Chavez makes triumphant return to power

Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez returned triumphantly to office two days after he was ousted and arrested by Venezuela’s military, raising his fist in the air as he greeted supporters and reclaimed the presidential palace today.

‘‘I’m still stupefied. I’m still assimilating,’’ Chavez said in a live TV address to the nation after flying by helicopter to the palace in Caracas from captivity on a Venezuelan island in the Caribbean, the last of five places where he was held.