Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Venezuela has been crippled by years of economic instability. It's got the world's worst

performing currency. So it was perhaps with a bit of Dutch courage that one plucky

rum company made a share offering on the country's near-dormant stock market.

And in the Democratic Republic of Congo, political instability comes at a cost.

Rebel groups control pockets of land and quite a few of the country's post offices.

We look at how letters get delivered even when postal workers haven't been paid for a year.

First up, though.

For months, the Syrian regime led by Bashar al-Assad and backed by Russian forces has been

waging an increasingly bloody offensive in Idlib.

The province in Syria's northwest is held by rebel forces and is home to some 3 million people.

The bombardment has killed at least 300 since December and propelled another million

towards Turkey's sealed border. Hospitals, schools and civilian areas have all been hit.

A group's working in the area say they're overwhelmed.

Thousands of migrants are pressing their way into the European Union by a grease

after Turkey opened its European border and acted it had previously pledged to avoid.

In a speech yesterday, Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,

claimed that more than 100,000 migrants have left for Europe and said the number would soon

reach a million. To stem the wave of migration, Turkey has sent thousands of troops to the

province to stop the Syrian offensive. Last week, at least 34 of its soldiers were killed in an

airstrike. Russia denied involvement in that attack, but yesterday, United Nations investigators

...