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STORY: The Venezuelan government on Tuesday broadcast a video of President Hugo Chavez playing the European bowling game of bocce in Cuba in a new effort to quash rumors that he was dying of cancer while out of the country.
The video showed a jovial and chirpy Chavez strolling in a garden and playing the bowling game with his brother and two ministers on Monday in Havana where he is having radiation treatment for an undisclosed cancer.
"We are continuing the treatment, facing the difficulties, governing and taking political decisions ... for the benefit of the Venezuelan people," Chavez said in the 13-minute video.
His unusually long silence since leaving for Cuba on April 14 stirred speculation about his health and raised doubts about his political future as he seeks re-election in an Oct. 7 vote.
The rumors forced Chavez to call state television on Monday to tell Venezuelans he was all right and still able to govern the South American oil producing nation.
During his nine-day silence he had only shown signs of life in brief messages on Twitter that led his opponents to criticize him for running the country remotely by tweets.
Chavez, wearing a track suit, appeared in the video with his brother Adan, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro and Science Minister Jorge Arreaza, who is Chavez's son-in-law, his daughter Maria Gabriela and a grandson.
