Pakistan estimated 10,000 Tehreek-e-Taliban footsoldiers were holed up in South Waziristan. Although there have been pockets of stiff resistance, many of the militants are believed to have escaped into neighbouring districts.

The South Waziristan offensive has displaced more than 250,000 people, according to the army, and the United Nations has urged Pakistan to ensure safety and security of civilians during the operation.

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State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said negotiators were still hammering out details of the deal announced in July by presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev during a Moscow summit.

Under the terms of the agreement the United States would be allowed to launch up to 4,500 US flights a year over Russia, opening a major supply route for American operations in Afghanistan.

"We anticipate that regular flights will start as soon as we've worked out these remaining logistical details," Kelly said on Monday.

"One of the points that we're trying to iron out is notification processes that have to be in place," he added.

"And we're also working with other countries on the transit routes since anything overflying Russia to go to Afghanistan would have to fly over other countries as well."

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The decision to look at defense as one of the first public sectors ripe for savings was, with a few notable exceptions, an easy one in many capitals, particularly considering the strain for some countries caused by supporting struggling financial institutions and pressures on welfare systems resulting from the spike in unemployment. In its annual Europe military market overview, Forecast International reviews the struggles confronting European defense as it experiences declining financial investment across much of the region.

Though the European military market has grown nominally throughout most the decade, as a percentage of state spending the overall level of defense expenditure has steadily shrunk. Seeking improved efficiencies, most European nations have downsized their military personnel by abolishing conscription while at the same time shedding much of their armed forces' Cold War-era heavy equipment. The various reductions were often accompanied by government assurances that the smaller, nimbler force would be met with greater financial resources for equipment and training.

The core goal behind these reformation processes was the attainment of capabilities such as rapid crisis reaction and the ability to undertake out-of-area operations, which the formerly static, heavily armored European militaries were not designed to perform. However, Europe still largely suffers from the inability to deploy much of its military personnel abroad, and, when committing forces to external missions, struggles to sustain them.

After NATO-Euro countries failed to boost investment above the minimum levels expected of them by the NATO Alliance during periods of relative economic growth, the financial crisis and subsequent recessionary wave eroded any lingering commitment amongst those countries for defense investment. Now with the economies of Central and Eastern Europe continuing to struggle, the fall from the spending levels of 2008 is expected to continue into 2010 and perhaps longer. Total military spending across the continent tumbled to $280 billion in 2009 from $295 billion only one year earlier.

"The economic tumult experienced by the three Baltic nations has severely damaged their ability to bolster military spending commensurate with their modernization needs," says Forecast International Europe Military Markets Analyst Dan Darling. "The poorer dual EU-NATO members from Central and Eastern Europe are struggling between meeting defense investment pledges made to the Alliance while also maintaining the fiscal responsibility necessary for accession into the eurozone. Judging by the public pronouncements of many government officials from these countries, Russian military activity in Georgia during 2008 seemed to be the spark that would finally spur a firm commitment to greater military investment. But instead such plans have fallen victim to economic realities."

The list of NATO-Euro countries meeting the 2 percent-of-GDP minimum defense allocation requirement has shrunk from five to four in the past year, with only France, the United Kingdom, Greece and Turkey achieving that meager level of investiture. The latter two continue to emphasize military financing largely out of anticipation of war with each other; combined French and British defense investment, meanwhile, represented 49 percent of all military spending among the European nations in NATO.

Other significant military markets in Europe are mired in a state of stagnation. Mere weeks after Poland announced a 10-year, $20 billion modernization package, its 2009 defense budget was cut by almost 8 percent. Italy and Spain sharply curtailed defense allocations over the past year – by 7 and 4 percent, respectively – and both are likely to see further reductions in 2010. Germany has moved against the tide, with a boost of over EUR1.5 billion in spending in 2009, but this was to bring forward procurement programs as a means to stabilize domestic industry and revive economic growth. Yet even with the increase, Germany still invests only 1.3 percent of its GDP toward defense.

