Chavez denies cancer rumors

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday mocked rumors that he was suffering from cancer as wishful thinking by his squalid enemies.

Some local media have been saying this week that Chavez, 56, may be suffering from a cancer in the nasal cavity.

His failure to appear on Wednesday’s first day of campaigning for the September 26 parliamentary elections fueled the speculation, although it later transpired Chavez was holding a lengthy meeting with Fidel Castro, in Cuba.

“The squalid ones want to kill me,” Chavez said after returning to Caracas for a graduation ceremony of medicine students.

“Now they’re inventing that I have cancer, that I’m dying. That’s what they want,” he added laughing.