Health officials warn of spiraling HIV in Athens

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Health officials warn that the Greek capital is seeing an alarming increase in new HIV infections, particularly among intravenous drug users, as the country struggles through a protracted financial crisis in which funding has been slashed for health care and drug treatment programs.
Officials said while there were about 10-14 new HIV infections per year among Athens drug users from 2008 to 2010, that number shot up to 206 new cases last year and 487 new cases by October this year — a 35-fold increase.
Epidemiology and preventive medicine professor Angelos Hatzakis described the situation as a "big and rapidly developing epidemic in Athens."
Marc Sprenger, director of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, said the situation must be dealt with quickly to prevent it from spiraling further.

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J&J says it won't enforce AIDS drug patent in Africa

LONDON (Reuters) - Generic manufacturers are to be given a free rein to make cheap copies of Johnson & Johnson's HIV/AIDS drug Prezista for sale in Africa and other poor countries.
U.S. healthcare group J&J said on Thursday it would not enforce patents, provided generic firms made high-quality versions of the drug - known generically as darunavir - for sub-Saharan Africa and Least Developed Countries.
Prezista is a relatively new drug used when patients develop resistance to older antiretrovirals. The need for it was expected to grow rapidly as more patients in Africa stop responding to existing therapies.
Pharmaceuticals head Paul Stoffels said he expected Indian drugmakers, in particular, to take advantage of the patent move, adding that competition among different companies should drive prices down further.
J&J has an existing deal with South African group Aspen Pharmacare, which makes Prezista at a discounted price of $2.22 per day for Africa - a fraction of the western market price.
Its decision to act unilaterally on Prezista patents will, however, disappoint those calling for J&J to share intellectual property rights in the new Medicines Patent Pool, which aims to streamline generic production by pooling patents.
"We have chosen to go direct ... we think that is the best way," Stoffels said in an interview.
"We want to reserve the right to reinforce patents if people are not providing the right quality of product, for example by bringing products to market that under-dose."
International drugmakers are under growing pressure to make medicines more affordable in poor countries, after being attacked for not doing enough in the past.
J&J ranked second in a new analysis of how companies are performing in providing access to medicines - an improvement of seven places from two years earlier, following its purchase of Crucell, which makes vaccines for the developing world.

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Oracle 2Q earnings rise 18 pct as tech spending up

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Oracle says its latest quarterly earnings rose 18 percent as companies splurged on more software and other technology toward the end of the year.
The results announced Tuesday are an improvement from Oracle's previous quarter, when the company's revenue dipped slightly from a year earlier.
The latest quarter spanned September through November. That makes Oracle the first technology bellwether to provide insights into corporate spending since the Nov. 6 re-election of President Obama and negotiations to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff began to heat up.
Oracle Corp. earned $2.6 billion, or 53 cents per share, in its fiscal second quarter. That compares with net income of $2.2 billion, or 43 cents per share, last year.
Revenue increased 3 percent to $9.1 billion.
Oracle is based in Redwood Shores, Calif.

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Oracle sees third-quarter profit of 64 to 68 cents per share

BOSTON (Reuters) - Oracle Corp, the world's No. 3 software maker, said it expects to report non-GAAP earnings per share of 64 cents to 68 cents in its fiscal third quarter.
Oracle forecast that third-quarter new software sales and cloud subscriptions sales will rise 3 percent to 13 percent from a year earlier.
The company said its sees third-quarter hardware products sales flat to down 10 percent from a year ago.
Chief Executive Larry Ellison said he expects hardware systems revenue to start growing from the fiscal fourth quarter.
Oracle President Mark Hurd said that Oracle is gaining share against SAP in Europe.

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Oracle beats outlook, shrugs off fiscal debate

BOSTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Technology giant Oracle Corp said software sales growth will stay strong into the new year despite fears that there could be big tax hikes and U.S. government spending cuts that could cause a slump in spending by customers.
Shares of the world's No. 3 software maker rose 1.3 percent after it reported fiscal second-quarter revenue and earnings that surpassed Wall Street forecasts.
Oracle President Safra Catz told investors that businesses were still looking to spend money already allocated to 2012 technology budgets.
"Folks want to close deals," she told analysts on a conference call following the earnings release on Tuesday. There has been "no negative impact on pricing. Pricing remains very good for us."
Oracle said software sales would grow 3 to 13 percent this quarter, which runs through February. It expects fiscal third-quarter hardware products sales to be flat to down 10 percent from a year ago.
The company's software and hardware forecasts were roughly in line with Wall Street expectations, according to FBR Markets analyst Daniel Ives.
Oracle reported that software sales and cloud software subscriptions rose 17 percent from a year earlier to $2.4 billion in its fiscal second quarter ended November 30.
It had forecast that new software sales would climb 5 to 15 percent from a year earlier, when it last reported earnings on September 20.
"I would call it an early Christmas present," Ives said. "It's a positive sign for the overall technology sector."
Investors pay close attention to new software sales because they generate high-margin, long-term maintenance contracts and are an important gauge of the company's future profits.
Oracle posted a second-quarter profit, excluding items, of 64 cents per share, beating the average analyst forecast of 61 cents according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Jefferies & Co analyst Ross MacMillan said Oracle's results are encouraging for other makers of business software, many of which end their quarter on December 31.
OFF A CLIFF
Some investors have worried that corporations would postpone spending on technology projects because of uncertainty over the year-end deadline for Congress and U.S. President Barack Obama to reach a compromise to thwart an automatic rise in tax rates and government spending cuts.
Failing to reach a deal, economists say, could lead to another U.S. recession. Catz said Oracle's customers are still spending on software.
"What's going on in Washington - I don't know who it's necessarily influencing today. But I can tell you, our customers have been spending money with us even here in December."
On Tuesday, Oracle forecast earnings per share in the current fiscal third quarter of 64 to 68 cents, excluding items. That was about level with an average forecast for 66 cents.
"It tells you that there's still money being spent by enterprises on software. It's not like the world has ground to a halt," MacMillan said.
The picture was not so bright for Oracle's troubled hardware division, which it acquired with its $5.6 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems in January 2010. The division's revenue has fallen every quarter since it closed that deal.
Hardware systems product sales fell 23 percent from a year earlier to $734 million. Oracle had forecast that hardware sales would drop between 8 and 18 percent.
Chief Executive Larry Ellison told analysts he expected hardware systems revenue to start growing in the fiscal fourth quarter which begins March 1.
Oracle shares rose to $33.30 in extended trade after closing at $32.88 on Nasdaq.

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BofA CEO: Fed wants bank to show consistent earnings

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp needs to show the U.S. Federal Reserve it can produce consistent earnings as part of the annual process to gain permission to return more capital to shareholders, CEO Brian Moynihan said in an interview.
The second-largest U.S. bank is turning a profit in most of its main businesses, but it inherited costly legal problems when it acquired companies during the financial crisis, including subprime mortgage lender Countrywide Financial.
In the third quarter, Bank of America reported only a nominal profit after reaching a $2.4 billion settlement with investors to resolve claims it hid crucial information from shareholders when it bought investment bank Merrill Lynch & Co.
Moynihan declined to comment on whether the bank's capital plan, which is due to the Fed by January 7, will include any proposed share buybacks or increases in dividends. Moynihan suffered a major embarrassment in 2011 when the Fed rejected the bank's request to increase its quarterly dividend, which has been stuck at just one penny per share since the financial crisis.
The Fed has been evaluating capital plans as part of its supervision of bank holding companies and under provisions in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. It is unclear whether the Fed would approve any request for an increased dividend or share buybacks next year. A Fed spokesperson declined to comment.
"The element that is sort of unique to us is the predictability of the earnings stream," Moynihan said in an interview in his Charlotte, North Carolina, office. "We are working to get through that."
Other banks have demonstrated their ability to earn money more consistently. JPMorgan Chase & Co's quarterly profit, for example, hasn't fallen below $3.7 billion in the past year, even as it has taken losses on disastrous credit derivative trades.
Investors and analysts are hopeful that Bank of America's legal problems will die down soon. Its stock price has more than doubled this year, partly on expectations that the bank will increase its dividend and buy back more stock after the Federal Reserve reviews its capital plans this spring.
Analysts at Atlantic Equities on Tuesday said they expect Bank of America to buy back $4 billion of its own shares in 2013 and $10 billion in 2014, which would be its first buybacks since 2007.
The bank has "made a lot of progress" on legal issues, Moynihan said, but he acknowledged that the company is still working through lawsuits and investor demands to buy back soured mortgages the bank sold off during the housing boom.
In recent weeks, the bank's dispute with insurer MBIA Inc over mortgage-related claims has heated up, with Bank of America filing a new lawsuit last week against the insurer. The legal tussle with MBIA has dragged on, even as Bank of America has worked out settlements with other insurers of mortgage-backed securities issued by Countrywide.
Moynihan said the bank will settle the MBIA dispute if it can reach an agreement that is reasonable for shareholders but otherwise it is ready to litigate the matter.
The bank's shares closed Tuesday at $11.35, up 3.2 percent for the day. The shares are the best performer in the Dow Jones industrial average this year, after falling the most in 2011.
HEALING
In an effort to improve earnings, Moynihan is aiming to cut costs by $8 billion annually by mid-2015 through a program called Project New BAC, including 30,000 layoffs that have been under way since September 2011. Bank of America had noninterest expenses of $76.5 billion in 2011.
In addition, Bank of America expects to eventually reduce costs in its unit that serves delinquent mortgage customers to about $500 million per quarter from about $3.4 billion in the third quarter. If delinquent mortgages continue to fall, that saving should be achieved in 2015, if not sooner, Moynihan said.

