No duty free ozone

Having made everything else in Venezuela disappear, now it's the air you breathe at the airport;

We're used to a seemingly endless range of taxes and surcharges when we fly - passenger taxes, departure taxes, fuel levies. But Maiquetia International Airport in Caracas has taken this a step further - passengers flying out now have to pay 127 bolivars tax (£12; $20) for the air they breathe.

This is to cover the cost of a newly-installed system which uses ozone to purify the building's air conditioning system. A press release from the Ministry of Water and Air Transport says it's the first airport in South America and the Caribbean to use the technology, which it claims will eliminate bacterial growth to "protect the health of travellers," as well as deodorizing and sanitising the building.

On the bright side, it's almost impossible to find a flight to or from Venezuela, so who is going to find themselves in an airport, anyhow. Oh, maybe Vladimir;

Vladimir Putin’s official trip to Cuba – the first leg of a tour that will also take him to Argentina and Brazil – underscores the growing rapprochement between Moscow and Havana and the island’s renewed role as a springboard into Latin America.

The Russian president is aware that ever since the creation of the São Paulo Forum in 1990, Cuba has developed closer ties with a political left that now rules over countries with which the Kremlin is keen to establish more commercial links.

Well, Russia has oil that Cuba needs, but what does Cuba have that Russia needs?