The $60 Billion Federal Bailout Named Sandy

In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, federal lawmakers from both parties were quick to heap words of compassion upon the storm victims. Now those politicians are debating how much taxpayer money to put behind their rhetoric. The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund barely adds up to $ 6 billion. So the Senate and the White House are each proposing to give New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut a combined $ 60.4 billion in emergency funding for disaster aid, about $ 20 billion less than what the states have requested.

The money in the Senate’s bill, being debated this week, would pay for everything from FEMA trailers to reconstruction of U.S. Coast Guard facilities. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs would get $ 236 million to renovate the flood-damaged Manhattan Medical Center, and another $ 1 million to fix up three national cemeteries in New York and New Jersey. There’s $ 412 million for restoring coastal ecosystems and a pot of money to help disaster victims pay for child care. People with damaged homes or businesses would be able to apply for $ 812 million in loans for rebuilding their properties. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) estimates that Sandy damaged or destroyed 305,000 homes and that 270,000 small businesses were shuttered in New York alone.

In some cases, the Senate wants to be a lot more generous than the Obama administration. Senate Democrats would give $ 336 million to Amtrak. Schumer says that’s how much the perennially cash-strapped railway needs to repair damage wrought by Sandy. It’s 10 times as much as the White House is requesting. For road and bridge repairs, the amount of money the Senate wants to set aside is three times the White House’s ask.

Some conservative groups are crying pork. They say the federal government risks a repeat of what happened after Hurricane Katrina, when public funds fell into the wrong hands. President Obama’s aid request is an “act of willful fiscal negligence,” reads a post on the website of Heritage Action for America. “Much of the funding goes toward superfluous programs that have no direct relation to Hurricane Sandy.” According to the group, the majority of the emergency funds being requested aren’t going to be spent until 2014.

While there’s certainly an opportunity for waste and abuse in an aid package as big as this one, it’s worth noting that not all the taxpayer money would be spent just to put things back the way they were before disaster struck—which is actually the standard under current rules for receiving FEMA funding. Democrats want to spend billions of dollars upgrading infrastructure so it can withstand a future superstorm. The Senate proposes $ 3.5 billion, an amount disaster experts say is a fraction of what it would take to hurricane-proof a large metropolitan area. The debate over these particular funds could be the most difficult for lawmakers, and its outcome the most lasting.

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State Department security chief leaves post over Benghazi

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday its security chief had resigned from his post and three other officials had been relieved of their duties following a scathing official inquiry into the September 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi.

Eric Boswell has resigned effective immediately as assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a terse statement. A second official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Boswell had not left the department entirely and remained a career official.

Nuland said that Boswell, and the three other officials, had all been put on administrative leave “pending further action.”

An official panel that investigated the incident concluded that the Benghazi mission was completely unprepared to deal with the attack, which killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

The unclassified version of the report, which was released on Tuesday, cited “leadership and management” deficiencies, poor coordination among officials and “real confusion” in Washington and in the field over who had the authority to make decisions on policy and security concerns.

“The ARB identified the performance of four officials, three in the Bureau of the Diplomatic Security and one in the Bureau of (Near Eastern) Affairs,” Nuland said in her statement, referring to the panel known as an Accountability Review Board.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accepted Boswell’s decision to resign effective immediately, the spokeswoman said.

Earlier, a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Boswell, one of his deputies, Charlene Lamb, and a third unnamed official has been asked to resign. The Associated Press first reported that three officials had resigned.

PANEL STOPS SHORT OF BLAMING CLINTON

The Benghazi incident appeared likely to tarnish Clinton’s four-year tenure as secretary of state but the report did not fault her specifically and the officials who led the review stopped short of blaming her.

“We did conclude that certain State Department bureau-level senior officials in critical positions of authority and responsibility in Washington demonstrated a lack of leadership and management ability appropriate for senior ranks,” retired Admiral Michael Mullen, one of the leaders of the inquiry, told reporters on Wednesday.

The panel’s chair, retired Ambassador Thomas Pickering, said it had determined that responsibility for security shortcomings in Benghazi belonged at levels lower than Clinton’s office.

