Venezuela on Saturday staged a military exercise to counter an alleged US threat, deploying soldiers and partisans across the country to march, man shoulder-fired missiles and defend an oil refinery from a simulated attack. Socialist President Nicolas Maduro has framed recent US sanctions on seven Venezuelan officials as a bid to topple him, and on Saturday his government mobilized 80,000 soldiers and 20,000 civilians as part of a 10-day military drill, Reuters reported.
