Jetstar Asia will launch direct flights from Singapore to Labuan Bajo, the Indonesian city considered the “gateway” to Komodo National Park, the corporate said.

The park, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1991, is home to several thousand Komodo dragons, the most important species of lizard on the planet, in line with UNESCO.

Komodo National Park is the one place where these lizards are present in the wild, adding to the mystique of the reptiles appearing in rare cases. They have been known to attack humans.

The park, which stretches across several islands in Indonesia, is accessible by boat from Labuan Bajo.

Jetstar Asia, a Singapore-based low-cost airline, announced that twice-weekly flights to Labuan Bajo will begin on March 20. The airline can be the one airline operating this route.

Lim Ching Kiat, Changi Airport Group's executive vice chairman of air hub and cargo development, said in a press release announcing the brand new flights: “This is the first time that Changi Airport will be directly connected to this stunning destination.”

Labuan Bajo is popular with divers and was named one in every of the ten latest Balis in 2016. This is a government plan to advertise other destinations in Indonesia beyond Bali.

After the Covid-19 pandemic, this system was reduced to “Five New Balis,” a listing that features Borobudur, Mandalika, Lake Toba, Likupang and Labuan Bajo.

The city has long been considered difficult to achieve, and lots of international travelers selected to go to the realm by cruise ship. International flights to Labuan Bajo Airport, named “Komodo International Airport”, began in 2024 with the introduction of AirAsia flights from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Jetstar Asia CEO John Simeone called Labuan Bajo a “hidden gem” in Indonesia and an “incredible vacation hotspot.”

But some conservation organizations say increasing tourism is endangering Komodo dragon habitat, which has been endangered since 2019 International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Komodo National Park officials are considering a plan to shut the park repeatedly and at short notice this 12 months – even for only a day – to mitigate the negative impact of tourism and encourage visitors to explore activities outside the park, it said local media.

Six travelers have died from suspected methanol poisoning after visiting the tourist town of Vang Vieng in Laos this month.

The travelers – two from Australia, two from Denmark, one from the United Kingdom and one from the United States – are believed to have consumed alcohol tainted with methanol, which is typically illegally added to regular or home-brewed alcohol to lower your expenses.

About fourteen people became unwell after one night in Vang Vieng around November twelfth. One of those travelers recently returned home to New Zealand, it is alleged local news reports.

Methanol is cheaper than ethanol, the alcohol typically present in beer, wine and spirits. According to the non-governmental organization Doctors Without Borders, it’s odorless and colorless, drinking 30 milliliters of methanol – lower than an ordinary syringe – might be fatal, while consuming just 10 milliliters – or two teaspoons – could cause blindness.

“Methanol poisoning is an under-recognized global public health problem,” says a fact sheet published by the organization.

Since 2019, 943 incidents were recorded which poisoned greater than 39,000 people and killed about 12,900 people.

A lack of know-how about methanol poisoning, each amongst the general public and the medical community where outbreaks often occur, is exacerbating the issue, in line with the organization.

According to Doctors Without Borders, most methanol poisonings occur in Asia.

A Doctors Without Borders website, which monitors methanol poisoning says many foreign tourists have fallen victim to methanol poisoning after consuming improperly distilled “arak” in Bali, Lombok and the Gili Islands.

According to the web site, several people were poisoned by methanol in Indonesia in September after consuming alcohol ordered online. In July, five students were poisoned after mixing tainted alcohol with energy drinks, three of whom later died, it is alleged.

A Facebook page called “Just don't drink spirits in Bali“advises people to drink beer, cider, wine and duty-free alcohol purchased upon arrival in Bali, but avoid cocktails and shots.

“If someone behind the bar has to pour a drink from a bottle of mixed spirits, there is a risk of methanol poisoning,” said site creator Colin Ahaern.

“Be careful,” he said. “Bali is a beautiful place, but it has its own pitfalls.”

According to Doctors Without Borders, Iran leads the world within the number of individuals poisoned by methanol within the last five years.

In April 2020 – a month after Covid-19 was declared a pandemic – greater than 5,800 people in Iran were poisoned by methanol in a mass accident that killed about 800, in line with Doctors Without Borders. The organization says many mistakenly believed that drinking the alcohol would kill the Covid virus.

Médecins Sans Frontières warns travelers against consuming alcohol in informal settings and in places where there isn’t a license to sell alcohol. Additionally, travelers are advised to avoid free alcohol or alcohol from unmarked containers.

