Chavez in chemotherapy but in 'good spirits': VP

CARACAS (AFP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is in "good spirits" but fighting for his life as he undergoes chemotherapy in a Caracas military hospital, the vice president said on Friday, revealing new details about the leftist leader's treatment.

Nicolas Maduro, the leftist leader's political heir, lashed out against a wave of rumours about Chavez's health, accusing the Miami-based Venezuelan diaspora of fomenting them to destabilise the nation.

After the opposition accused him of lying about Chavez's health, Maduro disclosed for the first time that the president began chemotherapy following his fourth cancer surgery in Cuba in December and decided to continue the treatment in Caracas on February 18.

"He has strength that is superior to the treatments that he is receiving and he is in good spirits, battling, receiving his treatments," he told reporters after a mass for Chavez in a new chapel on the hospital grounds named "hope."