Hugo Chvez's health problems forestall Latin American summit
Venezuelan president has yet to return to Venezuela after reportedly undergoing emergency surgery in Cuba
A meeting of Latin American leaders in Venezuela planned for next month has been cancelled, raising further doubts over the health of the country's convalescing president, Hugo Chvez.
Chvez has yet to return home after reportedly undergoing emergency surgery in Cuba on 10 June. But the president had been tipped for a triumphant homecoming at the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) on 5 July.
The summit was to be held on Margarita Island, and would have coincided with the 200th anniversary of Venezuela's independence from Spain.
Heads of state, including Brazil's Dilma Rousseff, Ecuador's Rafael Correa and Chile's Sebastin Piera, had planned to attend.
On Thursday, however, officials in Venezuela and Brazil confirmed that the meeting would no longer take place.
Authorities in the Venzuelan capital Caracas said the meeting had been "postponed" but did not set a new date.
In a statement the foreign ministry said the decision was related to the president's ongoing treatment. the meeting would no longer take place.
Chvez's continued absence from Venezuela has led to a flurry of speculation and provoked a bitter row between opposition leaders and "chvistas".
His allies claim that Chvez, 56, is recovering well after an operation on a pelvic abscess, but a series of conspiracy theories have also surfaced about the ailment and its severity, ranging from prostate cancer to outright death.
On Tuesday night, Venezuelan state television broadcast images of Chvez, alongside Cuba's former leader Fidel Castro, reputedly filmed in Havana earlier that day.
Commenting on the silent images, the information minister, Andrs Izarra, said: "There we are seeing Commander Chvez very dynamic."
Castro and Chvez had been discussing "different current events", Izarra added. "We see him recovering."
The ! images, however, did little to appease political opponents who have grown increasingly vocal in their calls for more detailed information.
"The nation needs a clear message that will end this national and international speculation, as well as the discomfort and suspicion caused by the mysterious silence," said Manuel Rosales, an opposition leader who is tipped to run against Chvez next year but is currently in exile in Peru, in a statement on Monday.
Analysts are divided on whether Chvez's protracted absence will help or hinder him as he prepares for the 2012 presidential election.
"It's hard to tell what the electoral impact might be, but there is no question that for a country which has become accustomed to seeing and hearing the president all the time, this rule in absentia is certainly shocking for everyone," said Javier Corrales, a professor of political science at Amherst College in Massachusetts, and an authority on Venezuela.
"The conditions surrounding this absence are as mysterious as the conditions surrounding the time that Fidel Castro, still president of Cuba, went into some kind of medical absence before retiring from the presidency," Corrales said.
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