Antonio Vazquez, Mexico's self-styled "Grand Warlock", has made his annual new year forecasts, including the prediction that the US President Barack Obama will fail to regain the White House.

The chairman of Bell Pottinger's parent group has launched an internal investigation after this week's controversy about the lobbying company.

Shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, this lapidary novel comes from a Venezuelan writer-journalist who has also co-authored a sceptical life of Hugo Chávez.

If there are many difficult lessons to be learned from recent events here's one that even the most obtuse can quickly master: stick to what you know. Much attention has been focused on David Starkey's Newsnight self-immolation, and rightly so. If you go sampling the words of Enoch Powell, as The Beatles so nearly had it, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow.

Cometh the hour, cometh "The Dude". A few years ago, it felt as if classical music's energy was flagging. It needed a superhero: a young, hip, charismatic figurehead who could take centre stage and inspire a new generation to embrace an art that should be accessible to all but is not always perceived that way. Then, out of the impoverished urban sprawls of Venezuela, emerging from a legendary music education scheme known as El Sistema, along bounced Gustavo Dudamel.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has said he will start another round of cancer chemotherapy soon and expects to become bald within days.

President Hugo Chavez returned to Venezuela on Saturday a week after leaving for chemotherapy in Cuba, saying no malignant cells were found and that he was arriving home in better health than when he left. News that he underwent surgery in Havana last month to remove a cancerous tumour has called into question his fitness to run for re-election next year, but he insisted at the capital's airport that all was well.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has returned to Cuba to begin chemotherapy nearly a month after surgery to remove a tumor, and he is expressing optimism the treatment will help him survive his cancer.

President Hugo Chavez's fight against cancer has taken another surprising turn, with Venezuela's leftist leader announcing plans to fly back to Cuba today to begin chemotherapy.

Venezuela stunned Ecuador 1-0 to go top of Group B at the Copa America last night with only their third win in the competition since they first took part in 1967.

Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez held a televised cabinet meeting in an attempt to show that cancer surgery had not loosened his grip on the nation.

President Hugo Chavez received a hero's welcome as he rallied thousands of supporters upon his return to Venezuela, vowing to beat cancer after undergoing surgery in Cuba.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made a surprise return from Cuba yesterday, stepping off a plane before dawn amid speculation about his fitness to continue in office after surgery to remove a cancerous tumour.