Senior allies of Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez have rubbished reports he is sicker than the government has admitted, telling his enemies to "stop dreaming" of his death. The normally verbose leader has not been seen in public since a June 10 operation in Cuba to remove a pelvic swelling.
His long absence has prompted widespread speculation he may be seriously ill, possibly being treated for prostate cancer. His government insists Chavez is fine but says he won't return to Venezuela until he is ready. And it has accused his opponents of "rubbing their hands together" in glee.
"President Chavez is recovering well from his surgery. His enemies should stop dreaming and his friends should stop worrying," Vice Foreign Minister Temir Porras said on the social networking site Twitter late on Saturday.
"The only thing that has metastasised is the cancer of the Miami Herald and the rest of the right-wing press."
Porras was referring to a report in the Nueva Herald, the Miami Herald's Spanish-language sister paper, on Saturday that cited unnamed US intelligence officials as saying Chavez was in "critical condition" at hospital in Havana. A senior US official cast doubt on that report, telling Reuters that Washington was hearing lots of speculation about Chavez's health but had no firm intelligence.
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