Jazz spokeswoman Manon Stuart said Thursday that government regulations set by Transport Canada allow airlines to use floatation devices instead of life vests provided the planes remain within 50 nautical miles of shore.

Safety cards in the seat pockets of Jazz aircraft now direct passengers to use the seat cushions as floatation devices.

“The nature of our operations doesn’t require that we carry both,” Stuart said.

Stuart said Jazz is a transcontinental carrier that doesn’t fly over the ocean.

Jazz planes do fly over the Great Lakes and along the Eastern seaboard from Halifax to Boston and New York.

A commercial-style life vest weighs roughly a half-kilogram (1.1 pound), meaning 25 kilograms (55 pounds) would be saved by removing them from a Dash-8 aircraft with 50 seats, the most common aircraft the company uses.

“Transport Canada was satisfied that we met the regulation, and they approved the change,” Stuart said.

Greek anarchists stormed up a supermarket on Thursday and handed out food for free in what has been the latest of a wae of raids provoked by high consumer prices.

About 20 unarmed people, mostly wearing black hoods, carried out the midday robbery in the northern Greek city.

They only take packets of pasta, cartons of milk, and rice and throw them on the street for the passersby to collect them.

The local media has coined them “Robin Hoods”.

“They have never stolen money or hurt anyone. They ask people to remain calm but use ambush tactics, jumping over cash desks,” he said.
“When they attack without hoods, people are surprised to see that they are mostly women.”

Inflation in Greece has been running at a 10-year high, the rate of inflation is 4.9 percent. Although, many items’ prices have risen more sharply.

Rat butcher in Cambodia

The price of rat meat has quadrupled in Cambodia this year as inflation has put other meat beyond the reach of poor people, officials said on Wednesday.
With consumer price inflation at 37 percent according to the latest central bank estimate, demand has pushed a kilogram of rat meat up to around 5,000 riel ($1.28) from 1,200 riel last year.
Spicy field rat dishes with garlic thrown in have become particularly popular at a time when beef costs 20,000 riel a kg.
Officials said rats were fleeing to higher ground from flooded areas of the lower Mekong Delta, making it easier for villagers to catch them.
“Many children are happy making some money from selling the animals to the markets, but they keep some for their family,” Ly Marong, an agriculture official, said by telephone from the Koh Thom district on the border with Vietnam.
“Not only are our poor eating it, but there is also demand from Vietnamese living on the border with us.”

He estimated that Cambodia supplied more than a ton of live rats a day to Vietnam.
Rats are also eaten widely in Thailand, while a state government in eastern India this month encouraged its people to eat rats in an effort to battle soaring food prices and save grain stocks.

10 million Zimbabwean Dollars = US$4

If you think the American economy is bad, take heart that it’s nowhere near the ultra-super-hyperinflation in Zimbabwe, once one of the richest countries in Africa. The country’s central bank has recently issued a Z$100 billion note (yes, Z$100,000,000,000). So, what would a Z$100 billion note buy you? About two loaves of bread (it won’t even get you lunch – you’d need at least Z$250 billion for lunch).

So far this year, the country ravaged by hyperinflation has been forced to print 100-million, 250-million and 500-million notes in rapid succession. All of them are now almost worthless. has become common now for Zimbabweans to talk of their daily expenses in trillions (one trillion is 12 zeros).