Sick Chavez phones TV show to disprove death rumours

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

telephoned state TV on Monday following a nine day silence that triggered rumours he had died while undergoing cancer treatment in Cuba. He attributed the rumours to "dirty war."“It seems we will have to become accustomed to live with these rumors, because it is part of the laboratories of psychological war, of dirty war,” the 57-year-old socialist leader said in the phone call from Havana where he is undergoing radiation therapy.