Venezuelan President's brother gives reassurance

As President Hugo Chavez recovers in Cuba, no government figure has occupied the political void created by his absence more assertively than his older brother Adan Chavez, a physicist whose radical thinking has often been to the left of the president's.

He serves a role similar to that of Raul Castro, who took over as Cuba's president after illness removed Fidel Castro from the political scene in 2006. And like Raul Castro, while Adan Chavez may lack his brother's charisma, he remains a loyalist who has assisted his brother throughout the consolidation of his power.

Adan Chavez, 58, now governor of Barinas, a state of cattle ranches in western Venezuela that is a bastion of the Chavez family, has also led efforts to reassure the president's supporters as rumours swirl about his condition.