Venezuela angrily denies terror plot in Nicaragua

Venezuela has reacted angrily to Nicaraguan charges that the Venezuelan Embassy in Managua was involved in a terrorist plot to blow up the national cement plant and Nicaragua's only oil refinery: ''Absolutely not so,'' said the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry.

Monitor Latin America correspondent James Nelson Goodsell writes that the Nicaraguan charges, made by Interior Minister Tomas Borge Martinez, came as a surprise, since Nicaragua has recently sought to shore up the deteriorating relations with Venezuela. Foreign Minister Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann was in Caracas a week ago, trying to patch up relations.