“We fixed (responsibility) at the assistant secretary level, which is, in our view, the appropriate place to look for where the decision-making in fact takes place, where – if you like – the rubber hits the road,” Pickering said after closed-door meetings with congressional committees.

The panel’s report and the comments by its two lead authors suggested that Clinton, who accepted responsibility for the incident in a television interview about a month after the Benghazi attack, would not be held personally culpable.

Pickering and Mullen spoke to the media after briefing members of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee behind closed doors on classified elements of their report.

Clinton had been expected to appear at an open hearing on Benghazi on Thursday, but is recuperating after suffering a concussion, dehydration and a stomach bug last week. She will instead be represented by her two top deputies.

Clinton, who intends to step down in January, said in a letter accompanying the review that she would adopt all of its recommendations, which include stepping up security staffing and requesting more money to fortify U.S. facilities.

The National Defense Authorization Act for 2013, which is expected to go to Congress for final approval this week, includes a measure directing the Pentagon to increase the Marine Corps presence at diplomatic facilities by up to 1,000 Marines.

Some Capitol Hill Republicans who had criticized the Obama administration’s handling of the Benghazi attacks said they were impressed by the report.

“It was very thorough,” said Senator Johnny Isakson. Senator John Barrasso said: “It was very, very critical of major failures at the State Department at very high levels.” Both spoke after the closed-door briefing.

Others, however, took a harsher line and called for Clinton to testify as soon as she is able.

“The report makes clear the massive failure of the State Department at all levels, including senior leadership, to take action to protect our government employees abroad,” Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

Senator Bob Corker, who will be the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when the new Congress is seated early next year, said Clinton should testify about Benghazi before her replacement is confirmed by the Senate.

Republicans have focused much of their firepower on U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who appeared on TV talk shows after the attack and suggested it was the result of a spontaneous protest rather than a premeditated attack.

The report concluded that there was no such protest.

Rice, widely seen as President Barack Obama’s top pick to succeed Clinton, withdrew her name from consideration last week.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Christopher Wilson)

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Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy welcome a baby boy

NEW YORK (AP) — Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy‘s “Homeland” just got bigger.

Danes’ rep confirms the couple welcomed a baby boy named Cyrus Michael Christopher.

People.com first reported Monday’s birth.

It’s the first child for 33-year old Danes and 37-year-old Dancy. They were married in 2009.

There’s no word yet whether the new mom will attend the Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 13. She’s nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series for her work on Showtime’s “Homeland.”

Up next, Dancy stars in NBC’s “Hannibal,” an adaptation of Thomas Harris’ novel “Red Dragon.”

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Google to sell part of Motorola for $2.35 billion

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google is selling Motorola Mobility‘s TV set-top business for $ 2.35 billion, lightening the load that the Internet search leader took on earlier this year when it completed the biggest acquisition in its history.

The cash-and-stock deal announced late Wednesday will turn over Motorola‘s set-top division to Arris Group Inc., a relatively small provider of high-speed Internet equipment that is looking to become a bigger player in the delivery of video. Investors applauded the move, driving up Arris‘ stock by nearly 17 percent.

Google‘s decision to jettison the set-top boxes comes seven months after the Mountain View, Calif., company took control of Motorola Mobility Holdings in a $ 12.4 billion purchase.

The set-top boxes were never a big allure for Google, although the company is interested in finding ways to pipe its service on to TVs so it can sell more advertising.

Google prized Motorola for its portfolio of more than 17,000 mobile patents. Those form an arsenal that it can use in a fierce battle that has broken out over intellectual property as smartphones and tablet computers have emerged as hot commodities in recent years.

Motorola also makes smartphones and tablets, a manufacturing business that Google will retain, despite lingering concerns on Wall Street about the hardware shrinking Google‘s profit margins and possibly alienating other device makers that use the company’s Android software.

Besides not being a natural fit for Google, Motorola‘s set-top box also has become a potentially expensive liability. Digital video recorder pioneer TiVo Inc. is seeking billions of dollars in damages in a lawsuit alleging that Motorola‘s boxes infringed on its patents. Those claims are scheduled to go to trial next year in federal court in Texas.

Although they declined to provide specifics, Arris Group executives told analysts in a Wednesday conference call that Google still must cover most of the bill for any damages or settlement that TiVo might win.

