Venezuelan president and cancer survivor Hugo Chavez on Sunday announced a summit in early 2012 of Latin American leaders who have beaten the disease including Brazil's current and former presidents.

The 57 year-old Chavez had surgery in June to remove a malignant tumor. After several rounds of chemotherapy, mostly in Cuba, he claimed last month that he was cancer-free.

Cuba announced Thursday it will allow real estate to be bought and sold for the first time since the early days of the revolution, the most important reform yet in a series of free-market changes under President Raul Castro.

The law, which takes effect November 10, applies to citizens living in Cuba and permanent residents only, according to a red-letter headline on the front page of Thursday's Communist Party daily Granma and details published in the government's Official Gazette.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez left for Cuba on Sunday for what he said would be a thorough medical exam after undergoing multiple rounds of chemotherapy in his battle with cancer.

In brief remarks before departing for Havana, Chavez told official VTV television that the visit was to "continue a process we have been following for about four months," but did not reveal further details of his health.

The foreign ministers of Venezuela and Cuba are leading a delegation of leftist Latin American countries to Syria to meet Sunday with Syria's President Bashar Assad in a show of support.

The eight-member ALBA bloc's talks aim to "reject invasion and political destabilization attempts of the country by the United States and its allies," Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said in state news agency AVN.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has been fighting cancer, was rushed to a military hospital for emergency care following kidney failure, El Nuevo Herald newspaper reported late Wednesday.

The leftist, staunchly anti-U.S. stalwart Chavez went into the Military Hospital in Caracas on Tuesday morning, the report on the newspaper's website said, citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the case.

A U.S. Republican lawmaker has warned that Hizbullah could build "missile sites" in Cuba and pose a threat to the United States.

"Why would you normalize trade with a country that sponsors terror?" Rep. Michele Bachmann asked an audience of supporters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Monday, in response to a question about her position on trading with Cuba.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is feeling well after completing a fourth round of chemotherapy in Cuba, the leftwing leader said in a telephone call to supporters broadcast on state TV.

"I am finishing up here in Havana on the last day of the fourth round of chemotherapy and I hope it will be my last (round)," Chavez said Wednesday to socialist supporters who were holding an ecumenical mass for him in New York.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez traveled to Cuba late Saturday to begin a fourth round of chemotherapy to treat his cancer, saying it would "most likely be the last" round in the treatment.

After meeting here with visiting Bolivian President Evo Morales, on an "unofficial" visit to comfort Chavez during his ailment, the Venezuelan leader left for Cuba to begin treatment on Sunday, adding that he expects to return midweek.

On a farm in Cuba, five little piglets are doggedly insisting on getting their milk from a stray canine rather than their own mother.

Farmer Mannorkys Santamaria is bewildered that his sow has plenty of milk but the puppies prefer supping from the breast of Yeti, an adopted stray who earlier this week stopped nursing the last of her eight puppies.

Cuba's version of the New York Yankees, the powerhouse Industriales, won the country's 2010 baseball championship with lights-out pitching by Armando Rivero and Joan Socarras and stellar hitting from Leguim Barroso.

All three players have since defected, along with four other members of the championship squad, leaving the punchless team struggling to a losing season this year.