Mobile Norway selects Ericsson as primary vendor for 2G/3G network rollout

Swedish vendor Ericsson has announced that it has been selected by Mobile Norway, the joint venture formed by Tele2 Norge and Network Norway, as the main vendor for the rollout of a new 2G/3G mobile network in Norway. No financial details of the deal have been disclosed, nor have timeframes for the deployment of the new infrastructure, although it has been stated that Mobile Norway aims to roll out a network covering 75% of the population in ‘the coming years’. Commenting on the agreement, Haakon Dymes, CEO of Tele2 Norge, said: ‘Today is a joyful day for Norwegian mobile users. The network will improve the competition within the market and the customer’s choices in both urban and rural areas. We are proud to deliver on our promise to the Norwegian authorities, who have paved the way for increased competition.’ According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, Network Norway and Tele2 Norge announced their partnership in September 2007 and under the terms of the deal Tele2 Norge acquired 50% of the shares in AMI, holder of Norway’s third GSM-900 licence. Subsequently the 50/50 joint venture, Mobile Norway, was formed. Two months after the tie-up was announced, in November 2007 the Norwegian government announced it had received an application from Mobile Norway for the country’s fourth UMTS licence. Following a sealed auction in December that year, Mobile Norway was awarded the licence for around NOK47 million. Under the licence terms the company’s 3G infrastructure must cover at least 40% of the population within six years. Source:telegeography.com/

Golden day for Norway at cross-country World Cup

Canadian Alex Harvey crosses the finish line at third place followed by Maxim Vylegzjanin of Russia who finished 4th in the men's 50 km Mass Start race at the FIS Cross Country World Cup in Trondheim March 14, 2009. Norway's Petter Northug seized first place in the overall rankings.Photograph by: Ned Alley, AFP/Getty ImagesROGLA, Slovenia - Saturday was a golden day for Norwegian cross-country skiers. Petter Northug won the men's sprint event, while Marit Bjoergen topped the women's field at the fifth stop of the World Cup circuit. Northug, who leads the World Cup standings with 340 points, finished the 1.1-kilometre race in a time of four minutes 9.9 seconds. Tobias Angerer of Germany was second, 1.2 seconds behind Northug. Jesper Modin of Sweden was third, 1.8 seconds off Northug's pace. Alex Harvey of Saint-Ferreol-Les-Neiges, Que., the only Canadian in the men's field, finished 35th, missing the qualification line by 1.5 seconds. Devin Kershaw of Sudbury, Ont., did not compete due to a cold. In the women's event, Bjoergen, the overall World Cup leader with 362 points, finished the 1.4-kilometres race in 4:28.8 for her 32nd victory on the World Cup circuit. Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland was second, just four 10ths of a second behind Bjoergen. Petra Majdic of Slovenia finished third. Sara Renner of Canmore, Alta., finished 37th overall after failing to make it out of the qualification heats. Chandra Crawford, another Canmore skier, finished 55th. Source:calgaryherald.com/

Missing tourists from Norway found in Yakutia

The call with a request to render help in searching of 3 Norway citizens was received by hot line of the Chief Directorate of the MES of Russia for Sakha Republic (Yakutia) on the December, 22 about 17. 30 (local time). The foreign tourists were following on the Mercedes car to Magadan Region through the territory of Sakha Republic. They were supposed to have food and fuel stock. The Chif directorates on MES for Sakha Republic and Magadan Region have set about search just after receiving a message. The rearching group from Yakutia found the tourists at 00. 10 (local time) on the December, 23. They were alive and were feeling rather good. The Norway citizens were transported to Tomtor settlement. Get Russian visa for traveling and business purposes with Russia-IC. All you need is to send us information required for applying for Russian visa using the form. Source:russia-ic.com/