TiVo already has negotiated about $ 1 billion in combined settlements in other patent-infringement cases it has brought against other companies, including Dish Network Corp., AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications.

The proposed sale of Motorola‘s set-top division calls for Google to receive $ 2.05 billion in cash and $ 300 million worth of Arris stock. If the deal wins regulatory approval, Arris Group expects to take over the division before the end of June.

Google will also pare its expenses, something likely to please investors concerned about Motorola being a drag on the company’s earnings. Arris said about 7,000 people work in Motorola‘s set-top division. Google ended September with about 53,500 employees, including 17,400 who worked on the Motorola side of its operations. More than 20,000 people worked at Motorola Mobility when Google became the owner in late May, but the payroll was slashed as part of an effort to pare the losses that have been piling up within Motorola as its once popular cellphones lost market share to Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics.

But Motorola‘s set-top business had been making money, according to Google, though the company didn’t say how much.

In the past year ending in September, Motorola‘s set-top operations generated $ 3.4 billion in revenue. That makes it twice as big as Arris Group, whose revenue totaled $ 1.3 billion during the same period. Arris Group, which is based Suwanee, Ga., had earned $ 39 million through the nine months of last year after suffering a loss of nearly $ 13 million for all of 2011.

“This represents a great leap forward for Arris,” CEO Bob Stanzione said during Wednesday’s conference call.

Arris’ stock surged $ 2.46 to $ 17 in extended trading Wednesday while Google‘s stock dipped $ 2.61 to $ 717.50.

The other half of the old Motorola Inc., Motorola Solutions Inc., remains an independent company. Based in Schaumburg, Ill., it sells communications equipment to government and corporate customers.

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Celebrity Dentist and Best Seller Author Dr. Emily Letran, has just been Nationally Featured in CBS Money Watch, The LA Daily News, and The San Francisco Chronicle

Celebrity Dentist and Businesswoman Dr. Emily Letran, has just been nationally featured for her excellence in dentistry and philanthropic community efforts in Southern California.

Monrovia, CA (PRWEB) December 20, 2012

Celebrity Dentist Emily Letran, is a sought after family and cosmetic dentists in Southern California, who has just been nationally featured in CBS Money Watch, The Los Angeles Daily News, and The San Francisco Chronicle. “Dr. Emily.” as her patients affectionately refer to her, is also a best selling co-author of the book titled “Out Front: Business Building Strategies from Frontline Entrepreneurs.”

Out Front: Business Building Strategies from Frontline Entrepreneurs feature the country’s foremost business experts and thought leaders revealing their top secret break-through action plans. In it, readers will learn how to market their business in new innovative ways that will deliver revolutionary results. Most importantly, readers will find out how to put themselves “Out Front” – and make sure they stay there. As a dedicated patient advocate and champion for preserving the “human touch” in the dental healthcare profession, Celebrity Dentist Emily Letran was asked to contribute a touching story called “Priceless Smiles.” It shows how discovering a deeper purpose for your business can unite your team and create lifetime fans.

On the day of release, Out Front, reached best-seller status in five Amazon.com categories – The book reached best-seller status in the Direct Marketing, Environmental Economics, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, and Small Business & Entrepreneurship categories.

Dr. Emily Letran is a family and cosmetic dentist who owns three multi-specialty group practices in Southern California. She received her Bachelor of Science in Biology from UC Riverside (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa). She is a graduate of UCLA School of Dentistry (Dean’s Apollonian Scholarship) and received her Master of Science in Oral Biology from UCLA at the same time. After graduation she participated in the General Practice Residency at Loma Linda VA Medical Center in Loma Linda, California. and a mini-residency at Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center in Downey, California., where she attained additional training in treating geriatric and medically compromised patients.

As a dedicated contributor to her community, Dr. Letran annually provides over $ 27,000 in free dental services to those in need through her Free Day of Dentistry events, and most recently announced her support of The HOME Foundation‘s 2013 Dream Home Giveaway.

About Emily Letran:

As a mother of three, Dr. Letran creatively balances work, family life, after-school life and her personal life as a growing entrepreneur. She continuously takes courses in clinical dentistry, practice management and marketing, striving to improve her skills to better serve patients. Her favorite activities include reading, writing, and “hanging out” with her three children – whether playing tennis, watching Netflix or window-shopping at the mall.

