Low-cost Indian airline SpiceJet said it would launch cut-rate domestic flights in May 2005 to lure travellers from popular train services.

“The fares will be slightly higher than AC (air conditioned) train fares,” chief executive Mark Winders said. “We believe there is a tremendous opportunity in the low cost model in India. The air market is dramatically under served here.”

SpiceJet said its most expensive fares were 55-60 percent cheaper than regular full economy fares of competitors such as Jet Airways, India’s largest domestic airline. SpiceJet will also offer more than 9,000 seats for as low as 99 rupees (USD$2.30) each for the first 99 days of operations.

Rock bottom fares by SpiceJet and rival Air Deccan are helping to fuel the supply of low cost carriers and stimulating demand.

Virgin Atlantic Airways have started direct flights from the UK to Cuba that are expected to boost growing British tourism to the communist-run Caribbean island. “This is good for Cuba, because British tourism has become our second most-important market after Canada,” said Cuban Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero, at the airport to meet Branson on the inaugural flight. Tourism generates 40 percent of Cuba’s foreign currency earnings. Cuba hosted a record 2 million tourists last year.

Virgin Atlantic’s rival British Airways stopped flying to Havana three years ago. The number of British tourists visiting Cuba rose 35 percent in the first quarter of 2005, to 43,900 arrivals. British visitors have outnumbered Italian, French and German tourists this year, Cuban officials said.

Branson said Virgin Atlantic expects to carry 42,000 passengers to Cuba in the first year, flying a Boeing 747-400 twice a week from London’s Gatwick Airport to Havana. The airline could be flying 150,000 to 200,000 people a year to Cuba within three to four years, he estimated.

A US official has said that International travellers should get used to having their fingerprints taken or their irises scanned because traditional airport security tests are outdated and open to abuse.

“As a general principle, certainly in the area of international travel, biometrics is the way forward in virtually every respect,” said Michael Chertoff, US Homeland Security Secretary.

“When we screen based on names, we’re screening on the most primitive and least technological basis of identification — it’s the most susceptible to misspelling, or people changing their identity, or fraud. Biometrics is the way ahead.”

Mr Chertoff visited the Netherlands, which will pilot a scheme later this year to allow passengers flying between New York’s Kennedy airport and Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport to pass through border controls using a biometric card. If they produce the card, travellers will not be subjected to further questioning or screening.

The scheme is the first of its kind to be launched between the United States and a European country and, if it works, could be adopted elsewhere.

The United States hopes the use of biometric testing will help prevent potential terrorists entering the country and cut down confusion about who is allowed in and who is not.

The UK is one of 27 countries whose citizens do not need a visa to enter the United States if they intend to stay less than 90 days. Washington wants all 27 to issue new passports by October 26 this year containing a computer chip and a digital photograph of the holder.

Uganda has imposed a smoking ban in all public places, the environment minister has said. Smoking in restaurants, educational institutions and bars will now be an offence with a fine for offenders of between $10 and $50 if arrested by policemen who have been instructed to enforce the law. No-one is sure yet how rigorously it will be enforced.

Tens of thousands of Snickers and Mars chocolate bars have been withdrawn from sale in Australia’s New South Wales after the manufacturer was sent a letter threatening to poison a member of the public. The letter warned that up to seven Snickers and Mars bars in the metropolitan Sydney area had been contaminated. Police believed the products were randomly chosen and may have been tampered with.

You may have heard about Schappelle Corby, the Australian surfer who has been arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison for smuggling in 4.5 kgs of cannabis in her boogie board case into Bali. Some people say that the drugs were put inside her case by luggage handlers in Australia – and if true, this is not the first time Australian baggage handlers have come under suspicion for this kind of thing. It makes you wonder about how just safe your luggage is from tampering. Many airports offer plastic shrinkwrap around suitcases and yet the US advises that luggage should be left unlocked so that customs can make routine inspections. What to do – what do you think?

Project IRIS is being introduced at Heathrow's Terminals 2 and 4 at the end of April 2005 before being rolled out to other UK airports, and is aimed at anyone not holding an EU passport who regularly travels through Heathrow. They will be invited to have their iris patterns photographed and stored in a database upon departure. Those passengers can then use special automated security check-points which scan their eyes, avoiding long lines for non-EU passport holders when they return to the country. The new security system aims to replace face-to-face passport control interviews and reducing long queues at the immigration counters.

A grey 10m long whale swam into an industrial part of Tokyo Bay in early May, causing much surprise. Only 12 sightings of the mammal have been confirmed around Japan since the 1960s. It is rare for grey whales to be sighted in Japan, much less in the capital's congested waterways a spokesman said. Grey whales travel about 20,000 km during their annual migrations between the sea off the coast of Vietnam to Russia's far eastern Sakhalin Island.

Be careful driving in Uganda's capital, Kampala. The pot holes in Kampala's roads are said to be so bad that protesters have started to plant banana trees in the middle of the potholes. One campaigner says he saw a fish caught in one of the bigger potholes that had filled with water.

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