ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates - Tuesday, February 17th 2015 [ME NewsWire]

The Ministry of Interior will be organizing an awareness council tomorrow, Wednesday, in Muta’red Saif Al Afari’s majlis at his residence located in Al Yahar area in the city of Al Ain.

The council, held under the title “the Impact of Drugs on Youth”, will be moderated by media figure Talal Al Hindasi, presenter for Dubai Media.   The Council will tackle drug abuse and addiction, as major issues that burden society and target youth and adolescents, as well as the adverse consequences of drug abuse for the individual and society as a whole.  

Also on the council’s agenda, a number of key topics will be discussed, notably the need to protect the youth against substance abuse and addiction, the costly economic impact of drugs.

The council will also tackle community efforts exerted in order to curtail this scourge and the proper ways to ... Read more »

TOKYO - Saturday, February 21st 2015 [ME NewsWire]

(BUSINESS WIRE) - Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO:6502) today announced that the Olkaria Geothermal Power Plant, Kenya’s largest geothermal power complex, has started commercial operation. The official opening ceremony was held at the site on February 19, in the presence of President Uhuru Kenyatta and government officials.

Kenya Electricity Generating Company Ltd. awarded a full turnkey contract for Olkaria I and IV to a consortium of Korea’s Hyundai Engineering Co., Ltd. and Japan’s Toyota Tsusho Corporation (Tokyo:8015) in 2011. Toshiba, selected by Hyundai Engineering to provide key equipment, supplied four 70-megawatt turbines and generators for the plant in 2013. Olkaria IV started commercial operation in September 2014, followed by Olkaria I in January this year.

Kenya’s economic growth is spurring demand for power. The government has responded with a comprehensive blueprint for deve ... Read more »

 Highly Flexible and Efficient Cloud-Based Platform Reduces OpEx, Improves Customer Experience and Creates New Revenue-Generating Opportunities

TOKYO & VIENNA & WALTHAM, Mass. - Saturday, February 21st 2015 [ME NewsWire]

(BUSINESS WIRE)-- NEC Corporation (TSE: NEC 6701) and NetCracker Technology announced today that Telekom Austria Group, the largest telecommunications group in Austria, has successfully completed its in-depth trial of the NEC/NetCracker end-to-end virtual customer-premises equipment (vCPE) solution. The solution included vCPE, SDN controller, service and network orchestration as well as virtual network functions (VNFs) from multiple vendors.

Telekom Austria Group is among the leading communications service providers (CSPs) in Central and Eastern Europe, supporting roughly 23 million customers across eight different operating countries. Telekom Austria Group provides voice telephony, broadband Internet and multimedia services, as ... Read more »

New Offering Bolsters Best-in-Class Capabilities for Global, Regional and Local Clients

LONDON & NAIROBI, Kenya - Thursday, February 19th 2015 [ME NewsWire]

(BUSINESS WIRE)-- GroupM announced today the launch of its MEC, MediaCom and Mindshare media agencies in sub-Saharan Africa, supplementing GroupM’s existing offering in South Africa and Northern Africa and strengthening its position as the global leader in media investment management. This development follows the lead of GroupM parent company WPP, which last year increased its stake to a controlling interest in Scangroup, the leading advertising and communication services group in East Africa.

Clients who work with MEC, MediaCom and Mindshare will benefit from the consolidated media management of GroupM, while receiving best-in-class client leadership, communication strategy and executional delivery deeply connected to the agencies’ respective global networks. This will provide clients in ... Read more »

COLOMBES, France - Thursday, February 19th 2015 [ME NewsWire]

Mobile World Congress 2015

(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Oberthur Technologies (OT), a world leader in digital security solutions for the mobility space today announced its selection by Getin Bank to introduce mobile proximity payments relying on HCE (Host Card Emulation), a cloud-based protocol simplifying mobile contactless payment implementations. HCE was introduced on Android platforms at the end of 2013 and is now endorsed by major payment schemes.

Relying on OT’s solution, Getin Bank performed a first transaction compliant with Visa specifications for HCE at the end of December 2014. OT leverages combined experience in secure credentials management for banks and in cloud-based mobile financial services to address HCE’s underlying challenges: security, impact on the payment infrastructure, usability and standardization.

