Chavez working, giving orders: Venezuelan govt

Caracas: Two months after being operated for cancer in Cuba, President Hugo Chavez was analyzing images from Venezuela`s recently launched Miranda satellite and giving orders based on what he observed, Science and Technology Minister Jorge Arreaza said. "President Chavez attentively analyzed recent images from our Miranda satellite and issued several orders" on Sunday night, "even calling for an inspection of certain parcels of apparently uncultivated land seen in multispectral images of Barinas and Guarico", the president`s son-in-law Arreaza said in a Twitter posting. The government has not updated information about the president`s health since Jan 26.

On that occasion, Communication Minister Ernesto Villegas said that "the general progress of the patient" was "favourable" after overcoming a pulmonary infection, though "a certain degree of respiratory insufficiency persisted". Villegas added that a systemic medical treatment for cancer is now being applied. Six days later Vice President Nicolas Maduro said that Chavez had finished the postoperative stage of his treatment, though he offered no details. The 57-year-old president, in power since 1999, has remained silent since last Dec 11 when he underwent his fourth operation in Havana for a cancer whose type and extent have never been revealed. Chavez, re-elected for a third time last October for the 2013-19 period, still has not been sworn-in for his next term as president due to his operation. IANS