Uncertainty over Chavez's recovery roils Venezuela (Reuters)

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela was mired in uncertainty on Saturday over how long President Hugo Chavez would take to recover from a cancer operation, despite assurances by allies he will be fit to run for re-election next year.

The government said Chavez remains fully in charge. He planned to meet with several of his ministers in Cuba for talks on Saturday.

The saga over the 56-year-old's health has convulsed South America's biggest oil exporter, underlining the lack of any obvious successor while stoking fears of a dangerous power vacuum and bitter political infighting.

Since Chavez somberly told his people and the world late on Thursday that he had undergone surgery in Cuba to remove a cancerous tumor, many have questioned whether he will be able to run the nation with the same irrepressible vigor as before.

A phone call to Cuban state TV on Friday did little to quell the speculation and his condition remained hotly debated from Venezuela's jungle hinterlands to its Caribbean beaches.

"Nobody expected this illness ... we are very optimistic we are going to come out of this," Chavez said in the call.

He seemed keen to demonstrate he was still running Venezuela during his recuperation in Havana, discussing energy and infrastructure projects.

Chavez did not say when he would be back home and one source close to the Venezuelan medical team following Chavez's recovery in Cuba said the diagnosis had revealed a cancer that required aggressive treatment that could take several months.

A wing of the Caracas Military Hospital was being prepared to receive him when he returns, the source said.

No official updates on Chavez's condition have been released except for his own accounts on Thursday and Friday. Local media have said he could have prostate cancer.

"FULLY IN CHARGE"

Chavez's army chief and vice president have gone out of their way to assure anxious Venezuelans that their hitherto apparently invincible president remains fully in charge of the government in the already politically volatile OPEC member.

But their inability to specify a date for his return and the lack of details about the seriousness or type of cancer he is suffering are keeping observers guessing about his future after 12 years as the country's charismatic leader.

"Chavez will be out (of Venezuela) for the time that is necessary for him to recover," Vice President Elias Jaua told the Telesur TV network. "The president is at the head of the country and will continue to be at the head of the country."

There have been feverish rumors about Chavez' long-term health prospects since he vanished from public view in Cuba after his initial operation for a pelvic abscess on June 10, followed by the more serious cancer tumor extraction.

Although he talked on Thursday of emerging from an "abyss," questions remain about whether the man who has dominated Venezuelan politics since 1999 and projected his leftist views across the world will be fit to fight the 2012 election.

Jaua attempted to dispel these doubts.

"We have absolute faith and confidence in God ... that Hugo Chavez will be the candidate of the Bolivarian Revolution, of the people and patriots of Venezuela, and that he will carry on being president beyond 2012," the vice president said.

Jaua rejected opposition arguments that the president's absence through illness required a delegation of his powers, saying the National Assembly dominated by Chavez loyalists had already approved his extended stay outside the country.

Chavez supporters already were planning a march and other weekend celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of Venezuela's independence on Tuesday. These were expected to turn into shows of support for the ailing president.

A regional economic summit scheduled to coincide with the July 5 anniversary has already been postponed.

Despite Chavez's contentious image as a standard bearer of leftist anti-U.S. policies in Latin America and farther afield, wishes for a speedy recovery have flooded in.

"Knowing your vocation for service, your generosity, and your entire life dedicated to constructing prosperity and happiness in this world, we have no doubt that the God of Fraternity, Justice and Peace will bring you this fresh victory," Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, a political ally of Chavez, said in an effusive message.

(Editing by Bill Trott)

Yahoo! News

Air France crash recovery ends with 74 bodies missing

NEW: 74 bodies will never be foundHuman remains and airplane wreckage are en route to France by ship, investigators sayThe Airbus A330 plane crashed two years ago, killing all 228 people aboardIt took four searches to find the wreckage

Paris (CNN) -- The operation to recover bodies from the crash of Air France 447, which plunged into the Atlantic Ocean two years ago, has ended with 27 more sets of human remains brought to the surface, a French official told CNN on Wednesday.

That means 74 bodies will never be found.

The last group of bodies was brought to the surface on Friday, Philippe Vinogradoff said Wednesday.

A total of 104 bodies were recovered from the remains of the mystery crash during this year's operation, in addition to the 50 that were found in the days after the loss of the plane.

Human remains and aircraft parts are headed by ship to the Canary Islands, where they are expected to arrive Thursday, French air accident investigators said.

From there, they will be transferred to Bayonne in southwest France, investigators said.

All 228 people onboard were killed when the plane crashed in stormy weather en route to Paris from Brazil on June 1, 2009.

It took four searches over the course of nearly two years to locate the bulk of the wreckage, still containing many bodies, in a mountain range deep under the ocean.

Seventy-five bodies were recovered late last month, more than doubling the number of remains that have been found, the vice president of the French victims' association told CNN.

The remains have not yet been identified, Robert Soulas said.

Soulas got the news from a French government liaison appointed to deal with victims' families, he said.

"Personally, I would have preferred to leave the bodies of our loved ones on the seafloor," he added, repeating his long-held view.

Other victims' relatives disagree.

Details of the doomed plane's last minutes began to emerge last month as French air accident investigators studied data recorders recovered from the wreck earlier this year.

The Airbus A330 plummeted 38,000 feet in just three minutes and 30 seconds amid conflicting information that may have led the pilots to make bad decisions, France's Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) said last month.

The pilots got conflicting air speed readings in the minutes leading up to the crash, according to an interim report. The aircraft climbed to 38,000 feet when "the stall warning was triggered and the airplane stalled," the report says.

Aviation experts are asking why the pilots responded to the stall by pulling the nose up instead of pushing it down to recover.

