With October election in mind Chavez back on the air with “Alo Presidente” program

Tuesday, January 10th 2012 - 05:51 UTC

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Chavez during his TV program Alo Presidente

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez resumed on Sunday his weekly television and radio broadcast after a seven-month pause. Chavez's program, Alo Presidente, had been halted while he was receiving treatment for cancer.

The exact details of his illness have not been made public, but Mr Chavez says he is now cured. The program, which sometimes lasts up to eight hours, is considered crucial to his campaign ahead of presidential elections in October.

“Here we are in Alo Presidente... we have to co-ordinate a bit better,” he opened the programme after technical problems had cut the audio at the beginning of the show.

The program on Sunday was broadcast from the Orinoco Belt. With a state-owned oil facility in the background, Chavez said Venezuela would not recognise a ruling by a World Bank tribunal in a multibillion-dollar oil arbitration case.

“I tell you, we will not recognise any decision,” he said referring to the case brought by US oil company Exxon Mobil to the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

Exxon is demanding billions of dollars in compensation for the nationalisation in 2007 of one of its oils projects in Venezuela.

A week ago the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris had ruled that PDVSA, Venezuela's state oil company, was required to compensate Exxon and pay it 908m dollars but PDVSA said it would only pay would 255m dollars.

”Now they (Exxon) are threatening us in the ICSID“ Chavez said, before telling his government to leave that organisation.

During the broadcast, Mr Chavez also accused Washington of ”inventing“ plots by Iran to attack the US with help from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. But he made no direct reference to a US decision to declare Venezuela's consul general in Miami persona non grata.

The diplomat, Livia Acosta Noguera, is alleged to have discussed possible cyber-attacks on the US while based at the Venezuelan embassy in Mexico in 2008, and has been told to leave the US by Tuesday. Chavez dismissed criticism by the opposition that he was using the broadcast as a campaign platform.

”They're accusing me of campaigning and I'm just fulfilling my duties as president of this country and I'll keep on doing it until 2019 and even further,” he added, displaying his confidence in winning the 2012 presidential election.