France to answer ratings downgrade with reforms

PARIS (Reuters) - France said on Tuesday it would respond to a Moody's credit downgrade by pushing on with reforms but complained the ratings agency had overlooked steps already taken to revamp the euro zone's second-largest economy.


France lost its prized triple-A badge from the Standard & Poor's in January and so Monday's move by Moody's was not surprising but it underlined doubts about Socialist President Francois Hollande's ability to fix France's public finances.


The downgrade also highlighted the divergence with the top-rated regional powerhouse Germany whose finance minister called it a "small warning" to its most important euro zone partner.


Moody's said on Tuesday that it would assess the triple-A ratings of the euro zone's EFSF and ESM bailout funds in light of the French downgrade.


However, its one-notch rating cut to Aa1 with a negative outlook did not affect the perceived status of French bonds which, along with German debt, are seen as a safe haven from the crisis in southern Europe.


"Moody's raised concerns about France's capacity to reform and so it is up to us to show that this time we are going to carry out reforms," Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici, leading a government offensive to play down the move, told journalists.


"The rating change does not call into question either the economic fundamentals of our country, the efforts undertaken by the government or our creditworthiness."


The government is planning the toughest belt-tightening effort in 30 years in 2013 but must also try and halt a growth slow-down that has seen unemployment surge to 13-year highs.


Moody's said it kept a negative outlook on France due to structural challenges and a "sustained loss of competitiveness" in the country, where business leaders blame high labor charges for flagging exports. It also cited "sizable exposures" of its banks to weak, southern euro zone countries.


"The first driver ... is the risk to economic growth, and therefore to the government's finances, posed by the country's persistent structural economic challenges," Moody's said.


The downgrade sent the euro 0.30 percent lower to 1.2770 against the dollar late on Monday but the currency recovered some ground to trade at 1.2810 at 1230 GMT Tuesday.


The benchmark French 10-year government bond yield - which has been trading at historic lows and offering Hollande crucial access to cheap borrowing - was little changed at 2.12 percent versus 2.08 percent before the downgrade.


Deutsche Bank economist Gilles Moec said the fact the downgrade was largely priced-in did not take the pressure off Hollande to show he will pursue more reforms, with an overhaul of rigid hiring and firing rules seen as the most pressing.


"Public opinion in France - as well as the market ultimately - will expect a reaction from the executive," Moec said. "The market ... is giving France the benefit of the doubt, but a further clarification of the policy stance is becoming urgent."


NEGATIVE OUTLOOK


Moody's said it could downgrade France again if efforts to free up the rigid labor market and overhaul an economy where public spending accounts for 57 percent of output ran into trouble.


"We would downgrade the rating further in the event of an additional material deterioration in France's economic prospects or in a scenario in which there were difficulties in implementing the announced reforms," Moody's lead France analyst Dietmar Hornung told Reuters.


He said more big shocks from the euro zone debt crisis would also exert downward pressure on the rating.


The downgrade follows concerns raised by the IMF that France could be left behind as Italy and Spain reform at a faster pace.


But analysts see French bonds remaining resilient for now.


"The French debt market is highly liquid and remains a favored venue for international investors, particularly in a world where 'double-A' is becoming the norm among Western states," Barclays France director Franklin Pichard said.


Yet with Germany one of the few major economies to retain a triple-A rating, the move is likely to reinforce Berlin's role as the capital calling the shots in the 17-country euro zone.


Michael Grosse-Broemer, parliamentary whip of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling CDU party, told Reuters the downgrade gave fresh impulse to France to fulfill its reforms.


Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the move should not be overdramatized but it was a warning for everyone in Europe to live up their responsibilities.


With France's 2-trillion-euro economy teetering on the brink of recession, Hollande surprised many this month by granting 20 billion euros in annual tax relief to companies, equivalent to a 6 percent cut in labour costs, to spur competitiveness.


The government also plans 30 billion euros in budget savings next year to trim its deficit and has promised reforms next year to add flexibility to rigid labour laws.


"Certain criticisms are too strong or are too late. I would have preferred that the bold and unprecedented decisions on the crisis were better received," Moscovici said of Moody's.


He said it was unfair to flag concerns over French banks as they have cut exposure to troubled euro states such as Greece.


"I don't expect (the downgrade) to have an immediate knock-on impact today on access to and cost of funding," said Espirito Santo analyst Andrew Lim of any impact on the banking sector.


But he said France's exposure to Spain, Italy and peripheral Europe should be kept in mind.


As far as government borrowing goes, France has completed its issuance for 2012. Demand is strong from foreign buyers, who hold 55 percent of its long-term bonds, but the downgrade could be a trigger to bet on yields rising next year.