For Dentist Emily Letran, sees it an honor and privilege to be part of her patients’ lives. As she watches kids growing up, grandparents getting old, the passing of spouses, the courage of the people left behind, individuals going through tough times like job loss or marital separation, she is reminded that the most important thing in life are the relationships we build with other human beings. Dr. Emily is proud to be a part of these relationships with her dental patients.

Dentist Emily Letran’s has the unique ability to connected with her patients and calm the occasional extra nervous or anxious visitor. “We realize that even though dental care has come a long way in terms of patient comfort, there are still those with concerns and fears. Dental care should not be an unpleasant experience so we provide a full array of options for those patients. We offer several techniques to help you relax so please ask us about the different methods we offer,” says Dr. Emily.

Dr. Emily Letran’s dental practice has primarily grown from patient referrals. “Because our patients feel genuinely cared for, they often refer their friends and loved ones. We are proud of the confidence our patients have placed in us, and we don’t take that responsibility lightly,” says Dr. Emily. Those who are looking for a new dentist can be confident in the level of care Dr. Emily and her staff will provide. To see Dr. Emily’s happy and satisfied patient testimonial videos, visit here website http://www.CosmeticDentistMonrovia.com/about-our-office/patient-testimonials/ , or one of her three convenient locations:

Foothill Dental Center

837 W Foothill Blvd

Monrovia CA 91016

626-305-5722

http://www.CosmeticDentistMonrovia.com

Mountain View Dental Group

4639 North Peck Road

El Monte CA 91732

626-444-9281

http://www.MyElMonteDentist.com

Universal Family Dental Practice

10012 Garvey Avenue

El Monte, CA 91733

626-433-1300

http://www.MyElMonteDentist.com

Dr. Emily Letran

Letran (at) EmilyLetranDDS (dot) com

626.305.5722

“We are Proud to Support The HOME Foundation:

About The HOME Foundation:

The Helping Others Means Everything Foundation, or The HOME Foundation, is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping our Family of Charities. Frankie Verdugo, President of The HOME Foundation, wants to help as many worthy charities as possible as they struggle during these tough economic times. Frankie Verdugo helps raise funds through luxury dream home raffles, home giveaways, prizes, and high profile celebrity events in Hollywood… “Our mission is to help charities reach their fundraising goals and to bring awareness to their praiseworthy causes.” Please visit our 2013 Dream Home Raffle Giveaway on http://www.facebook.com/HOMEFoundationRaffle.

Emily Letran
Dental Offices of Dr. Emily Letran
626.305.5722
Email Information

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After Ghana vote, investors turn to economy

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – A closely fought but peaceful election in Ghana this month has burnished the international image of the west African oil, gold and cocoa producer as “the Switzerland of Africa.”

But to win economic bragging rights too, Ghana’s new government will have to convince investors that it can tame a swelling fiscal deficit, stabilize a volatile currency and rebuild foreign exchange reserves that have declined this year while those of other African economies have grown.

Elected President John Dramani Mahama‘s administration will have to confront these challenges while economic growth slows – albeit to a robust 7.8 percent projected for 2013, from a blistering 14.5 percent last year.

Then there is the pressure of high expectations from ordinary Ghanaians impatient to see the benefits of oil production, which started in 2010.

Investors say they would also like more opportunities to participate in Ghana’s capital markets, but the main constraints are a bond yield curve that ends at five years and a small and illiquid stock market with just 34 listed companies.

“Ghana is one of our favorite places,” said Sven Richter, head of frontier markets at Renaissance Asset Managers. “We would have more in Ghana if there was more liquidity. We have less than one percent of our fund there and we’d quite happily have 10 percent.”

Despite a legal challenge by the opposition to Mahama’s narrow victory earlier this month, the largely incident-free election in a region known for coups and civil wars has given foreign investors comfort.

“Someone described Ghana to us as the Switzerland of Africa. I think that’s an apt description,” said Ayo Salami, chief investment officer of asset manager Duet Group’s Africa Opportunities Fund. “There seems to be a continuing commitment on the part of the government to institutional reform, to embedding democratic culture. All these are things we like.”

