Colombian president's cancer surgery successful

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos underwent successful surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his prostate Wednesday, AFP reports according to his physicians. "Thanks be to God, everything went fine and I am recovering well," Santos tweeted after the procedure. His doctors said "it was a successful surgery, without complications. The president is conscious in his room with his family and is recovering." Santos, 61, announced on Monday that he had prostate cancer. He said the tumor was small and had been caught in time, giving him a 97 percent chance of full recovery. He chose not to delegate his powers as head of state since the surgery was performed using a local anesthetic. Doctors have advised him against traveling for a few weeks after the operation, but Santos said that otherwise his overall health is not in jeopardy. Santos is the latest in a long line of Latin American leaders to undergo cancer treatment in recent years. In Brazil, Dilma Rousseff and her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva both received treatment. So did Paraguay's former president Fernando Lugo, and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who is battling for re-election October 7. Argentina's Cristina Kirchner announced late last year that she had thyroid cancer and underwent surgery before later disclosing that she had been misdiagnosed.