With this service Getin is the first bank in Poland to propose a m ... Read more »

SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Friday, February 20th 2015 [ME NewsWire]

(BUSINESS WIRE)-- eASIC Corporation (@easic) today announced that it has publicly filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relating to a proposed initial public offering of its common stock. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not been determined. eASIC intends to apply to list its common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol "EASI".

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. will act as joint book-running managers for the offering. Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated, William Blair & Company, L.L.C., Roth Capital Partners, LLC and Northland Securities, Inc. will act as co-managers.

This offering will be made only by means of a prospectus. A copy of the preliminary prospectus, when available, ... Read more »

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. - Friday, February 20th 2015 [ME NewsWire]

(BUSINESS WIRE) Quintiles, the world’s largest biopharmaceutical services company, has been named to FORTUNE magazine’s “World’s Most Admired Companies” list for 2015.

Quintiles is ranked third overall in FORTUNE’s Healthcare: Pharmacy and Other Services category with the top ranking for the reputation attribute of “global competitiveness” and second within the segment for its “people management.”

FORTUNE's World's Most Admired Companies list is the definitive report card on corporate reputations. Since 1997, Fortune has identified, selected and ranked the World’s Most Admired Companies, uncovering the business practices that make these companies highly regarded among their peers.

“I would like to congratulate Quintiles’ employees around the world for making this possible,” said Quintiles C ... Read more »

GSMA to Host Executive Conferences in Five Locations Globally; Mobile 360 Events Explore Regional Mobile Industry Trends and Issues

London - Thursday, February 19th 2015 [ME NewsWire]

--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The GSMA today announced the schedule and locations for the 2015 GSMA Mobile 360 Series, a regional thought leadership conference series for executives in the mobile industry, as well as key regulatory and government representatives. This year, the GSMA will host five Mobile 360 Series events around the world: Mobile 360 Series-Africa, Mobile 360 Series-Europe, Mobile 360 Series-Latin America, Mobile 360 Series-Middle East and Mobile 360 Series-North America.

“Building on the success we’ve seen in the last year, we’re excited to expand the Mobile 360 Series further in 2015 with the addition of Mobile 360-Latin America,” said Michael O’Hara, Chief Marketing Officer, GSMA. “The Mobile 360 Series conferences truly complement t ... Read more »

LITTLE ROCK, Ark - Thursday, February 19th 2015 [ME NewsWire]

(BUSINESS WIRE) - GlobeOne®, LLC, a financial technology company collaborating with a network of financial institutions around the world, has selected Acxiom® (Nasdaq: ACXM), an enterprise data, analytics and software-as-a-service company to develop a database and processing platform to collect, process, calculate and return data to partner banks in the GlobeOne network.

GlobeOne, founded by a community of socially conscious entrepreneurs with experience in the financially underserved markets, is committed to enhancing financial inclusion, a critical element for economic and social development. By pioneering the use of technology to make financial transactions affordable and flexible, and activating its network of member banks, GlobalOne creates financial opportunities and community growth.

As part of this multi-year agreement, Acxiom will provide data hosting services to help GlobeOne to c ... Read more »

Consumers from 16 markets across the globe to be enabled to shop and pay using Visa Checkout

SAN FRANCISCO - Friday, February 20th 2015 [ME NewsWire]

Mobile World Congress 2015

(BUSINESS WIRE) Visa Inc. today announced that Visa Checkout will become available in a total of 16 markets in 2015, continuing the early momentum the product has seen since launching in three markets in the summer of 2014.

“Visa Checkout has seen tremendous growth in the U.S., Canada and Australia in just the few months since its launch,” said Sam Shrauger, senior vice president of Digital Solutions at Visa. “Consumers and merchants alike love its simplicity and ease, which is particularly important as people shop and buy more frequently on smaller devices like phones and tablets. Building on this positive momentum, we are aggressively carrying the service into new markets across the world throughout 2015 and beyond.”

Today consumers from ten co ... Read more »