GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is back in the country after his first week of chemotherapy in Cuba.

Chavez has only said a cancerous tumor “the size of a baseball” was removed from the pelvic area and that chemotherapy is necessary to ensure cancer cells do not reappear.

Chavez seeks to be reelected in 2012 in spite of his illness something that could well happen. A poll in Venezuela shows the President’s public approval rating remains at 50 percent and has not significantly varied since his cancer diagnosis.

Chavez said “it is not yet time to die” but that his medical team has advised him to slow down.

Further details: El Universal (sp), BBC News

The US State Department has revoked the visa of Venezuela’s ambassador to Washington, citing “appropriate, proportional and reciprocal action”, according to a State Dept. spokesperson 29 December. The diplomat, Bernardo Alvarez, is not believed to be currently in Washington.

The move comes as Venezuela’s leader, Hugo Chavez, refused to accept Washington’s nominee to head its embassy in Caracas, Venezuela. Chavez dared the USA to cut diplomatic relations in a public address 28 December. He said his decision not to accept Larry Palmer, the US appointee to be ambassador in Caracas was “irrevocable”. Palmer had said during his Senate confirmation hearings that Venezuela’s military was under Cuban influence and had low morale. He said Venezuela harboured Colombian FARC rebels.

The USA imports almost 1m barrels of oil per day from Venezuela, which is its fifth biggest exporter.

Links to other sites: Al-Jazeera, El Nacional

States of emergency have been declared 30 November in four states in Venezuela, including in the capital Caracas, ravaged by torrential rains for more than a week, causing flooding and mudslides. Thousands of people have lost their homes and are taking refuge in more than 800 emergency shelters. Twenty-one people are believed dead, according to AP, eight of them confirmed 30 November. The Venezuelan army has taken charge of emergency efforts in the western state of Falcón, one of the worst affected.

President Hugo Chavez said that he would shelter five to ten families in the presidential palace.

Links to other sites: BBC, El Universal (Spa)

President Hugo Chavez’s ruling Socialist party has won at least 90 seats in the 165-seat National Assembly, while the opposition took 59, thus breaking the governing party’s two thirds majority. The legislative elections in Venezuela Sunday 26 September were seen as a test for Chavez’s government, which has had an absolute majority in parliament since 2005, when the opposition boycotted the polls. Chavez will now have to seek opposition support for any major legislation.

Venezuela’s government is struggling with one of the world’s highest crime rates, 30 percent inflation and a two-year recession despite high oil prices. Oil is Venezuela’s principal export.

The government had redrawn voting districts ahead of the elections, giving rural areas, where government support is higher, a much greater weight than urban areas. Turnout was expected to have topped 60 percent of Venezuela’s 17 million voters.

Links to other sites: Bloomberg, Boston Globe, Miami Herald

Colombia and Venezuela have re-established diplomatic relations with leaders from both countries agreeing to do more to ease each other’s worries.

The Colombian government, through prickly relations with its predecessor Alvaro Uribe, has been accusing Venezuela of harboring dangerous guerrillas in its territory.

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has accused Colombia of planning an invasion and – Uribe in particular – of trying to stir up a war in his last days of office.

The new Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, sworn in Saturday, was previously Uribe’s defense minister.

Former Geneva UN representative suffers heart attack after taking office

Angelino Garzon

Hours after being sworn in, Vice President Angelino Garzon suffered a heart attack.

Doctors say Garzon, 63, will return to work in a month, after undergoing a four-hour emergency heart bypass this week.

Garzon who worked as the Colombian representative before the UN in Geneva, left Switzerland at the beginning of 2010 to join the presidential campaign.

Under Colombian law, there is no mechanism to replace a vice president in the case of temporary absence. In case of permanent vacancy the Constitution only provides for a stand-in.

Additional details: Colombia Reports in English and SurTitulares in Spanish

North and South Korea navy ships have exchanged fire along the countries’ disputed Western maritime border. The Northern vessel was reportedly hit by gunfire, and one North Korean was killed, and three injured,  after it crossed a demaracation line Tuesday, 10 November, say several reports in Seoul, South Korea. CNN, Los Angeles Times.

Colombia may make a complaint to the United Nations and the Organization of American States, following Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’ call Sunday, 8 November for his country to prepare for war, and prepare the people for war. Chavez has been irritated by Colombia’s newly signed bases agreement with the USA, which will allow a US military presence in Colombia. Chavez says that this is a preparation for an invasion of Venezuela. CNN, Reuters India.

China says it has executed nine people involved in the deadly rioting in Urumqi, in China’s Xinjiang province last July. The US urged China to ensure that detentions and judicial processes be handled “in a transparent manner”, according to US State Department spokesman, Ian Kelly. AFP, New York Times

Honduras ordered all members of the Argentine embassy in Tegucigalpa to leave the country within three days, Tuesday 18 August. But Argentine foreign minister, Jorge Taiana, on a trade mission in Mexico, said he had not been informed of the deadline, and his diplomats were staying put. The Honduran ministry of foreign affairs said it was expelling the diplomats in line with “strict reciprocity” for the expulsion last week of the Honduran ambassador in Buenos Aires, who stated publicly that she approved of the forced removal of Manuel Zelaya as Hondura’s president last 28 June. The interim government of Honduras said its relations with Argentina would be conducted through the Argentine embassy in Israel. Honduras previously expelled Venezuelan diplomats, most of whom have stayed because President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela says he will not take orders from the interim government. BBC, Clarin (Spa), CNN, La Nación (Spa)

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced economic sanctions against neighbouring Colombia which last week asked the Venezuelan government to explain the presence of arms traced to Venezuela found in rebel Farc arms depots. Venezuela has halted the import of 10,000 vehicles and canceled the participation of a Colombian oil company in an oil auction in Venezuela’s oil-rich Orinoco region. Trade between the two countries is worth about $7 billion. Venezuela imports almost all its food from Colombia.

The Colombian government announced last week that Swedish-made arms captured from the rebel group Farc had been traced to Venezuela. Chavez said 5 August that the arms had been stolen from a Venezuelan naval post in 1995. Tensions between the two countries remain high, with Colombia and the US negotiating a military bases treaty that would see US troops on Colombian soil to aid in the fight against drugs trafficking and the 40 year-old conflict with Farc, accused of involvement in the drug trade. Venezuela opposes the presence of foreign troops in Latin America. BBC, CNN, El Tiempo (Spa)

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez extended his government’s control over the petroleum industry Friday by sending military vehicles to seize the assets of 60 oil industry service providers. The state oil company PDVSA owes foreign oil companies billions of dollars, but has cash flow problems due to the slump in oil prices. Reuters, BBC, El Nacional (Spa)

Voters in Venezuela are going to the polls 15 February to decide if President Hugo Chavez and other politicians should have unlimited terms of office. Voters in 2008 defeated a similar motion that applied to the presidency, but this time, according to the Los Angeles Times, Chavez has included all the country’s politicians.