Indonesia's state-owned airline, Garuda Indonesia, said yesterday it would cut services within Asia by up to 30 percent because of falling passenger numbers caused by a deadly flu-like virus.
The carrier said it would cut flights by more than half between Jakarta and neighboring Singapore -- one of its most popular services -- and temporarily halt other flights to the island state where the virus has killed six people.
"We're looking at potentially lower revenue this year because of decreasing passenger rates, thus, in order to avoid losses we're cutting flights services to the Asia region by 20 percent to 30 percent," a Garuda spokesman said.
"We are going to temporarily stop flights from Medan to Singapore until May 15 because there are no seats booked," he added, referring to the North Sumatran capital where Garuda flies four times a week to Singapore.
Asian airlines have been especially hard hit by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which has killed almost 90 people worldwide and infected more than 2,500 since emerging in southern China in November.
Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, declared SARS a dangerous disease and said anyone who avoided being examined for possible SARS infection or interfered with investigations could face jail time.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained