AP/ January 15, 2013, 11:21 AM

Hugo Chavez asked questions of his aides during Cuba visit, Venezuelan VP says

People attend a Catholic mass for the health of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Havana on January 12, 2013.

People attend a Catholic mass for the health of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Havana on January 12, 2013. / YAMIL LAGE/AFP/Getty Images

CARACAS, Venezuela Venezuela's vice president said Tuesday that President Hugo Chavez has been making progress in his treatment for a severe respiratory infection and asked questions of his aides during a visit in Cuba.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro said on television that he and other officials including Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez met with Chavez on Monday. Maduro said they provided him with an update on "the government in a new stage" and other matters.

"He asked our friend Rafael Ramirez about (certain) aspects, each one his element," Maduro said in a televised meeting with state governors. "Our commander is climbing the hill, he's advancing, and that fills us with great happiness."

Maduro expressed gratitude to Chavez's medical team. He didn't give details but said that Chavez "is in battle."

Chavez, who was re-elected in October, has not made any public comments since before his latest cancer surgery in Cuba on Dec. 11. He has been fighting an unspecified type of pelvic cancer, and his long silence has fed speculation about why he has apparently been unable to address the country by phone on television, as he has during past treatment in Cuba.

Maduro addressed a gathering of state governors in Caracas after returning from Cuba along with Ramirez, Attorney General Cilia Flores and National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello.

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mjlewis6 says:
What really bothers me is that Chavez has me agreeing with him about his comments on President Bush. That grates more than you realize.

Bush's Lt. Governor has remained in office since before Bush was even a Republican Presidential nominee....and guess what? He is still governor of Texas, Bush being out of office of the Presidency more than four years after the previous 8 PLUS a year of campaigning...so we got...Gov. Rick Perry some god-awful long time, selling toll roads all over Texas...and the whole Texas Government has just let public education hit bottom. Now the absent legislature is coming back to rubberstamp anything else he wants....sort of like Bush...sort of like Chavez. Takes one to know one.

Yep, I agree with Chavez about Bush. It has always been about the money and I sure don't like Chavez, but his personal assessment of our former President...I wish he was wrong.

Bush at least was able to STEAL his Texas governorship papers from the State of Texas, lodging them in another Presidential Library til his own Library is built in Dallas, but old Perry can't manage to remember what it is he would eliminate from the Federal Government in order to get popular and do the same thing, hide his governorship papers. Surely Bush would help him out since old Ken Lay did Bush a favor or two over at Enron and of course, Gov. Perry did not pick up any clues on that score. Oh well,
Business as usual, Just wish Chavez was wrong about corruption, but then...he ought to know. Ken Lay did Bush a favor by dying after the Enron scandal, that was Ken on the Enron Jet with Bush running for re-election for governor of Texas, you know, the job he QUIT 30 days after being re-elected and we got Rick Perry ?? Maybe Chavez will do us a favor, too !!
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