Chavez says new round of chemo is going well

CARACAS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who just began a third round of chemotherapy in his fight against cancer, said Monday it was going well.

"I was very much tuned in to business all day, stretched out there, and I will tell you that about a half hour ago I finished up what I call the bomb ... the chemotherapy's bombing," Chavez said in a brief phone call to VTV official state television, after starting the latest round Sunday.

"I am doing well. I am well taken care of. Marvelously taken care of" by his Cuban-Venezuelan medical team, the president added.

"Full of joy, and optimism, I was very much tuned in all day to what was going on in the country and around the world," Chavez said.

Chavez, 57, has said he underwent surgery in Cuba in June for a tumor in his pelvic area. He has not offered more detailed information on his cancer, for which he underwent chemotherapy in Cuba in July and August.

Since then Chavez has reduced his public appearances, lost some weight and his hair from his cancer treatment. He says he has been working on physical therapy and a recovery plan that requires him to work fewer hours than normal.

But the leftist populist, a former paratrooper and staunch critic of the United States who has been in power since 1999, says he will run in and win the 2012 presidential race.

Chavez has said any further chemotherapy would be "preventive."

"I had this illness and now we are preparing my body and soul so that it does not come back," he said Saturday, when he was shown on television meeting with his key ministers.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011