"Our view is the market is teeing itself up to short France in 2013. It's the trade everyone wants to get into," said Lyn Graham-Taylor at Rabobank in London.


(Additional reporting by Blaise Robinson, Alexandre Boksenbaum-Granier and Andreas Rinke; Writing by Mark John; editing by Anna Willard)


Read More..

Truce mediator Egypt sees imminent end to Gaza conflict

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Egypt's president predicted on Tuesday that Israel's Gaza offensive would end later in the day, Egyptian state media said, as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton headed to the region to try to calm the conflict.


"President Mohamed Mursi announced that the farce of Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip will end on Tuesday," the MENA news agency and state TV reported, quoting public remarks he made after the funeral of his sister.


Egypt, led by an Islamist government allied with Gaza's ruling Hamas movement and at peace with Israel, has been trying to broker a ceasefire in hostilities now in their seventh day.


MENA quoted Mursi as saying "the efforts to conclude a truce between the Palestinian and Israeli sides will produce positive results in the next few hours".


While efforts mounted to stop the fighting and avert a possible Israeli ground invasion of the densely populated Gaza Strip, Israel pressed on with air strikes and Palestinian rockets flashed across the border.


Jerusalem was targeted for the second time since Israel launched the air offensive with the declared aim of deterring Palestinian militants from carrying out cross-border attacks that have plagued its south for years.


The rocket, which fell harmlessly in the occupied West Bank, triggered warning sirens in the holy city about the time U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Jerusalem from talks in Cairo, where he had held discussions on a truce.


Israel's military on Tuesday targeted about 100 sites in Gaza, including ammunition stores and the Gaza headquarters of the National Islamic Bank. Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry said six Palestinians were killed.


Israeli police said more than 150 rockets were fired from Gaza by late afternoon, many of them intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome system. Ten people were wounded in Israel, the military and an ambulance service said.


Some 115 Palestinians have died in a week of fighting, the majority of them civilians, including 27 children, hospital officials said. Three Israelis died last week when a rocket from Gaza struck their house.


Israel's leaders weighed the benefits and risks of sending tanks and infantry into the Gaza Strip two months before an Israeli election, and indicated they would prefer a diplomatic path backed by world powers, including U.S. President Barack Obama, the European Union and Russia.


Clinton was going to the Middle East for talks in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Cairo. An Israeli source said she was expected to meet Netanyahu on Wednesday.


"Her visits will build on American engagement with regional leaders over the past days - including intensive engagement by President Obama with Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Mursi - to support de-escalation of violence and a durable outcome that ends the rocket attacks on Israeli cities and towns and restores a broader calm," a State Department official said.


In Cairo, Ban called for an immediate ceasefire and said an Israeli ground operation in Gaza would be a "dangerous escalation" that must be avoided.


He met in Cairo with Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby and Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil before travelling to Israel for discussions with Netanyahu. Ban planned to return to Egypt on Wednesday to see Mursi.


NEXT MOVES


Netanyahu and his top ministers debated their next moves in a meeting that lasted into the early hours of Tuesday.


"Before deciding on a ground invasion, the prime minister intends to exhaust the diplomatic move in order to see if a long-term ceasefire can be achieved," a senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said after the meeting.


Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said on Monday that Israel must halt what he described as its attack on the Gaza Strip and lift the blockade of the Palestinian territory in exchange for a truce.


In the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, Hamas executed six alleged collaborators, whom a security source quoted by the Hamas Aqsa radio "were caught red-handed" with "filming equipment to take footage of positions". The radio said they were shot.


A delegation of nine Arab ministers, led by the Egyptian foreign minister, visited Gaza in a further signal of heightened Arab solidarity with the Palestinians.


Fortified by the ascendancy of fellow Islamists in Egypt and elsewhere, and courted by Sunni Arab leaders in the Gulf keen to draw the Palestinian group away from old ties to Shi'ite Iran, Hamas has tested its room for maneuver, as well as longer-range rockets that have also reached the Tel Aviv metropolis.


Egypt, Gaza's other neighbor and the biggest Arab nation, has been a key player in efforts to end the most serious fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants since a three-week Israeli invasion of the enclave in the winter of 2008-9.


The ousting of U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak and the election of Mursi is part of a dramatic reshaping of the Middle East wrought by Arab uprisings and now affecting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.


Mursi, whose Muslim Brotherhood was mentor to the founders of Hamas, on Monday took a call from Obama, who told him Hamas must stop rocket fire into Israel - effectively endorsing Israel's stated aim in launching the offensive last week. Obama also said he regretted civilian deaths - which have been predominantly among the Palestinians.


