Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is recovering satisfactorily after cancer surgery in Cuba and has spoken with relatives, his Government has said.

“His recuperation has been slow but progressive,” Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said, reading a government statement. The 58-year-old President underwent his fourth cancer-related operation in Havana on Tuesday after tests found the illness had come back despite previous operations, chemo-therapy and radiation treatments. (PA)

Teacher inherits €5.5m

A substitute teacher has been found to be the only heir to a fortune of gold coins discovered in the home of a reclusive cousin who quietly stashed away a treasure of more than seven million US dollars (€5.5 million)before he died.

A court hearing in Carson City, Nevada, is scheduled for Tuesday when a judge is expected to certify first cousin Arlene Magdanz, from California, as the lone heir to the treasure valued at €5.5 million.

It was found by a cleaning crew in the home of Walter Samaszko Jr, Carson City clerk-recorder Alan Glover said. (PA)

Al-Qaeda network busted

Tunisian security forces have broken up a network that recruited fighters for Al-Qaeda in North Africa, the interior ministry said yesterday.

“A terrorist network which was responsible for recruiting radical Islamists and sending them to strongholds of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has been dismantled,” a ministry spokesman said, quoted by the official TAP news agency.

Seven people were arrested and were to appear in court on Thursday.

Two of them, detained one kilometre from the border with Algeria on December 6, confessed to being part of the network. The rest were arrested in the days that followed, and a gun was seized from one of them. (AFP)

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