ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION)<br/> <br />STORY: The Venezuelan government on Tuesday broadcast a video of President Hugo Chavez playing the European bowling game of bocce in Cuba in a new effort to quash rumors that he was dying of cancer while out of the country.<br/> <br />The video showed a jovial and chirpy Chavez strolling in a garden and playing the bowling game with his brother and two ministers on Monday in Havana where he is having radiation treatment for an undisclosed cancer.<br/> <br />"We are continuing the treatment, facing the difficulties, governing and taking political decisions ... for the benefit of the Venezuelan people," Chavez said in the 13-minute video.<br/> <br />His unusually long silence since leaving for Cuba on April 14 stirred speculation about his health and raised doubts about his political future as he seeks re-election in an Oct. 7 vote.<br/> <br />The rumors forced Chavez to call state television on Monday to tell Venezuelans he was all right and still able to govern the South American oil producing nation.<br/> <br />During his nine-day silence he had only shown signs of life in brief messages on Twitter that led his opponents to criticize him for running the country remotely by tweets.<br/> <br />Chavez, wearing a track suit, appeared in the video with his brother Adan, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro and Science Minister Jorge Arreaza, who is Chavez's son-in-law, his daughter Maria Gabriela and a grandson.