"You push down on the wheel to gain air speed, perhaps they (pilots) were getting information that the air speed was too high," said Miles O'Brien, a pilot and aviation analyst. "Pulling the nose up will exacerbate an aerodynamic stall."

The speeds displayed on the left primary flight display were "inconsistent" with those on the integrated standby instrument system (ISIS), the report says.

The aircraft experienced some "rolling" before stalling and then descending rapidly at 10,912 feet (3,300 meters) per minute.

At the time of the descent, the two co-pilots and captain were in the aircraft cockpit.

The pilots lost contact with air traffic controllers while flying across an area of the Atlantic Ocean known for constant bands of severe turbulence.

Air crash investigators at the Paris-based BEA have been working on the theory that the speed sensors, known as pitot tubes or probes, malfunctioned because of ice at high altitude.

CNN's Thair Shaikh contributed to this report.

CNN

Doctors to discuss next step in Giffords' recovery

(CNN) -- U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is recovering "really, really well" from surgery that implanted a synthetic bone and a shunt in her skull, her doctors said Thursday.

The Arizona Democrat told her neurosurgeon that she was extremely excited to have crossed a key milestone in her recovery, which her doctors called "almost miraculous" considering she was shot point-blank in the head in January.

"The shunt is in good position, the implant is in good position and everything looks great," said Dr. Dong Kim, who performed the 3 1/2 hour-surgery to replace the part of her skull bone that was shattered and contaminated.

"She looks great," he said. "I started calling her 'Gorgeous Gaby' today."

The shunt is expected to help Giffords improve but, Kim said, it was impossible to predict exactly how much progress she was going to make.

The Arizona Democrat was shot outside a Tucson, Arizona, supermarket where she was meeting with constituents in January. Six people -- including a federal judge -- were killed and 13 others were wounded in the attack.

Jared Lee Loughner stands accused in the shooting.

Surgeons in Arizona had cut a hole in Giffords' skull to give her brain space to temporarily swell. The congresswoman was later transported to Houston for further treatment and rehabilitation.

Her skull could be repaired only after the swelling had subsided. Kim implanted a piece of synthetic bone specially made for the congresswoman.

"It really is a significant step. More than just getting the bone back, it is a marker for where we are" in Giffords' recovery, Kim said.

Like many other patients with gunshot wounds to the head, Giffords has hydrocephalus, or a build-up of fluid in the brain.

Kim said an internal drain, called a shunt, was inserted into Giffords' cranial cavity to carry excess fluids from the brain to the abdominal cavity. Giffords will have to wear the shunt forever.

Dr. Girard Francisco, who is in charge of Giffords' rehabilitation, said that the congresswoman will undergo bedside rehab for at least the next two days before returning to the in-patient program at the TIRR Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Center in Houston.

Giffords' husband, Mark Kelly, the commander of the space shuttle Endeavor, has been getting updates from conversations with family.

"Everything went as planned," he told PBS Thursday from the International Space Station. "Her neurosurgeons are very happy and she's recuperating and she's actually getting back to therapy today so it went really, really well."

Monday, Giffords watched and cheered as the Endeavour took off on its final voyage from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

CNN's Elizabeth Cohen contributed to this report.

CNN

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Japan's parliament passes tsunami recovery budget

TOKYO (AP) — Japan's parliament passed a $48 billion tsunami recovery budget Monday, but it will cover only a fraction of the cost of what was the most expensive disaster ever.

Mounting frustrations over the government's response and a still unfolding nuclear crisis, meanwhile, are threatening to topple the country's increasingly unpopular prime minister as more budgetary battles lie ahead.

The supplementary budget bill for the fiscal 2011 year that started in April was unanimously approved by parliament's upper house budget committee Monday morning and was made into law at the chamber's plenary session later in the day. The more powerful lower house had approved the plan Saturday.

The budget will cover the building of new houses for the more than 100,000 people who remain without proper shelter, the massive undertaking of clearing debris and rubble, reconstruction of fishing grounds, and support for disaster-hit businesses and their employers.

"I'm anxious to get the budget plan approved as quickly as possible so that we can reimburse funds for the projects immediately," Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said at the budget committee meeting.

Further outlays are expected to follow in the months ahead, he said.

The March 11 magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami, which wiped out large swaths of Japan's northeastern coastline, are believed to have caused an estimated $300 billion in damage, making it the most expensive disaster ever.

More than 26,000 people are dead or missing.

Though the new budget passed relatively smoothly, Prime Minister Naoto Kan's government is coming under growing pressure for its handling of the crisis and can expect greater opposition from rival parties in future budget negotiations.

"We support this budget plan just because of the urgent need to fund reconstruction projects," said Mikishi Daimon, an opposition lawmaker from the Communist Party.

Opposition leaders have called on Kan ? who was already unpopular before the disaster ? to step down for his handling of the aftermath, particularly his response to the subsequent crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.

Polls show the public is also not satisfied with his efforts.

A poll released Monday by the Asahi, a major newspaper, found 55 percent of respondents have "few expectations" for Kan's Cabinet to handle the disaster response properly. Only 27 percent said they were "hopeful," according to the nationwide telephone survey conducted April 23 and 24 among 1,842 randomly selected households. A poll of that size would normally have a margin of error of plus- or minus-3 percentage points.

The budget does not include any government support for the massive compensation liability of the nuclear plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano made clear Monday that TEPCO bears unlimited liability because the tsunami and quake were "not impossible to foresee" and not an exception under the nuclear accident compensation law.

TEPCO spokesman Takashi Kurita said the operator was preparing to install an air purifier inside the Unit 1 reactor building to reduce radioactivity by 95 percent over the next few days ? a step to allow workers into the area for the first time since the crisis began so they can resume their primary goal of restoring cooling systems.

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