Chavez quits bitter divorce battle

Many and varied are the problems faced by the socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but none has been so great as the very public battle he has been fighting with his former first lady, Marisabel Rodriguez (pictured together in 2001), to win custody of their 10-year-old daughter, Rosines. Now, after a damaging war of words in the press (mostly hers), he has finally conceded defeat.

At the weekend, she delivered what appeared to be her coup de grace at a specially convened news conference, where she claimed she now lives in fear of her life from her husband's suppporters. She said: "I could be attacked at any time by these hordes he has on the street."

That tipped it. Until then Chavez had largely refrained from commenting publicly on the dispute, although in the past he had accused Rodriguez of keeping him from visiting his daughter. On his weekly television address to the nation, Chavez said: "I will not allow them to put my daughter in the middle of a spectacle, so I have decided to quit this action."

The rift between the pair is more than a personal legal matter: Rodriguez has become a political figure in her own right in Venezuela. She is currently running for mayor of Barquisimeto and it is thought she might one day run against him for the presidency.