Mursi has warned Netanyahu of serious consequences from an invasion of the kind that killed more than 1,400 people in Gaza four years ago. But he has been careful not to alienate Israel, with whom Egypt's former military rulers signed a peace treaty in 1979, or Washington, a major aid donor to Egypt.


Addressing troops training in southern Israel, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said: "Hamas will not disappear but the memory of this experience will remain with it for a very long time and this is what will restore deterrence."


But he said: "Quiet has not yet been achieved and so we are continuing (the offensive) ... there are also diplomatic contacts -- ignore that, you are here so that if the order for action must be given - you will act."


Hamas said four-year-old twin boys had died with their father when their house in the town of Beit Lahiya was struck from the air during the night. The children's mother was critically wounded, and neighbors said the occupants were not involved with militant groups.


Israel had no immediate comment on that attack. It says it takes extreme care to avoid civilians and accuses Hamas and other militant groups of deliberately placing Gaza's 1.7 million people in harm's way by placing rocket launchers among them.


Nonetheless, fighting Israel, whose right to exist Hamas refuses to recognize, is popular with many Palestinians and has kept the movement competitive with the secular Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who remains in the West Bank after losing Gaza to Hamas in a civil war five years ago.


"Hamas and the others, they're our sons and our brothers, we're fingers on the same hand," said 55-year-old Faraj al-Sawafir, whose home was blasted by Israeli forces. "They fight for us and are martyred, they take losses and we sacrifice too."


Along Israel's sandy, fenced-off border with the Gaza Strip, tanks, artillery and infantry massed in field encampments awaiting any orders to go in. Some 45,000 reserve troops have been called up since the offensive was launched.


Israel's shekel rose on Tuesday for a second straight session while Tel Aviv shares gained for a third day in a row on what dealers attributed to investor expectations that a ceasefire deal was imminent.


(Additional reporting by Marwa Awad in Cairo, Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Giles Elgood)


Read More..

N.Y. police officer says not guilty of plan to cook, eat women
















NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York City police officer pleaded not guilty on Monday to conspiring to kidnap, torture, cook and eat women.


Gilberto Valle, 28, of Forest Hills, Queens, was charged and arrested in October with conspiring to cross state lines to kidnap the women and with illegally accessing a federal database.













Prosecutors said some of the women were acquaintances of Valle but it was not clear if he knew or had met all of them. Valle, who an official said had no prior criminal record, was not charged with carrying out any of his suspected plans.


At a brief hearing Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Valle’s attorney, Julia Gatto, told the judge she would again seek to have her client freed on bail after two other judges previously denied her request.


Investigators uncovered a file on Valle’s computer containing the names and pictures of at least 100 women, and the addresses and physical descriptions of some of them, according to the criminal complaint. It said he had undertaken surveillance of some of the women at their places of employment and their homes.


Gatto argues that Valle, a 6-1/2 year NYPD veteran, was all talk and should be released on bail.


The charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.


The case is U.S. v. Gilberto Valle, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 12-cr-847.


(Reporting by Basil Katz; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News



Read More..

Robin Roberts: I'm Starting Life with a Clean Slate






TV News










11/20/2012 at 09:40 AM EST







Robin and Sally-Ann Roberts


Courtesy Robin Roberts


A recent visit to the hospital for a "tune-up" took an emotional toll, but Good Morning America host Robin Roberts says she has a lot to be thankful for as she continues to recover from a Sept. 20 bone marrow transplant.

"It's a journey that kind of zigzags, and there are complications and things like that, but I feel good. I feel stronger every day," she told her sister and donor, Sally-Ann Roberts, in a segment that aired on WWL-TV Eyewitness News in New Orleans Monday and on GMA Tuesday.

Since being diagnosed with a rare blood disorder, myelodysplastic syndrome, Roberts says the love and support from friends, family and fans is very much appreciated.

"I have felt the prayers. I have felt people lifting me up," she said. "I put no small measure on that as the reason that I'm doing as well as I am."

Although Roberts lost her mother, Lucimarian Tolliver Roberts, in August, she described what it has been like to face life without her.

"This is the first time that I have been through any traumatic experience without her physically being here, and it has weighed on me," Roberts told her sister, who asked if she believed their mother stayed alive to say goodbye and be sure her daughters would be okay.

"I do believe it was her way of making sure that all of her children could be taken care of," she continued. "She was there when I took my first breath and what an honor it was to be there when she took her last."

As Roberts reaches a new milestone on Friday – her 52nd birthday – she has a hopeful and inspiring outlook on life and the challenges it has dealt her.

