Sick Chavez phones TV show to disprove death rumours

REUTERS Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez telephoned state TV on Monday, ending a virtual silence of nine days that had triggered rumors that he had died while undergoing cancer treatment in Cuba.

“It seems we will have to become accustomed to live with these rumors, because it is part of the laboratories of psychological war, of dirty war,” the 57-year-old socialist leader said in the phone call from Havana where he is undergoing radiation therapy.