Chavez 'battling' for his life: VP

CARACAS (AFP) - Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro said on Thursday that President Hugo Chavez was fighting for his life in a Caracas military hospital, 10 days after returning from cancer treatment in Cuba.

The president's chosen successor did not provide more details, but the government said last week that Chavez was still suffering from a respiratory infection and that the tendency was not favorable.

As he presented subsidised homes on state-run television, Maduro said that Chavez was "battling for his health, for his life and we are accompanying him." "Do you know why he neglected his health?" the vice president asked.

"Because he gave his body and soul completely and forgot all his obligations to himself to give the people a fatherland, to give those who had nothing a job, a life, a house, health, food, education."