CARACAS (Reuters) – A healthy sounding President Hugo Chavez called Venezuelan state television from Cuba on Monday to dispel rumors fanned by a nine-day silence that he had died undergoing cancer treatment at a hospital in Havana.

“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 telephone call.

Since leaving for Cuba on April 14 to undergo radiation treatment for an undisclosed cancer, Chavez had only addressed Venezuelans by short messages on Twitter to cheer supporters and hail the advances of his socialist “revolution.”

His unusually long silence stirred speculation about his health and raised doubts about his political future as he campaigns for re-election in an October 7 vote.

Chavez said the cancer therapy was “hard” and he needed to rest, but that he was recovering and planned to return to Caracas on Thursday – although he would need another radiation session.

“Some people would like to see me leave here sprinting … not yet, let me recover. I have to rest and look after my diet, the treatment and the hours I keep,” Chavez said. “These rumors sometimes are damaging.”

He said the rumors about his health were so strong they even had his mother worried and he had to call her.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Officials in President Hugo Chavez’s government denied rumors that the leftist leader may have died while undergoing cancer treatment in Cuba six months ahead of an election in South America’s top oil exporter.

In the nine days since he left for Havana to have two final radiation sessions for an undisclosed cancer, Chavez has only addressed Venezuelans by short messages on Twitter to cheer supporters and hail the advances of his socialist “revolution.”

His unusually long silence – during previous trips to Cuba the verbose Chavez has made phone calls to state television – has stirred speculation about his health and doubts over his condition as he campaigns for re-election in an October 7 vote.

In the past, Havana published pictures and video of him meeting his mentor, former Cuba leader Fidel Castro. There have been no images released from this visit, so far.

Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles leapt to the attack and complained that Chavez was running the country remotely by Twitter from a hospital on the communist-led Caribbean island.

Chavez’s political ally and president of the National Assembly legislature Diosdado Cabello dismissed the rumors in a tweet: “The truth is that these embittered people don’t learn. They’ve been saying for days that the Comandante died.”

“The only thing that is lifeless here is that loser,” Cabello said, referring to Capriles, the opposition’s best hope for defeating Chavez and ending his 13 years in power.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez will not attend this weekend’s hemispheric summit in Colombia and will instead fly straight to Cuba to continue radiation treatment for cancer, his foreign minister said on Saturday.

The 57-year-old socialist leader said on Friday the radiation therapy was physically tiring and that his doctors were evaluating whether he should go to the “Summit of the Americas” en route to Havana for a fourth session.

“On the recommendation of his medical team, President Chavez decided not to attend this event,” Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro told reporters in Cartagena at the meeting of about 30 heads of state, including U.S. President Barack Obama.

“Today he leaves for Havana to continue to his treatment, which is going excellently,” Maduro said.

Chavez said on Friday he planned to stay in Cuba longer than on his recent trips to complete his radiation treatment of five sessions. On Saturday, Venezuela’s National Assembly legislature authorized him to leave the country for up to 90 days.

An appearance at the summit would have been a show of strength for Chavez, who has undergone three cancer operations in less than a year. Very little official information has been given about his health, including what type of cancer he has.

It would also have delighted his supporters by giving Chavez – who once at the United Nations called former U.S. President George W. Bush “the devil” – the chance to challenge Obama in front of dozens of other leaders.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Feisty Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez acknowledged on Friday that radiation treatment for cancer was wearing him down, but he vowed to squash his opponents in October’s presidential election.

Ramping up the political rhetoric at a huge rally to mark the 10th anniversary of his return to power after a brief coup, Chavez said three sessions of radiation therapy in Cuba had taken their toll.

But he was more combative than usual, vowing to win the October 7 “by a knock-out,” repeatedly denouncing his opponents as upper-class “bourgeoisie losers,” and launching a new anti-coup force that would prevent any repeat of the events of 2002.

“I continue to recover from the surgery. The radiation has an impact on my body, it has some impact on my physical strength, but I am doing well. We will be alright, thank God,” he told tens of thousands of supporters clad in red T-shirts in honor of his ruling Socialist Party.

Chavez, 57, said his doctors had not decided whether he was fit to attend a summit of the hemisphere’s leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, this weekend in Colombia.

If he did attend, it would only be for a few hours before continuing on to Havana for a fourth session of radiation treatment. This time, he told the rally from the balcony of the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, he would spend the whole week in Cuba – longer than his recent trips.

The president said he wanted to avoid “coming and going.”

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Some forty years ago, Dilma Rousseff was a guerrilla fighter working clandestinely to bring a version of Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s communist revolution to Brazil.

How times change. When Rousseff makes her first visit to Cuba next week as Brazil’s president, she’ll have capitalism on her mind, specifically the building of a container terminal at the port of Mariel aimed at future trade with the United States when Washington one day lifts its 50-year-old embargo on Cuba.

The $800 million modernization of the natural harbor west of Havana is being done by Brazilian engineering firm Odebrecht with funding from Brazil’s state development bank BNDES. It is part of a vast and growing constellation of Brazilian-run projects in Latin America, Africa and elsewhere that has paralleled Brazil’s recent rise as an economic power.

The business-focused nature of Rousseff’s Cuba trip highlights a shift in Brazil’s foreign policy since she took office early last year, with trade trumping all other considerations.

Her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva valued commercial ties too but also sought more overtly political relations with controversial leaders such as Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – whom Rousseff has all but ignored since taking office.

Rousseff’s interest in business ventures abroad has been heightened by the global slowdown that brought the booming economy of Latin America’s largest nation to a halt in the third quarter of 2011, forcing her to focus on restoring growth.