Most ominous for the European market, however, is the likelihood that France and the U.K. will each face a deficit reckoning, resulting in more restrained defense outlays in the future. The U.K. in particular is confronting some difficult choices where larger defense projects are concerned, and may be forced to scale back its procurement ambitions in order to bring its military equipment budget in line. Programs that may suffer as a result include the A400M airlifter, the proposed Future Rapids Effects System (FRES) family of armored vehicles, and the Future Surface Combatant program, which may be indefinitely postponed.

"Defense ministries in Europe today have to navigate a turbulent financial environment compounded by the funding of ongoing missions abroad and the need to account for the attrition of material used in operations in Afghanistan," says Darling. "Fiscal realities have forced many governments to scale back expenditures, leaving them with a choice as to what areas of public spending they wish to preserve. Considering the natural public preference for social spending during times of economic duress, such a choice seems obvious."

The fall in aggregate military investment across Europe has led to increased calls for greater defense cooperation among European nations, including the pooling of resources. But questions of sovereignty and protection of domestic industry continue to trump burden-sharing initiatives, delaying what may ultimately be inevitable. For now, however, European defense spending remains relatively static while many global regions are placing more and more emphasis on military investment.

"The lack of an immediate, direct security threat means that European governments would have to display a stronger sales pitch than has thus far been exhibited in order to increase defense spending," adds Darling. "The asymmetric threat does not seem to creep into the public consciousness as much as the conventional one. The collapse of social protection is of greater concern to Europe, which with various exceptions considers the U.S. as its security guarantor."

Forecast International, Inc. is a leading provider of Market Intelligence and Analysis in the areas of aerospace, defense, power systems and military electronics. Based in Newtown, Conn., USA, Forecast International specializes in long-range industry forecasts and market assessments used by strategic planners, marketing professionals, military organizations, and governments worldwide.

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Obama gave a major policy speech at Suntory Hall to 1,500 Japanese leaders. He met with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and with the emperor and empress of Japan.

The president praised the U.S-Japanese alliance as a partnership based on mutual interests and respect. The alliance has served both nations well in the past, and he expects it will change and deepen in the future, he said.

The United States pledged to defend Japan when a treaty was signed almost 50 years ago. Security is part of the overall relationship between the nations, and the two leaders agreed to move expeditiously through a joint working group to implement the security agreement on restructuring U.S. forces in Okinawa, Obama said.

While Japan is the anchor of American interests and commitments in the Pacific, “it doesn't end here,” the president said.

“Asia and the United States are not separated by this great ocean; we are bound by it,” he said. “We are bound by our past – by the Asian immigrants who helped build America, and the generations of Americans in uniform who served and sacrificed to keep this region secure and free.”

Prosperity binds the regions together, the president said, and he noted that millions of Americans trace their ancestry to Asia. “So I want everyone to know, and I want everybody in America to know, that we have a stake in the future of this region, because what happens here has a direct effect on our lives at home,” Obama said.

Japan and China are two of America’s largest trading partners, and the nations of Southeast Asia – especially Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore – are growing in importance to the American economy.

But the United States is interested in the region not only for economics, Obama said, but also for security.

“This is a place where the risk of a nuclear arms race threatens the security of the wider world, and where extremists who defile a great religion plan attacks on both our continents,” he said.

Obama said the United States will engage with old friends and seek new ones throughout the region. Alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, Thailand and the Philippines “continue to provide the bedrock of security and stability that has allowed the nations and peoples of this region to pursue opportunity and prosperity that was unimaginable at the time of my first childhood visit to Japan,” he said.

“And even as American troops are engaged in two wars around the world,” he added, “our commitment to Japan’s security and to Asia’s security is unshakeable, and it can be seen in our deployments throughout the region – above all, through our young men and women in uniform, of whom I am so proud.”

The United States looks for nations such as Indonesia and Malaysia to play larger roles regionally, he said, and he stressed that the national security and economic growth of one country need not come at the expense of another.

“I know there are many who question how the United States perceives China’s emergence,” he said. “But as I have said, in an interconnected world, power does not need to be a zero-sum game, and nations need not fear the success of another. Cultivating spheres of cooperation – not competing spheres of influence – will lead to progress in the Asia-Pacific [region].”

This does not mean that China has a blank check, the president noted.

