Mediaboss Marketing

BEIJING, May 29, 2012 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- UTStarcom Holdings Corp. ("UTStarcom" or the "Company") (UTSI), a leading provider of interactive, IP-based network solutions in iDTV, IPTV, Internet TV and broadband for cable and telecom operators, announced today that it has won an expansion tender from Beijing Television ("BTV") to enhance the capabilities of BTV's existing IPTV broadcasting control platform ("IBCP"). The expanded platform will feature a new IP-based safe distribution system that will improve BTV's IPTV content-management and distribution capabilities. UTStarcom built BTV's existing IBCP in 2010 and this contract represents the first IBCP expansion project awarded to the Company.

"Our expansion project with BTV further solidifies our leading position in China's IPTV market," said UTStarcom's President and Chief Executive Officer Mr. Jack Lu. "Over the past year, we have worked together with BTV to examine its service experience in order to design an enhanced service platform that better suits the needs of the operator. As a result, the expanded platform will feature a new IP-based safe distribution system that can monitor content distribution issues in real time, as well as automatically replace weak signals whenever a problem is identified. Expansion contracts similar to this one with BTV are typically larger in scale than the initial IBCP contracts we have signed. Not only will we continue to capitalize on opportunities to build additional IBCPs, but we also anticipate similar IBCP expansion contracts in the near future."

Since 2010, UTStarcom has built ten IBCPs across China, specifically in Beijing, Chongqing, Hainan, Hubei, Hunan, Shandong, Shenzhen, Sichuan, Tianjin, and Zhejiang.

About UTStarcom Holdings Corp.

UTStarcom is a leading provider of interactive, IP-based network solutions in iDTV, IPTV, Internet TV and broadband for cable and telecom operators. The Company sells its solutions to operators in both emerging and established telecommunications and cable markets around the world. UTStarcom enables its customers to rapidly deploy revenue-generating access services using their existing infrastructure, while providing a migration path to cost-efficient, end-to-end IP networks.

UTStarcom was founded in 1991 and listed on the NASDAQ in 2000. With a new management team in 2011, the Company deployed a revamped growth strategy that concentrates on providing media operation support services through its Video Service Cloud (VSC) platform. UTStarcom has its operational headquarters in Beijing, China and research and development operations in China and India. For more information about UTStarcom, visit the Company's Web site at http://www.utstar.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the Company's plan to build IBCPs and the Company's expectations regarding expansion contracts. These statements are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from the Company's current expectations. These include risks and uncertainties related to, among other things, the ability of the Company to capitalize on opportunities to build additional IBCPs, realize the anticipated benefits from IPCB expansion contracts, successfully provide media operation support services through its VSC platform, successfully operate its new services business and execute on its business plan. The risks and uncertainties also include the risk factors identified in the Company's latest Annual Report on Form 20-F, previous Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Form 10-K/A, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K and Form 6-K, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company is in a period of transition and the conduct of its business is exposed to additional risks as a result. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are based upon information available to the Company as of the date of this press release, which may change, and UTStarcom assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statement.

Original post:
UTStarcom Wins IPTV Broadcasting Control Platform Expansion Contract

29th May 2012 0 Comments

By Nadra Kareem Nittle Contributing Writer

(Special to the NNPA News Service from the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education)Social wedge issues such as abortion, birth control and sex education in public schools have taken center stage and sometimes dominated the political debate this year, but progressive experts on reproductive rights are concerned that women of color are rarely represented in the mainstream medias coverage.

If elected president, presumptive Republican candidate Mitt Romney has vowed to defund Planned Parenthood, a move that the state of Texas is attempting. Moreover, Tennessee has passed legislation to severely limit what educators can teach in sex education classes, and states such as Arizona, Mississippi and Virginia have passed legislation that significantly restricts abortion access.

Conservative attacks on reproductive rights repeatedly make headlines. But women of color and low-income women who disproportionately depend on the services of Planned Parenthood and face challenges accessing reproductive care have not figured prominently in mainstream news coverage of the reproductive rights debate.

Experts on the topic say that because underprivileged women have the most to lose as lawmakers curb such rights, the media should focus on them in the discussion.

Women who are poor and also women of color have disproportionately high rates of unwanted pregnancy, says Heather Boonstra, a senior public policy associate of the Guttmacher Institute, a Washington, D.C., organization that advocates for sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Some of that has to do with the basics in terms of obtaining health care and the kinds of social conditions in the womens lives that make it hard for them to use contraception and use it consistently, she says. Poorer women their lives have a lot of disruptions. Using and obtaining contraception, let alone affording it and getting it on a routine basis is harder.

According to the institute, Black women are three times as likely as white women to have an unplanned pregnancy, and Hispanic women are two times as likely. Among poor women, Hispanics have the highest rate of unplanned pregnancy. In addition, financial pressures related to the sluggish economy are likely leading more poor women to terminate pregnancies. The institute found that the number of abortion recipients who were poor jumped from 27 percent in 2000 to 42 percent in 2008, the first full year of the economic downturn.

Media outlets tend to ignore these findings and the financial pressures driving them, and simply report on abortion rates and laws without factoring in race and class. Including more women of color and their advocates in mainstream media stories would produce more comprehensive articles.