Norway’s Prime Minister initiates climate group on forests

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has announced that he will initiate a climate group consisting of the most important rain forest countries, to discuss central measures against deforestation. ”As part of our efforts to reach a binding climate agreement in Mexico in 2010, I will initiate the establishing of a group consisting of the most important rain forest countries, among them Brazil, Indonesia, Guyana, Gabon, Papua New Guinea and others”, Stoltenberg said. The Prime Minister said he will invite forest countries to meet in Oslo in the first half of 2010.The new climate group will coordinate and contribute to measures in the most important forest countries, and work to secure that the efforts against deforestation will be central in a new climate agreement.”According to the UN Climate Panel, deforestation in developing countries represents 17 per cent of the total emission of greenhouse gases. Efforts related to rain forests may lead to one third of the emission cuts needed by 2020. By reducing deforestation we may see the largest, quickest and cheapest cuts in greenhouse gas emissions”, Stoltenberg said. ”Norway will now cooperate closely with the Mexican presidency in order that we may have a binding climate agreement at the next climate conference (COP 16) in Mexico in 2010”, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said. Source:norwaypost.no/

When Drugs Stop Working-Norway's Answer

Aker University Hospital is a dingy place to heal. The floors are streaked and scratched. A light layer of dust coats the blood pressure monitors. A faint stench of urine and bleach wafts from a pile of soiled bedsheets dropped in a corner. Look closer, however, at a microscopic level, and this place is pristine. There is no sign of a dangerous and contagious staph infection that killed tens of thousands of patients in the most sophisticated hospitals of Europe, North America and Asia this year, soaring virtually unchecked. The reason: Norwegians stopped taking so many drugs. Twenty-five years ago, Norwegians were also losing their lives to this bacteria. But Norway's public health system fought back with an aggressive program that made it the most infection-free country in the world. A key part of that program was cutting back severely on the use of antibiotics. Now a spate of new studies from around the world prove that Norway's model can be replicated with extraordinary success, and public health experts are saying these deaths 19,000 in the U.S. each year alone, more than from AIDS are unnecessary. "It's a very sad situation that in some places so many are dying from this, because we have shown here in Norway that Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) can be controlled, and with not too much effort," said Jan Hendrik-Binder, Oslo's MRSA medical adviser. "But you have to take it seriously, you have to give it attention, and you must not give up." The World Health Organization says antibiotic resistance is one of the leading public health threats on the planet. A six-month investigation by The Associated Press found overuse and misuse of medicines has led to mutations in once curable diseases like tuberculosis and malaria, making them harder and in some cases impossible to treat. Now, in Norway's simple solution, there's a glimmer of hope. Dr. John Birger Haug shuffles down Aker's scuffed corridors, patting the pocket of his baggy white scrubs. "My bible," the infectious disease specialist says, pulling out a little red Antibiotic Guide that details this country's impressive MRSA solution. It's what's missing from this book an array of antibiotics that makes it so remarkable. "There are times I must show these golden rules to our doctors and tell them they cannot prescribe something, but our patients do not suffer more and our nation, as a result, is mostly infection free," he says. Norway's model is surprisingly straightforward. Norwegian doctors prescribe fewer antibiotics than any other country, so people do not have a chance to develop resistance to them. Patients with MRSA are isolated and medical staff who test positive stay at home. Doctors track each case of MRSA by its individual strain, interviewing patients about where they've been and who they've been with, testing anyone who has been in contact with them. Haug unlocks the dispensary, a small room lined with boxes of pills, bottles of syrups and tubes of ointment. What's here? Medicines considered obsolete in many developed countries. What's not? Some of the newest, most expensive antibiotics, which aren't even registered for use in Norway, "because if we have them here, doctors will use them," he says. He points to an antibiotic. "If I treated someone with an infection in Spain with this penicillin I would probably be thrown in jail," he says, "and rightly so because it's useless there." Norwegians are sanguine about their coughs and colds, toughing it out through low-grade infections. "We don't throw antibiotics at every person with a fever. We tell them to hang on, wait and see, and we give them a Tylenol to feel better," says Haug. Convenience stores in downtown Oslo are stocked with an amazing and colorful array 42 different brands at one downtown 7-Eleven of soothing, but non-medicated, lozenges, sprays and tablets. All workers are paid on days they, or their children, stay home sick. And drug makers aren't allowed to advertise, reducing patient demands for prescription drugs. In fact, most marketing here sends the opposite message: "Penicillin is not a cough medicine," says the tissue packet on the desk of Norway's MRSA control director, Dr. Petter Elstrom. He recognizes his country is "unique in the world and best in the world" when it comes to MRSA. Less than 1 percent of health care providers are positive carriers of MRSA staph. But Elstrom worries about the bacteria slipping in through other countries. Last year almost every diagnosed case in Norway came from someone who had been abroad. "So far we've managed to contain it, but if we lose this, it will be a huge problem," he said. "To be very depressing about it, we might in some years be in a situation where MRSA is so endemic that we have to stop doing