The organization added that many outbreaks and poisonings go undiagnosed because symptoms are just like those common with food poisoning and hangovers, corresponding to vomiting and drowsiness. However, it is alleged that methanol poisoning may also cause dizziness, rapid heartbeat, and blurred vision and blindness.

Global chip stocks fell on Thursday after US chip darling NVIDIA The figures for the second fiscal quarter exceeded analysts' expectations but upset traders who had hoped for higher growth rates.

While Nvidia reported better-than-expected results, with revenues up 122 percent year-over-year, this still represents a slowdown after three consecutive quarters of annual growth rates of over 200 percent.

In Asia, the South Korean chip manufacturers SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics — each suppliers to Nvidia — recorded the most important losses amongst Asian chip manufacturers.

SK Hynix, which makes high-bandwidth memory chips for Nvidia utilized in AI applications, closed down 5.4%.

Samsung Electronics, the best weighted stock within the South Korean benchmark Stock index, Kospi, fell by over 3%.

Although the extent of the supplier relationship between Samsung and Nvidia just isn’t fully known, the corporate is predicted to fabricate HBM chips for some Nvidia productsin accordance with Reuters.

Other direct suppliers of Nvidia akin to Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturing company And Hon Hai Precision Industry – known internationally as Foxconn – recorded losses of about 2% and 1% respectively.

In Japan, a semiconductor manufacturer Tokyo Electron fell by 2%.

Conversely, not all chip manufacturers were within the red on Thursday. The Chinese state-supported chip manufacturer SMIC rose nearly 1%, while Hua Hong Semiconductor rose nearly 3%.

This got here amid a broader rise in Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index, which rose 0.5 percent on Thursday.

In the US, Nvidia's rival AMD, which also benefited significantly from the synthetic intelligence boom, lost about 0.5 percent in pre-market US trading.

SoftBank-backed chip designer arm and chipmaker Broadcom also fell. Qualcomm, then again, rose by a fraction of a percent.

Super Micro, meanwhile, lost over 4% in premarket trading, adding to its 19% losses in Wednesday's trading session.

The reason for this was a delay in the corporate's annual report after a report by short seller Hindenberg Research allegedly found “new evidence of accounting manipulation” at the corporate.

Super Micro declined to comment on Hindenburg's report, saying the corporate needs more time to evaluate “the design and operating effectiveness of its internal controls over financial reporting as of June 30, 2024.”

In Europe, shares of Dutch chipmaker BE Semiconductor and its country's ASML – a serious semiconductor equipment maker – each rose 2%.

Dutch chipmakers ASMI and STMicroelectronics rose 3% and a couple of.5%, respectively, while German company Infineon rose nearly 2%.

Although Nvidia beat revenue and earnings per share estimates for the quarter, the share price decline could have been triggered by fears that the corporate may not find a way to deliver explosive growth in the present quarter, Luke Rahbari, CEO of Equity Armor Investments, told CNBC's “Squawk Box Asia.”

Rahbari said the outcomes were “really good,” but in addition noted that “Nvidia has beaten analyst expectations in so many quarters… People [are] maybe they think the runaway train will slow down a little.”

He remains optimistic about the company, stressing: “In my opinion, no other company on the earth has such a dominant position within the industry as Nvidia.”

However, according to StreetAccount, Nvidia's gross margin fell to 75.1 percent from 78.4 percent in the prior period, while the annual gross margin forecast was in the “mid-70 percent range,” below analysts' estimate of 76.4 percent.

In an interview with CNBC's “Squawk Box Asia,” Mark Lushcini, chief investment strategist at financial advisory firm Janney Montgomery Scott, called the decline in Nvidia shares a “rounding error,” citing Nvidia's sharp rise this year. Shares are up about 150% year-to-date.

He noted: “The company is growing quickly, however the pace of growth has been slowing for 4 quarters now. For an organization trading at 40 to 50 times forward earnings, that's a high demand hurdle to beat relative to expectations.”

Ben Barringer, global technology, media and telecommunications analyst and managing director at Quilter Cheviot, said that while Nvidia has signaled strong demand for its high-performance Hopper and Blackwell computer chips, the stock's rise may have been overdone.

“This company is on a trajectory for strong growth, and perhaps we'll get good growth, but not great growth,” Barringer told CNBC's “Squawk Box Europe” on Thursday.