“America will approach China with a focus on our interests,” he said. “It's precisely for this reason that it is important to pursue pragmatic cooperation with China on issues of mutual concern, because no one nation can meet the challenges of the 21st century alone, and the United States and China will both be better off when we are able to meet them together.”

America welcomes China’s effort to play a greater role on the world stage – a role in which their growing economy is joined by growing responsibility, he said.

“China’s partnership has proved critical in our effort to jumpstart economic recovery,” the president said. “China has promoted security and stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And it is now committed to the global nonproliferation regime, and supporting the pursuit of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.”

The United States does not seek to contain China, nor does a deeper relationship with China mean a weakening of American bilateral alliances in the region, Obama said.

“On the contrary, the rise of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength for the community of nations,” he said. “So in Beijing and beyond, we will work to deepen our strategic and economic dialogue, and improve communication between our militaries.

“Of course, we will not agree on every issue,” he continued, “and the United States will never waver in speaking up for the fundamental values that we hold dear – and that includes respect for the religion and cultures of all people – because support for human rights and human dignity is ingrained in America. But we can move these discussions forward in a spirit of partnership, rather than rancor.”

The president said he also believes multilateral organizations can advance the security and prosperity of the Asia Pacific.

“I know that the United States has been disengaged from many of these organizations in recent years,” he acknowledged. “So let me be clear: Those days have passed. As an Asia-Pacific nation, the United States expects to be involved in the discussions that shape the future of this region, and to participate fully in appropriate organizations as they are established and evolve.”

The security of the 21st century in the area, the president said, is threatened by a legacy of the 20th century: the danger posed by nuclear weapons.

“In Prague, I affirmed America’s commitment to rid the world of nuclear weapons, and laid out a comprehensive agenda to pursue this goal,” he said. “I am pleased that Japan has joined us in this effort, for no two nations on Earth know better what these weapons can do, and together we must seek a future without them. This is fundamental to our common security, and this is a great test of our common humanity. Our very future hangs in the balance.”

But as long as nuclear weapons exist, Obama added, “the United States will maintain a strong and effective nuclear deterrent that guarantees the defense of our allies – including South Korea and Japan.”

Still, he said, an escalating nuclear arms race in the region would undermine decades of growth and prosperity. “So we are called upon to uphold the basic bargain of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – that all nations have a right to peaceful nuclear energy; that nations with nuclear weapons have a responsibility to move toward nuclear disarmament and those without nuclear weapons have a responsibility to forsake them,” he said.

The United States is pursuing a new agreement with Russia to reduce nuclear stockpiles and also is working to ratify and bring into force a nuclear test ban treaty. “And next year at our Nuclear Security Summit, we will advance our goal of securing all the world’s vulnerable nuclear materials within four years,” Obama said.

Strengthening the global nonproliferation movement is not about singling out individual nations, he said. “It's about all nations living up to their responsibilities,” the president said. “That includes the Islamic Republic of Iran. And it includes North Korea.”

North Korea has chosen a path of confrontation and provocation, Obama said, and is developing nuclear arms and the means to deliver them.

“It should be clear where this path leads,” the president said. “We have tightened sanctions on Pyongyang. We have passed the most sweeping U.N. Security Council resolution to date to restrict their weapons of mass destruction activities. We will not be cowed by threats, and we will continue to send a clear message through our actions, and not just our words: North Korea’s refusal to meet its international obligations will lead only to less security, not more.”

North Korea can renounce these efforts and be welcomed into the community of nations, Obama said.

“Instead of an isolation that has compounded the horrific repression of its own people, North Korea could have a future of international integration,” he said. “Instead of gripping poverty, it could have a future of economic opportunity – where trade and investment and tourism can offer the North Korean people the chance at a better life. And instead of increasing insecurity, it could have a future of greater security and respect. This respect cannot be earned through belligerence. It must be reached by a nation that takes its place in the international community by fully living up to its international obligations.”

He called on North Korea to return to the six-party talks and uphold previous commitments including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. He also called for the full and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

The United States will stand with Asian allies in combating the transnational threats of the 21st century: extremism, piracy, disease, poverty and modern-day slavery, the president said. “The final area in which we must work together’” he added, is in upholding the fundamental rights and dignity of all human beings.”