Original post:
Discussion of reproductive rights should include women of color

Animal Studies Indicate Vacc-C5 Generates Immune Responses to HIV, Similar to Those in HIV Patients who Naturally Suppress the Virus

OSLO, NORWAY--(Marketwire - May 29, 2012) - Bionor Pharma ASA (OSLO: BIONOR)

News Summary

Bionor Pharma ASA (OSLO: BIONOR) announced today that the first study of Bionor Pharma's Vacc-C5 is now approved to begin at Oslo University Hospital. Vacc-C5 is a therapeutic HIV vaccine developed to slow down or stop induction of immune hyperactivation, a feature that drives the production of HIV and is damaging the immune system, leading to AIDS. Vacc-C5 also may have the potential to be a preventive vaccine, alone or in combination with Vacc-4x.

The phase I/II study will use Vacc-C5 at three different dose levels, in order to evaluate safety and provide a determination for the optimal dose of the vaccine, when given intradermally (in the skin) or intramuscularly.

"The pre-clinical studies of Vacc-C5 in rabbits, and sheep, as well as data confirming an association between high antibody levels and slow progression of HIV in humans have generated considerable interest," said Dag Kvale, MD, PhD, Principal Investigator at Oslo University Hospital. "We look forward to see how people living with HIV respond when on Vacc-C5."

The study seeks to recruit 36 patients who have been infected with HIV for at least one year. Study participants must have been stable on antiretroviral therapy (ART, traditional HIV medicine) for at least six months with a viral load of less than 50 copies per milliliter. The primary endpoint of the trial is to evaluate safety of the vaccine at three different dose levels. Secondary endpoints include measuring specific antibody and T-cell responses to Vacc-C5 and to evaluate T-cell activation markers. Vacc-C5 will be given in combination with two different adjuvants, (that enhance the immune response), either GM-CSF (Granulocyte Macrophage Colony Stimulating Factor) or Alhydrogel (an aluminum-based treatment).

How Vacc-C5 is considered to Work, in Comparison to Vacc-4x Vacc-C5 generates antibodies based on modified, manufactured (synthetic) peptides from the C5 region (of gp 120) at the HIV-virus surface. Data suggest that anti-C5 antibodies may play a crucial role for Natural Viral Suppressors, a group of people who are able to control the HIV infection without the need of HIV medication.

Bionor Pharma has filed a patent application covering Vacc-C5.

The further strategy is to use Vacc-C5 in combination with Vacc-4x since Vacc-4x already has via T-cell (killer cell) responses shown to lower the viral load set point (stabilized virus level) by statistically significant levels compared to placebo.

More:
First Human Clinical Study of HIV Vaccine Vacc-C5 Approved to Begin

Iran claimed on Tuesday to have come up with an anti-virus programme against "Flame," extraordinarily sophisticated malware that hit its servers and deployed various spying modules, apparently at the behest of a foreign power.

"Tools to recognise and clean this malware have been developed and, as of today, they will be available for those (Iranian) organisations and companies who want it," Maher, a computer emergency response team coordination centre in Iran's telecommunications ministry, said on its website.

Flame, a crafty volume of code that can steal files, take screenshots, activate computer microphones to record conversations, log keystrokes and carry out other activities controlled remotely, was identified this week by leading anti-virus firms around the world.

Maher said Flame was undetectable by 43 different anti-virus programmes it tested, forcing it to come up with its own defence after "months of research." It did not give details of how its Flame-killer worked.

Iran appeared to be the main target of the worm-like malware, though it was also detected in other regions, including Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Sudan and Syria.

The virus hit Iran's oil ministry servers in April, forcing authorities to shut them down.

"Experts from Maher... have said that the theft of large volumes of data in recent weeks was caused by Flame," the Fars news agency reported.

Anti-virus experts said Flame was many times more sophisticated than Stuxnet, a virus that in 2010 infected computers running Iran's sensitive uranium enrichment, knocking out hundreds of centrifuges, or a cousin to Stuxnet, Duqu, which struck in 2011.

The staggering complexity of all three of these viruses suggested a nation-state was responsible, with suspicion falling on the United States or Israel.

Flame is "actively being used as a cyber weapon attacking entities in several countries," a top Russian anti-virus software firm, Kaspersky Lab, said in a statement late on Monday, describing its purpose as "cyberespionage."

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Middle East Online

AFP Tuesday, May 29, 2012

TEHRAN - Iran claimed on Tuesday to have come up with an anti-virus programme against "Flame," extraordinarily sophisticated malware that hit its servers and deployed various spying modules, apparently at the behest of a foreign power.

"Tools to recognise and clean this malware have been developed and, as of today, they will be available for those (Iranian) organisations and companies who want it," Maher, a computer emergency response team coordination centre in Iran's telecommunications ministry, said on its website.

Flame, a crafty volume of code that can steal files, take screenshots, activate computer microphones to record conversations, log keystrokes and carry out other activities controlled remotely, was identified this week by leading anti-virus firms around the world.

Maher said Flame was undetectable by 43 different anti-virus programmes it tested, forcing it to come up with its own defence after "months of research." It did not give details of how its Flame-killer worked.

Iran appeared to be the main target of the worm-like malware, though it was also detected in other regions, including Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Sudan and Syria.

The virus hit Iran's oil ministry servers in April, forcing authorities to shut them down.

"Experts from Maher... have said that the theft of large volumes of data in recent weeks was caused by Flame," the Fars news agency reported.

Anti-virus experts said Flame was many times more sophisticated than Stuxnet, a virus that in 2010 infected computers running Iran's sensitive uranium enrichment, knocking out hundreds of centrifuges, or a cousin to Stuxnet, Duqu, which struck in 2011.

The staggering complexity of all three of these viruses suggested a nation-state was responsible, with suspicion falling on the United States or Israel.

Read more:
Iran readies anti-virus for 'Flame' spy malware