B Guyana News Today

Venezuela said Saturday it will continue to deploy nearly 6,000 troops until a British military vessel sent to neighboring Guyana leaves the waters off the coast of the two South American nations.

President Nicolas Maduro ordered Venezuela's armed forces to conduct defensive exercises in the Eastern Caribbean after the United Kingdom sent a warship toward Guyana's territorial waters as the South American neighbors dispute a large border region.

The leaders of Guyana and Venezuela landed in St. Vincent and the Grenadines for a tense meeting Thursday as regional nations sought to defuse a long-standing territorial dispute that has escalated with Venezuelans voting in a referendum to claim two-thirds of their smaller neighbor.

Oil giant ExxonMobil says it will keep ramping up production in offshore Guyana despite the escalation of a territorial dispute with neighboring Venezuela, which claims that oil-rich region as its own.

The government of Guyana, under pressure from neighboring Brazil and a Caribbean trading bloc, agreed Sunday to join bilateral talks with Venezuela over an escalating territorial dispute.

The United States said it was conducting military flight operations over Guyana amid growing border tensions with Venezuela, which has claimed sovereignty over its neighbor's oil-rich region of Essequibo.

Venezuelans are voting in a referendum Sunday called by President Nicolas Maduro to claim sovereignty over a large swath of neighboring Guyana, arguing the oil- and mineral-rich territory was stolen when the border was drawn more than a century ago.

Congregants of an Anglican church in a sparsely populated rainforest village in Guyana gathered recently to bid on a bounty of bananas, squash and other produce during a community event. They sang hymns and rang a bell after each successful bid.

Guyana on Tuesday urged judges at the United Nations' highest court to call for a halt to parts of a Venezuelan referendum about a territorial dispute that Guyana representatives called an "existential threat" designed to pave the way for the annexation of a large part of the country.