The American agenda in the area is ambitious, and it will not be easy, Obama said. “But at this moment of renewal … history tells us it is possible,” the Hawaiian-born president said. “This is … America's agenda. This is the purpose of our partnership with Japan, and with the nations and peoples of this region. And there must be no doubt: As America's first Pacific president, I promise you that this Pacific nation will strengthen and sustain our leadership in this vitally important part of the world.”

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Moscow and Washington are negotiating a replacement for the current Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), the basis for Russian-U.S. strategic nuclear disarmament, which expires on December 5. The current round of talks near Geneva began on Monday.

"There are a number of problems pertaining to inspections, verification, and reporting figures," Army Gen. Nikolai Makarov said.

Makarov also said Washington was seeking to keep a point from the original treaty on the U.S. monitoring of Russia's mobile ground-based missiles.

He said monitoring had been provided by a U.S. team based in the Russian city of Votkinsk, home to a missile manufacturing plant.

"We do not have such missions in the United States, so it is quite natural that this [Votkinsk] mission will be removed, and it will leave its post on December 5," he said.

"We want the treaty to ensure both the security of the Russian Federation and of the United States on equal levels."

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama will meet on the sidelines of this year's gathering of APEC leaders, hosted by Singapore on November 14-15.

An outline of the new pact was agreed during the presidents' bilateral summit in Moscow in July and includes cutting their countries' nuclear arsenals to 1,500-1,675 operational warheads and delivery vehicles to 500-1,000.

START I commits the parties to reducing their nuclear warheads to 6,000 and their delivery vehicles to 1,600 each. In 2002, a follow-up strategic arms reduction agreement was concluded in Moscow. The document, known as the Moscow Treaty, envisioned cuts to 1,700-2,200 warheads by December 2012.

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The deadly assaults on Pakistan's police and intelligence agents come with 30,000 troops pressing their most ambitious offensive to date against homegrown Taliban networks in their mountain strongholds on the Afghan border.

The three-storey Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) provincial headquarters in the northwestern city of Peshawar was heavily damaged, with huge clouds of smoke spewing into the sky and debris littering the ground, witnesses said.

The front and middle of the building collapsed, and five bodies lay on the road in the minutes after the attack, said an AFP reporter in Peshawar, which runs into Pakistan's lawless tribal belt infested with Al-Qaeda and Taliban.

"I was busy at work then suddenly I heard gunfire. I saw a vehicle moving towards the ISI building and then there was a huge blast. I was thrown to the ground," Azmat Ali, a 30-year-old mechanic told AFP in hospital.

"I don't remember anything else, but there was dust everywhere," he added after being treated for a broken shoulder.

The United States has put Pakistan on the frontline of its war against Al-Qaeda and has been increasingly disturbed by deteriorating security in the country where attacks and bombings have killed about 2,500 people in 28 months.

Security officials, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media, said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber driving a vehicle packed with explosives.

"A car came from the wrong side of the road and as security force personnel fired at it to stop it, the driver exploded the vehicle," one official said.

"Eight people have died and more than 30 are injured," Sahib Zada Anis, head of the northwestern city's administration, told AFP.

A second suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a suburban police station in the garrison city of Bannu, southwest of Peshawar, killing three policemen and wounding five others, police said.

"The bomber rammed the car into the police station," Bannu police chief Iqbal Marwat told AFP from the garrison town.

"There are three policemen dead and 12 injured. The number of casualties is likely to rise because the injured are being pulled out from the rubble of the police station," he added.

Peshawar, which borders Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt where US officials say Al-Qaeda are plotting attacks on the West and where Pakistani troops are pressing a major offensive, is frequently hit by attacks.

The most devastating bomb attack in Pakistan in two years killed at least 118 people in a crowded Peshawar market on October 28 as militants put ordinary civilians firmly in the crosshairs of their bloody campaign.

Pakistan's powerful and shadowy intelligence agencies have a history of supporting Islamist groups in a bid to counter rival India, but militant attacks have increasingly focused on domestic targets in the last two years.

Friday's bombing in Peshawar was the first major attack outside an ISI installation since May, when a suicide attack on a police building in the city of Lahore killed 24 people beside its Punjab provincial headquarters.

