Good news! (P)Residents of South America, relax.

Venezuelans send good wishes to Uncle Hugo.
(Image linked from BBC News website)

Anyone who has followed the marvellous career of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez knows that he's a bit of a loose cannon. I can't go too hard on the chap because he has been treated for some unspecified cancer, but the apparent rate of cancers among South American leaders has led him to suggest (perhaps jokingly) that there was a US plot to encancerate left-wing presidents in the continent.

Well, happily it turns out that at least one of those cancers can be removed from the list - President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina turns out to have benign thyroid disease, rather than papillary cancer of the thyroid as had first been suspected.

It rather looks like Hugo has been overselling his conspiracy theories, but sure I told you that before - even when President Fernandez was still thought to have a cancerous tumour. I'm delighted that President Fernandez is OK, but the egg on Hugo's face will not last very long - we can be sure of that.