Amazon is opening cloud regions in Southeast Asia because customers want their data to be stored securely in their very own countries, Amazon Chief Technology Officer Werner Vogels said in an exclusive interview.

“The reason for this is that many of our customers have asked for it. They really wanted something local so that they could, for example, address local data storage requirements or personal data protection,” Vogels told CNBC’s JP Ong.

Amazon's cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services, was the world's largest cloud service provider within the fourth quarter, accounting for 31% of total cloud spending, in accordance with a study Report from February twenty sixth by Canalys.

An AWS Region is a physical location where data centers are clustered. There are at the very least three separate availability zones inside each AWS Region. Each zone has its own power, cooling and physical security and is connected via redundant, ultra-low latency networks.

“And it's not just startups that are looking for it, but also large companies and government agencies. “You can imagine that government agencies also want to undergo a digital transformation,” said Vogels.

“And it’s important for them to have these types of technologies on site.” [the] Country to be certain that they’ll best serve their customers or their residents,” Vogels said.

Amazon said in November that this was the case Introducing a brand new AWS Region in Malaysia this 12 months. The company previously pledged an investment of 25.5 billion Malaysian ringgit ($6 billion) by 2037 to support this Government ambitions to rework Malaysia to change into a “high-income” digital economy by 2030.

“This new AWS Region will also enable customers with data residency preferences to securely store data in Malaysia, helping customers achieve even lower latency and meeting demand for cloud services across Southeast Asia,” the statement said .

That comes after AWS has opened a cloud region in Indonesia in December 2021 and in Singapore in 2010. AWS can also be there plan the beginning an infrastructure region in Thailand.

AWS already operates multiple regions in North America, South America, Europe, China, Asia Pacific, South Africa and the Middle East.

“And in particular, of course, the security features of AWS that allow us to protect these customers. Safety will and will remain our top priority.” [It] is our primary investment area,” said Vogels.

“And to ensure the security of customers in our computing regions, [it] is of great attraction for companies here in the region and also for governments.”

Apples Tim Cook is in Singapore for the ultimate leg of his whirlwind tour of Southeast Asia because the CEO focuses on the region to expand and boost revenue growth amid difficulties in China.

Cook confirmed his arrival in Singapore on his official X account (formerly referred to as Twitter) on Thursday, posting a video of himself with a neighborhood photographer at the town's famous tourist attraction Gardens by the Bay.

According to anonymous sources quoted in a Bloomberg reportCook's visit will last until Friday and can include a gathering with the city-state's next prime minister, Lawrence Wong, and incumbent Lee Hsien Loong. Lee will officially step down on May 15 after 20 years as head of presidency. Wong becomes Singapore's fourth prime minister.

Cook's arrival in the town follows Apple's announcement plans is investing over $250 million in its Singapore operations. While the tech giant already employs 3,600 people within the country, Apple said the expansion will make room for brand new roles, including in artificial intelligence.

The country serves as a regional hub for the Cupertino, California-based tech giant, with critical roles in software, hardware, services and support, the corporate said.

The meeting with the prime minister is predicted to mark the conclusion of Cook's tour of Southeast Asia, during which the CEO stopped in Vietnam to satisfy with Apple developers and users, and in Indonesia, where he met with President Joko Widodo.

Bloomberg reported that Cook's schedule is filled with public activities to drum up interest within the brand, which could pave the best way for a more aggressive regional sales campaign.

Apple didn’t immediately reply to a CNBC request for comment about Cook's itinerary.

This yr the corporate began has a web-based Apple Store in Vietnam allegedly has hired employees for its first retail center in Malaysia.

Increased business in Southeast Asia could help offset the corporate's recent headwinds. Figures released Monday by International Data Corporation showed global iPhone shipments fell 10% year-on-year in the primary quarter because of increasing competition in China.

Smartphone sales have also been weak in China, Apple's largest overseas market, in comparison with Southeast Asia, where sales boomed in the beginning of the yr.

According to Canalys data, the region's phone market is predicted to grow 7% year-on-year in 2024, significantly faster than the remaining of the world's 3% growth.

Cook has also used his recent travels to focus on Southeast Asia as a crucial manufacturing location.

The company has been pushing to diversify its supply chain beyond its headquarters in China since 2022, when it experienced pandemic-related supply disruptions.

Vietnam has already developed into a crucial production location in consequence of diversification efforts. Meanwhile, Cook said on Wednesday that the corporate would “review” production in Indonesia.