Chavez goes after oil companies....

This man is dangerous - and more left-winger Latin American governments might be on the way....

Venezuela's congress is expected to approve a proposal to double the taxes of foreign oil companies, generating another £720 million in revenue to help fund President Hugo's Chavez aggressive anti-US foreign policy in the region.

Mr Chavez announced during his weekly Hello President television show that he wanted to replace the current 17 per cent royalties charged on foreign companies with a 33 per cent extraction tax.

The president is using Venezuela's oil reserves, the largest outside the Middle East, to fund his radical social progamme, which he calls the ''Bolivarian Revolution'' after independence hero Simon Bolivar.

Last year some £5 billion was dropped into social spending schemes, including bringing Cuban doctors into the slums of Caracas and selling staple foods at prices subsidised by the government.