"I look at it as a clean slate," she said. "How many people can say at this point in their lives that they get do-over, that they get a chance to start again? And that's how I feel. We're all a little bit stronger – a little bit stronger than we think we are. And that's all we need."

And besides that, she added, "My great doctor ... told me recently I'm going to get to go to early bird special. I'm going to get to go out [and] be around people!"

Read More..

EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

Read More..

Wall Street rises on budget talk optimism

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are coming to the end of their whirlwind international promotional tour for "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2," and while the on-screen couple have yet to confirm they've reunited off-screen, they appear to be enjoying each other's company. Following the final "Twilight" film's Germany premiere in Berlin on Friday, Robert, 26, and Kristen, 22, were photographed heading to the Berolina Bowling Lounge to relax after their completing their red carpet duties.
Read More..

Israel says prefers diplomacy over Gaza invasion option

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel bombed dozens of targets in Gaza on Monday and said that while it was prepared to step up its offensive by sending in troops, it preferred a diplomatic solution that would end Palestinian rocket fire from the enclave.


As international pressure mounted for a truce, mediator Egypt said a deal to end the fighting could be close.


Twelve Palestinian civilians and four fighters were killed in the air strikes, bringing the Gaza death toll since fighting began on Wednesday to 90, more than half of them non-combatants, local officials said. Three Israeli civilians have been killed.


After an overnight lull, militants in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip fired 45 rockets at southern Israel, causing no casualties, police said. One damaged a school, but it was closed at the time.


The deaths of 11 Palestinian civilians - nine from one family - in an air strike on Sunday - drew more international calls for an end to six days of hostilities and could test Western support for an offensive Israel billed as self-defense after years of cross-border rocket attacks.


Israel's military did not immediately comment on a report in the liberal Haaretz newspaper that it had mistakenly fired on the Dalu family home, where the dead spanned four generations, while trying to kill a Hamas rocketry chief.


Echoes of explosions in Gaza mixed with cries of grief and defiant chants of "God is greatest" at the funeral of the four children and five women killed in the attack that flattened the three-storey house. Their bodies were wrapped in Palestinian and Hamas flags and thousands turned out to mourn them.


United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was due to arrive in Cairo to weigh in on ceasefire efforts led by Egypt, which borders both Israel and Gaza and whose Muslim Brotherhood-rooted government has been hosting leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, a smaller armed faction in the Palestinian enclave.


Israeli media said a delegation from Israel had also been to Cairo for the truce talks. A spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government declined comment on the matter.


"Israel is prepared and has taken steps, and is ready for a ground incursion which will deal severely with the Hamas military machine," a senior official close to Netanyahu told Reuters.


But he added: "We would prefer to see a diplomatic solution that would guarantee the peace for Israel's population in the south. If that is possible, then a ground operation would no longer be required. If diplomacy fails, we may well have no alternative but to send in ground forces."


The official's language echoed that of U.S. President Barack Obama, who said on Sunday it would be "preferable" to avoid a move into Gaza. Obama also said Israel had a right to self-defense and no country would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens.


Egyptian negotiators could be close to achieving a deal between Israel and the Palestinians to stop the fighting could be close, the Egyptian prime minister said.


"I think we are close, but the nature of this kind of negotiation, (means) it is very difficult to predict," Hisham Kandil said in an interview in Cairo for the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit.


Egypt's foreign minister is expected to visit Gaza on Tuesday with a delegation of Arab ministers to express solidarity with the Palestinians.


In scenes recalling Israel's 2008-2009 winter invasion of Gaza, tanks, artillery and infantry have massed in field encampments along the sandy, fenced-off Gaza border and military convoys moved on roads in the area.


Israel has also authorized the call-up of 75,000 military reservists, so far mobilizing around half that number.


WORLD CONCERN


The Gaza fighting has stoked the worries of world powers watching an already combustible region.


In the absence of any prospect of permanent peace between Israel and Hamas and other Islamist factions, mediated deals for each to hold fire unilaterally have been the only formula for stemming bloodshed in the past. But both sides now placed the onus on the other.


Izzat Risheq, aide to Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal, wrote on Facebook that Hamas would enter a truce only after Israel "stops its aggression, ends its policy of targeted assassinations and lifts the blockade of Gaza".


Listing Israel's terms, Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon wrote on Twitter: "If there is quiet in the south and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel's citizens, nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack."


Yaalon also said Israel wanted an end to Gaza guerrilla activity in the neighboring Egyptian Sinai, a desert peninsula where lawlessness has spread during Cairo's political crises.