advanced surgeries, things like organ transplants, if we can't prevent infections. In the worst case scenario we are back to 1913, before we had antibiotics." Forty years ago, a new spectrum of antibiotics enchanted public health officials, quickly quelling one infection after another. In wealthier countries that could afford them, patients and providers came to depend on antibiotics. Trouble was, the more antibiotics are consumed, the more resistant bacteria develop. Norway responded swiftly to initial MRSA outbreaks in the 1980s by cutting antibiotic use. Thus while they got ahead of the infection, the rest of the world fell behind. In Norway, MRSA has accounted for less than 1 percent of staph infections for years. That compares to 80 percent in Japan, the world leader in MRSA; 44 percent in Israel; and 38 percent in Greece. In the U.S., cases have soared and MRSA cost $6 billion last year. Rates have gone up from 2 percent in 1974 to 63 percent in 2004. And in the United Kingdom, they rose from about 2 percent in the early 1990s to about 45 percent, although an aggressive control program is now starting to work. About 1 percent of people in developed countries carry MRSA on their skin. Usually harmless, the bacteria can be deadly when they enter a body, often through a scratch. MRSA spreads rapidly in hospitals where sick people are more vulnerable, but there have been outbreaks in prisons, gyms, even on beaches. When dormant, the bacteria are easily detected by a quick nasal swab and destroyed by antibiotics. Dr. John Jernigan at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they incorporate some of Norway's solutions in varying degrees, and his agency "requires hospitals to move the needle, to show improvement, and if they don't show improvement they need to do more." And if they don't? "Nobody is accountable to our recommendations," he said, "but I assume hospitals and institutions are interested in doing the right thing." Dr. Barry Farr, a retired epidemiologist who watched a successful MRSA control program launched 30 years ago at the University of Virginia's hospitals, blamed the CDC for clinging to past beliefs that hand washing is the best way to stop the spread of infections like MRSA. He says it's time to add screening and isolation methods to their controls. The CDC needs to "eat a little crow and say, 'Yeah, it does work,"' he said. "There's example after example. We don't need another study. We need somebody to just do the right thing." But can Norway's program really work elsewhere? The answer lies in the busy laboratory of an aging little public hospital about 100 miles outside of London. It's here that microbiologist Dr. Lynne Liebowitz got tired of seeing the stunningly low Nordic MRSA rates while facing her own burgeoning cases. So she turned Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn into a petri dish, asking doctors to almost completely stop using two antibiotics known for provoking MRSA infections. One month later, the results were in: MRSA rates were tumbling. And they've continued to plummet. Five years ago, the hospital had 47 MRSA bloodstream infections. This year they've had one. "I was shocked, shocked," says Liebowitz, bouncing onto her toes and grinning as colleagues nearby drip blood onto slides and peer through microscopes in the hospital laboratory. When word spread of her success, Liebowitz's phone began to ring. So far she has replicated her experiment at four other hospitals, all with the same dramatic results. "It's really very upsetting that some patients are dying from infections which could be prevented," she says. "It's wrong." Around the world, various medical providers have also successfully adapted Norway's program with encouraging results. A medical center in Billings, Mont., cut MRSA infections by 89 percent by increasing screening, isolating patients and making all staff not just doctors responsible for increasing hygiene. In Japan, with its cutting-edge technology and modern hospitals, about 17,000 people die from MRSA every year. Dr. Satoshi Hori, chief infection control doctor at Juntendo University Hospital in Tokyo, says doctors overprescribe antibiotics because they are given financial incentives to push drugs on patients. Hori now limits antibiotics only to patients who really need them and screens and isolates high-risk patients. So far his hospital has cut the number of MRSA cases by two-thirds. In 2001, the CDC approached a Veterans Affairs hospital in Pittsburgh about conducting a small test program. It started in one unit, and within four years, the entire hospital was screening everyone who came through the door for MRSA. The result: an 80 percent decrease in MRSA infections. The program has now been expanded to all 153 VA hospitals, resulting in a 50 percent drop in MRSA bloodstream infections, said Dr. Robert Muder, chief of infectious diseases at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System. "It's kind of a no-brainer," he said. "You save people pain, you save people the work of taking care of them, you save money, you save lives and you can export what you learn to other hospital-acquired infections." Pittsburgh's program has prompted all other major hospital-acquired infections to plummet as well, saving roughly $1 million a year. "So, how do you pay for it?" Muder asked. "Well, we just don't pay for MRSA infections, that's all." Beth Reimer of Batavia, Ill., became an advocate for MRSA precautions after her 5-week-old daughter Madeline caught a cold that took a fatal turn. One day her beautiful baby had the sniffles. The next? "She wasn't breathing. She was limp," the mother recalled. "Something was terribly wrong." MRSA had invaded her little lungs. The antibiotics were useless. Maddie struggled to breathe, swallow, survive, for two weeks. "For me to sit and watch Madeline pass away from such an aggressive form of something, to watch her fight for her little life it was too much," Reimer said. Since Madeline's death, Reimer has become outspoken about the need for better precautions, pushing for methods successfully used in Norway. She's stunned, she said, that anyone disputes the need for change. "Why are they fighting for this not to take place?" she said. Source:cbsnews.com/

Obama leaves Norway, but bands play on

OSLO (AP) — The guest of honor was an ocean away, but the show went on. The royal purple box seat reserved for US President Barack Obama — the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner — remained empty on Friday, as artists worldwide took the stage at the annual concert in honor of the year's laureate. Breaking Nobel protocol, the American president left the Norwegian capital early Friday, blaming a busy schedule for cutting the planned three-day visit to just over 24 hours. Haitian-born musician Wyclef Jean stole the show shortly, with "Gunpowder," an anti-war anthem performed with Chinese classical pianist Lang Lang, who earlier played George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" at the Nobel awards ceremony. Jean also managed to achieve the seemingly impossible — getting Norway's Crown Prince and Princess to throw their hands in the air for his final song. Disco sensation Donna Summer, the show closer, also brought the crowd to its feet with a medley of hits from the 70s and 80s. Other artists included Malian blues duo Amadou & Mariam and American country music star Toby Keith. Keith spoke to journalists Friday alongside Nobel Concert hosts — movie star and rapper Will Smith and his wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith. Smith, whose Thursday interview with Obama during the president's stay in Oslo was to be shown at the concert Friday night, said he had no reservations about Obama's peace prize despite his status as an early first-term wartime president. Keith also defended Obama's decision when meeting journalists in Oslo. Speaking to his feelings about his laureateship, Obama said during his interview with the Smiths that "this is one of those events that happens in your life that I suspect you appreciate more in retrospect." The president's quick visit communicated a similar sentiment, reflecting a White House that saw little value in trumpeting an honor for peace just days after Obama announced he was sending more troops off to war in Afghanistan. Source:philstar.com/