Hugo Chavez, the current President of Venezuela has joined the rest of us on Twitter despite trying to block the website just a month ago. His political influence in South America (partly due to his use of Venezuela’s oil wealth and his adversarial relationship with the United States) have given him a comparatively high geopolitical profile.

Chavez has not announced what his new account will be, but unfortunately for him it looks like the screen names @hugo, @chavez and @hugochavez are all being used. Chavez said: “I’m going to have my online trench from the palace to wage the battle. I’ll provide information and even respond to my enemies.”

Other heads of state on Twitter include President Barack Obama (with 3.7 million followers!), the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, although ironically Twitter makes the extra effort to verify the accounts of western leaders (a service that isn’t available to dictators).