Chavez continues struggle against cancer

(Vatican Radio) The grim reality about Hugo Chavez's life and death struggle against cancer is still being blurred by rhetoric.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro, who is Hugo Chavez's hand picked successor has said quote: "The treatments Comandante Chavez is receiving are tough, but he is stronger than them."

The unspecified respiratory illness which has gripped Hugo Chavez, since his fourth round of cancer surgery, has delayed the onset of chemotherapy, which he's now undergoing, having returned home to Venezuela from Cuba.

Even his staunchest critics don't doubt Chavez brave amazing determination to fight and defeat cancer. The fact that he's never publically revealed what type of cancer it is, raises a myriad of doubts in the minds of many, whether he's fighting a rearguard action against the inevitable, or that there's really light at the end of a long dark tunnel, and he can emerge cured once and for all.

Maduro says a general improvement in his leader's condition and strength allowed the chemotherapy to start.


If he is able to make even a partial recovery, it will be a triumph against the odds. A fighter by nature who overcame childhood poverty and the failure of a coup that landed him in jail before he won democratically, it would be a mistake to count Hugo Chavez out. The question now is whether he can pick himself up from the canvass one more time.

Listen to James Blears’ report: