Hamburg  - British entrepreneur Richard Branson has told a German magazine he will test-fly a joy-riding spacecraft this year.

Branson's company, Virgin Galactic, plans to take passengers to the verge of space, though not high enough to achieve earth orbit. The tourists will experience weightlessness for several minutes.

The take-offs are expected to be from the US state of New Mexico.

Jakarta  - Thick smoke caused by forest fires blanketing Indonesia's Riau province on Sumatra island forced the brief closure of the local airport on Tuesday, an official said.

Five flights were diverted to airports in neighboring provinces after the haze reduced visibility to below 1 kilometre on Tuesday morning, said Dedi Suryana, chief of the Sultan Syarif Kasim airport in Pekanbaru, the provincial capital.

"There were some delays in departures and arrivals but we have reopened now," he said.

Wellington  - Australia's Qantas Airways will hand over domestic services in New Zealand to its budget subsidiary Jetstar in June, the company announced Tuesday.

Jetstar will operate 84 weekly return services between Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and the South Island lake and ski resort town Queenstown on Airbus A320 jets

A statement said that passengers already booked on Qantas flights within New Zealand after that date would be switched to Jetstar services.

New Delhi, Feb 16: Public sector oil companies have announced a slash of 3.7 per cent in the prices of Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF), the tenth reduction since last September.

The slash in prices came into effect from Sunday midnight.

Jet fuel prices in Delhi were slashed to Rs 29,158 per kilolitre from Rs 30,288 per kilolitre.

In Mumbai, ATF rates went down by Rs 1,191 per kilolitre to Rs 29,985 per kilolitre.

ATF prices rose to Rs 71,028.26 per kilolitre in Delhi in August 2008 with the peaking of global crude oil prices to 147 dollars a barrel.

Since then, fuel prices have been slashed every month and decreased twice in November.

The government has hardened its stance over air fare hike by some private airlines, issuing a letter to Kingfisher Airlines asking it to provide details of fare hike by February 14.

The chairman of Kingfisher Airline, Vijay Mallya said, "Let me confirm that we have late yesterday received a letter from the DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation), asking details about the fare hike, to which we shall reply." The air carrier would soon reply to DGCA clearing its stance over the fare hike.

London  - Two female teenage air cadets and two Royal Air Force (RAF) instructors were killed in a mid-air collision of two RAF training aircraft in Britain Wednesday.

The two light aircraft crashed over sand dunes in a nature reserve in south Wales, in the south-west of Britain, police said.

The two girls, of school age, were taking part as air training corps cadets in a half-hour flying experience offered by the RAF.