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Top UBS shareholder pins rebound hopes on private wealth

LONDON (Reuters) - UBS's wealth management business will help it bounce back from a $1.5 billion rap for rigging interest rates, one of its largest investors said, although fears of costly civil lawsuits could cast a pall over its shares for some time.
Paras Anand, European equities head at Fidelity Worldwide Investment, said legal action sparked by the Libor scandal posed an unpredictable threat to the bank's near-term earnings, even if its core private banking franchise escaped permanent harm.
"The big unknown factor is the civil litigation that could follow on as a result of this...That is one thing at the back of our minds that we have to be cognizant of," Anand said in an interview with Reuters.
"The issue for shareholders is the challenge of pricing that risk in. The potential costs are too unquantifiable and indeed, it's unclear as to whether they will actually manifest or not."
Switzerland's largest bank was hit with the fine on Wednesday after admitting to fraud, paying bribes to brokers and "pervasive" manipulation of global benchmark interest rates by dozens of its staff.
UBS shares were trading 1.3 percent higher at 9:01 a.m. ET, as investors looked forward to the end of a scandal-filled chapter in the bank's history and a renewed focus on managing cash on behalf of rich clients, rather than so-called 'casino' investment banking.
"There's clearly been a backlash against big faceless financial entities but a private bank has big personal relationships with its customers ... These kinds of institutions are surprisingly resilient," Anand said.
"We have seen some awful scandals in businesses much weaker than UBS and they manage to survive," he added.
Fidelity owns around 45 million shares in UBS, equivalent to around 1.2 percent of the bank, and is its fifth largest institutional owner excluding sovereign wealth funds, according to Thomson Reuters data.

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Facebook's SnapChat-Style Sexting App Is Called Poke (Seriously)

Oh, well would you look at Facebook, trying to make a Christmas funny with its SnapChat copycat app. It's called Poke! Get it? Because SnapChat is what the kids are all using for their sexting these days, apparently, and Poke — you know, that once kinda flirty Facebook future that's now pretty much useless — can kind of do the same thing, and it kind of sounds like some bad sexual pun, too! Funny, Facebook, very funny, and way to admit the dirty little truth behind "poking" that we knew all along.
RELATED: Facebook to Launch Its Own SnapChat as Social-Network Clone Wars Live on
Oh, wait. They're serious? Oh, yeah: Friday afternoon Facebook released Poke, its rumored iPhone app for the incredible vanishing half-message "that makes it fun and easy to say hello to friends wherever you are." But don't get too heavy on the old-school "Poke" comparisons, because the new app can actually send regular messages, photos, or videos, too — but only for short periods of time, because that is apparently what the kids like doing these days, if SnapChat's huge success is any indication. There's more of a time-bomb component to Poke, though: users can choose how long someone sees a poke before it ceases to exist forever — so you could sext poke all day long, because that, too, is apparently what the kids like doing these days, if SnapChat's huge, smashing, sexy success is any indication.
RELATED: The Life and Philosophy of Mark Zuckerberg
Why would anyone use Poke over SnapChat? Well, the Facebook app itself has a much smoother interface than SnapChat, and you can report people behaving badly, and everyone's already on Facebook, right? Maybe this is the breaking point Justin Bieber could never hit, when something sexy goes from the tween set to actual human beings. We'll let you know when Poke shows up in our iPhone's App Store; for now we're not entirely sure if this is just some bad joke.

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Facebook releases ‘Poke’ for the iPhone to compete with Snapchat

Facebook (FB) on Friday released a new free application for the iPhone called Poke that competes directly with Snapchat and allows users to send a messages, photos or videos that will self-destruct after a set time. With Poke you can send messages to individual friends or groups that are set to expire after one, three, five or ten seconds. The app is simple to use and only requires you to hold down a finger on a thread to activate the timer for a specific message. It was previously reported that an Android version would be released too, however Facebook did not reveal any such plans at this time. Poke is set to be available on the App Store later today.

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Facebook’s new easier-to-manage ‘Privacy Shortcuts’ rolling out globally

Managing Facebook (FB) privacy settings can be a daunting nightmare. Facebook’s new “Privacy Shortcuts” is designed to make sharing items as transparent as possible with always-visible privacy button on the top toolbar. The update also brings “an easier-to-use Activity Log, and a new Request and Removal tool for managing multiple photos you’re tagged in.” The new Facebook privacy controls are rolling out globally starting on Friday and will arrive for all users by the end of the year. Facebook Privacy Shortcuts

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