Israel bombed some 80 sites in Gaza overnight, the military said, adding in a statement that targets included "underground rocket launching sites, terror tunnels and training bases" as well as "buildings owned by senior terrorist operatives".


Netanyahu has said he had assured world leaders that Israel was doing its utmost to avoid causing civilian casualties in Gaza. At least 22 of the Gaza fatalities have been children, medical officials said.


Before leaving for Cairo, Ban urged Israel and the Palestinians to cooperate with all Egyptian-led efforts to reach an immediate ceasefire.


But a big rocket strike might be enough for Netanyahu to give a green light for a Gaza invasion, despite the political risks of heavy casualties before a January election he is favored to win.


Although 84 percent of Israelis supported the current Gaza assault, according to a Haaretz poll, only 30 percent wanted an invasion. Nineteen percent wanted their government to work on securing a truce soon.


Israel's declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and force Hamas to stop rocket fire that has bedevilled Israeli border towns for years.


The rockets now have greater range, becoming a strategic weapon for Gaza's otherwise massively outgunned militants. Several projectiles have targeted Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. None hit the two cities and some of the rockets were shot down by Israel's Iron Dome interceptor system.


As a precaution against the rocket interceptions endangering nearby Ben-Gurion International Airport, civil aviation authorities said on Monday new flight paths were being used.


There was no indication takeoffs and landings at Ben-Gurion had been affected.


Hamas and other groups in Gaza are sworn enemies of the Jewish state which they refuse to recognize and seek to eradicate, claiming all Israeli territory as rightfully theirs.


Hamas won legislative elections in the Palestinian Territories in 2006 but a year later, after the collapse of a unity government under President Mahmoud Abbas the Islamist group seized control of Gaza in a brief and bloody civil war with forces loyal to Abbas.


Read More..

Wii U Launch Day: Everything You Need to Know
















For Nintendo fans, the big day has arrived. Nintendo‘s newest console, the Wii U, began selling at midnight on Sunday morning across the United States.


[More from Mashable: Meet the Super Fan Who Waited in Line for a Month for a Wii U [VIDEO]]













The Wii U boasts high definition graphics and an innovative, new tablet controller called the GamePad. The GamePad can act as a second screen, either mirroring or displaying asynchronous content from the console. The GamePad can also function without the television even turned on.


Nintendo hosted a launch event at its Nintendo World store in Rockefeller Center in New York on Saturday night. Some fans had been lined up for a week or longer to pick up a console, and as the countdown ticked down to midnight, the line wrapped around the building. The event was attended by Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Amie, who addressed the crowd, as well as other Nintendo executives.


[More from Mashable: Marijuana Vending Machine Maker’s Stock Skyrockets and Everybody Freaks Out]


But demand for the console may not reach the insatiable levels of the 2006′s Wii launch, which sold out in stores across the country preceding the holidays. At 11:30 a.m., a Nintendo World employee said they still had consoles in stock, though there was a line of 30 people outside. Mashable was able to pick up a Wii U in a Brooklyn Target with no lines at 9:30 a.m.


We collected peoples’ photos and tweets of their experiences waiting in line across the country with Storify.



We want to hear your stories. Are you picking up a Wii U today? Drop a note in the comments or tweet a picture with the hashtag #wiiulines.


Assassin’s Creed III


A version of the latest chapter in the Assassin’s Creed saga, a week after it was released on other console.


Click here to view this gallery.


This story originally published on Mashable here.


Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News



Read More..

RuPaul's Drag Race Season 5 Contestants Announced















11/19/2012 at 09:30 AM EST



Start your engines ... RuPaul's Drag Race is back!

Fresh on the heels of RuPaul's All Stars Drag Race, the fifth season ofRuPaul's Drag Race is slated to premiere in January 2013.

Not only will 14 contestants from around the world compete for the coveted title of America's Next Drag Superstar, there's also $100,000 cash at stake.

"As we start our fifth season, I'm thrilled to announce that Britney Spears, Demi Lovato, Mariah Carey, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban will not be joining us as full time judges," RuPaul said in a statement. "Don't get me wrong, I love them all. But we're gonna keep it all hood up in here. Because that's what makes RuPaul's Drag Race the best damn show on TV."

The season five contestants are Alaska, Alyssa Edwards, Coco Montrese, Detox, Honey Mahogany, Ivy Winters, Jade Jolie, Jinkx Monsoon, Lineysha Sparx, Monica Beverly Hillz, Penny Tration, Roxxxy Andrews, Serena ChaCha and Vivienne Pinay.

Get a sneak peek of the new queens below – and try not to gag on all the eleganza.


Read More..

EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

Read More..