The government blames increasing attacks on Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is the target of the ongoing offensive and which wants to avenge the killing of their leader Baitullah Mehsud by a US missile in August.

The latest attacks came after stiff Taliban resistance killed at least 17 Pakistani soldiers Thursday in the military's deadliest day since launching a major offensive in South Waziristan, security officials said.

Pakistan has pressed around 30,000 forces, backed by war planes and attack helicopters, into battle in a US-endorsed mission to wipe out the chief strongholds of Tehreek-e-Taliban in the tribal district of South Waziristan.

On Tuesday, a Taliban spokesman told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location that the militia had embarked on a guerrilla war from the mountains of South Waziristan and would attack cities as a matter of course.

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Yemen's official Saba news agency said that the cooperation agreement was signed during talks in the capital Sanaa on Tuesday between the two countries' militaries.

The news agency also quoted Brigadier General Jeffrey Smith, the commander of the US 5th Signal Command, as renewing Washington's support for Yemen's unity, security and stability.

But US embassy spokeswoman Debrah Smith declined to comment on whether any agreement had been signed.

She did confirm that talks involving Smith had taken place and said they focused on counterterrorism efforts against groups operating in Yemen.

Yemen is Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's ancestral homeland and has been a major focus of the jihadist network's activities.

In October 2000, Al-Qaeda militants attacked the destroyer USS Cole off the southern port of Aden, killing 17 US sailors.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, Washington made Yemen a major focus of its operations against Al-Qaeda.

It set up a counterterrorism base across the Bab al-Mandab strait in Djibouti and in November 2002 carried out a Predator drone strike against six suspected Al-Qaeda militants east of the Yemeni capital.

In late September, the director of the US National Counterterrorism Centre Michael Leiter told a Senate hearing that Yemen continued to be a major concern.

"We have witnessed the re-emergence of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, with Yemen as a key battleground and potential regional base of operations from which Al-Qaeda can plan attacks, train recruits, and facilitate the movement of operatives," Leiter said.

On October 4, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, Vice Admiral William McRaven, met Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to discuss cooperation against Al-Qaeda, a US embassy statement said.

In a September 6 letter to Saleh, US President Barack Obama hailed the counterterrorism partenrship between the two countries and said Yemen's security was vital for that of the United States, Saba reported.

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"Faced with these threats of war by the government of Venezuela, the government of Colombia is weighing heading to the Organization of American States and UN Security Council," said a statement from President Alvaro Uribe, read out by his spokesman Cesar Velasquez.

"Colombia has not made nor will it make any bellicose move toward the international community, (and) even less so toward fellow Latin American nations," the statement said.

"The only thing we are interested in is defeating terrorism related to drug trafficking, which has been so unfair to Colombians for so many years."

Colombia, the statement added, "remains ready for frank dialogue, achieving greater understanding and to the rules of international law."

Hours earlier, Chavez urged his military leaders to prepare "for war" and to ready citizens to "defend the homeland," as tensions continue to mount over fractious ties with neighboring Colombia.

"Let's not waste a day on our main aim: to prepare for war and to help the people prepare for war, because it is everyone's responsibility," Chavez said during his weekly radio and television show "Alo, Presidente."

The comments come at a tense time for the region as Colombia signs a controversial military agreement with the United States to let US forces use seven military bases in Colombia for anti-drug operations.

Chavez has repeatedly voiced deep fears of US encroachment in the region.

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"The empire is alive and is threatening than ever," Chavez said quoted by local television, adding that the U.S. base is located just 20 minutes away from the capital of the country, Caracas.

The 10-year deal signed between the United States and Colombia on October 30 during a brief closed-door ceremony in Bogota envisions the deployment of some 800 U.S. military personnel and 600 civilian contractors at seven military bases in Colombia.

Last week Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said that the presence of U.S. troops in Colombia "poses a serious threat to stability in the region."

Both Washington and Bogota insist that the agreement concerns "practical aid" in measures against drug trafficking and domestic insurgents, primarily the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a leftist guerilla movement, but Venezuela continues to see the deal as a threat to its national security.

Ecuador and Bolivia earlier claimed that the planned U.S. military deployment was "suspiciously large for its stated purpose."

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