Her first major trip abroad after taking office in January 2011 was to China, which dislodged the United States as Brazil’s top trading partner in 2009.

BRASILIA (Reuters) – At first blush, it might seem like the clock is ticking on Fernando Bezerra’s days as a Brazilian Cabinet minister.

Bezerra has been fighting sensational charges of nepotism and other ethics breaches in the Brazilian press. The most egregious accusation: that he used his power to direct a disproportionate share of funds for natural disaster prevention to his home state, instead of states where dozens of people have died in recent weeks from predictable seasonal floods.

Yet it appears that Bezerra, who has denied any wrongdoing, and most other ministers under a cloud of suspicion are going to keep their jobs. President Dilma Rousseff is backing off her plans for a major Cabinet reshuffle early this year, having decided that she needs their parties’ support to pass key economic legislation.

Rousseff fired six ministers because of corruption or ethics breaches in 2011, a stance that marked a departure from politics as usual and boosted her popularity ratings. Top aides have said since September that Rousseff was going to undertake an even broader purge shortly after her first anniversary in power on January 1, even if it meant losing the support of some junior partners in her 17-party coalition.

Brazil’s slowing economy, which flatlined in the third quarter and is still weak, appears to have changed her plans.

Rousseff will likely need all the support she can muster in order to keep inflation under control and pass legislation Brazil needs to modernize its mining and energy sector, and prepare to host the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.

“She has adopted a defensive position, because she is vulnerable,” said political scientist Bolivar Lamounier.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – British-born journalist and atheist intellectual Christopher Hitchens, who made the United States his home and backed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, died on Thursday at the age of 62.

Hitchens died in Houston of pneumonia, a complication of cancer of the esophagus, Vanity Fair magazine said.

“Christopher Hitchens – the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant – died today at the age of 62,” Vanity Fair said.

A heavy smoker and drinker, Hitchens cut short a book tour for his memoir “Hitch 22″ last year to undergo chemotherapy after being diagnosed with cancer.

As a journalist, war correspondent and literary critic, Hitchens carved out a reputation for barbed repartee, scathing critiques of public figures and a fierce intelligence.

In his 2007 book “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,” Hitchens took on major religions with his trenchant atheism. He argued that religion was the source of all tyranny and that many of the world’s evils have been done in the name of religion.

The son of a British naval officer, Hitchens studied at Oxford University and worked as literary critic for the New Statesman magazine in London before moving to New York to work as a journalist in 1981. He settled in Washington the following year, initially as correspondent for the left-wing magazine The Nation. He retained his British citizenship when he became an American citizen in 2007.

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia’s ex-president Alvaro Uribe is fuming about the direction his successor is taking.

And he’s letting everyone know tweet-by-tweet.

Snide messages to his 470,000-plus Twitter followers are keeping Uribe in the limelight to the discomfort of current President Juan Manuel Santos, Uribe’s former defense minister.

The microblogging feud, ironically, is helping Santos break with his past in violence-ridden Colombia and forge his own path as leader of a booming mineral-rich economy.

Uribe has railed in particular at Santos’ flagship legislation that provides reparations to victims of Colombia’s armed conflict and the restoration of lands seized from peasants by right-wing paramilitaries and landowners.

The former president, whose U.S.-backed crackdown on leftists guerrillas is credited with making Colombia a safer place, sees the law as a concession to the guerrillas.

“Churchill: appeasement of terrorists makes them grow,” he tweeted on May 23 from London, paraphrasing Britain’s wartime Conservative leader.

BOGOTA, June 8 (Reuters) – Colombia became the first major Latin American nation to publicly endorse Mexican central bank chief Agustin Carstens for the International Monetary Fund’s top job on Wednesday, calling on others to do the same.

The Colombian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that a dozen other Latin American nations now back Carstens, who is seen as the underdog candidate in the race to succeed Dominique Strauss-Kahn to head the Washington-based IMF.

The Latin American group backing Carstens includes Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Panama, Uruguay, Mexico, Paraguay, Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua, the statement said.

“Colombia expresses support for the aspiration of Agustin Carstens and invites other governments of the Americas to join in backing this bid,” Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin said in the statement, which called on other Latin American nations to support the Mexican.

Holguin, who was in El Salvador at a meeting of the Organization of American States, said that emerging markets need more say in multilateral institutions.

The IMF job fell vacant after Strauss-Kahn was arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a hotel maid in New York.

Carstens has been on a global tour to drum up support for his bid to lead the IMF against French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde. He has not visited Colombia.

SANTIAGO/BOGOTA (Reuters) – The stock markets of Chile, Peru and Colombia merged on Monday to become Latin America’s second-largest exchange, but trading was limited and faces tax hurdles coupled with political uncertainty in Peru.

The Integrated Latin American Market (MILA) allows cross-border electronic trading of shares of 565 companies listed in the three bourses, which have a combined market capitalization of $691 billion.

That’s greater than the Mexican stock market’s $453.5 billion and second only to Brazil’s bourse with $1.5 trillion.

Brokers said that the first “symbolic’ trades were by Colombian brokers who bought shares in Chilean airline LAN, electricity generator Endesa Chile and Peruvian zinc producer Volcan.

Officials said that MILA would boost liquidity and initial public offerings, providing a source of cheaper capital to companies in the fast-growing countries.

“Investors will be able to diversity portfolios with access to a much larger market that will be absolutely transparent and straightforward,” said the head of the Bogota stock market, Juan Pablo Cordoba.

Traders said that a major hurdle is the lack of a common tax regime between the three countries, besides having different credit ratings and securitization rules.