But the government has to show it is serious about cutting Ghana’s twin deficits – on its budget and current account – which are putting pressure on the currency, Salami said, echoing the concerns of credit rating agencies.

Continuing an election year trend, heavy public spending forced the government to revise its 2012 budget deficit target to 6.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), from the original 4.8 percent. Some analysts think it could end up in double digits when figures are published next year.

Fitch, which affirmed Ghana’s B+ rating in September, said the gap reflects a combination of repayment of arrears, public sector wage increases and higher energy subsidies.

OIL HOPES

Finance Minister Kwabena Duffuor said last week the country would pursue a fourth year of fiscal consolidation in 2013, expecting oil, agriculture and an infrastructure program to underpin economic growth.

Salami at Duet Group warns, however, against relying too much on oil, even if output is set to increase to 120,000 barrels per day next year, from around 90,000 bpd now.

“I know the government is hoping or waiting for oil revenues to come as the cavalry over the hill to sort this out for them,” he said. “What usually happens is that when governments get a new source of revenue they find a new way to spend it.”

Ghana’s current account deficit is likely to hit 14 percent this year, from 11 percent last year, due to infrastructure spending and demand for imports from local businesses and a growing middle class.

The deficit contributed to a near 20 percent depreciation in the local cedi currency in the first half of the year before the central bank intervened.

But its efforts to shore up the cedi have hit Ghana’s foreign exchange reserves, now at $ 5.2 billion or 2.9 months of imports, just below the traditional 3-month benchmark. Ghana also bucks a sub-Saharan African trend as Nigeria, Kenya, Mozambique and others have built up their reserves this year.

DEBT CONCERNS

While the smooth elections may have allowed investors “to cut the country a bit more slack”, the worsening fiscal picture means they will not do so for long, said Giulia Pellegrini, JP Morgan strategist for sub-Saharan Africa.

She expects the cedi to lose another 5-8 percent in the new year. “Investors will increasingly be monitoring the fiscal and current account situation,” she said.

“People are taking in the full picture rather than simply saying ‘it’s stable, it’s looking good, let’s just go for it’. They’re becoming more discerning if anything.”

The country’s rapid accumulation of debt since debt relief is also a cause for concern, Pellegrini said, with external debt currently at $ 7.8 billion, nearly double its 2008 levels.

Finance Minister Duffuor said Ghana would issue a second Eurobond next year, which should help to lower borrowing costs. Ghana’s 2017 bond is trading at a yield of 4.9 percent, much lower than the 21 percent investors demanded for a 3-year domestic bond sold in October.

Given high liquidity globally and the success of previous Eurobonds from African sovereigns, the issue should do well. But investors could make Ghana pay if it does not work on its budget. “Investors would still show quite a bit of interest but would want to be compensated for that,” Pellegrini said.

(Reporting by Tosin Sulaiman; Editing by Pascal Fletcher/Ruth Pitchford)

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“Zero Dark Thirty” review: Like a really good “Law & Order” – with waterboarding

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – It’s always a challenge to tell a story where the audience knows the ending. The trick comes in offering a new perspective on familiar events or at least generating suspense in a way that makes us nervous that Apollo 13 might not land safely, even when history tells us otherwise.

“Argo” and “Lincoln” are two films that successfully tread these waters, and now comes “Zero Dark Thirty,” Kathryn Bigelow‘s eagerly awaited follow-up to “The Hurt Locker.”

She and screenwriter Mark Boal have consciously chosen to take a just-the-facts-ma’am approach to the manhunt and subsequent killing of Osama bin Laden, and while there’s no denying the skill with which they’ve gone about telling the tale, the results are simultaneously uninvolving and somewhat infuriating.

Uninvolving, to some extent, because the people in this movie are not so much characters as they are plot functionaries, chess pieces that move around strategically to capture their target. Jessica Chastain stars as Maya, a CIA agent who, with each passing year, grows more determined to nab the man behind the 9/11 attacks.

There’s nothing wrong with this style of storytelling — giving us some backstory about Maya’s taste in men or love of antique cars or whatever wouldn’t necessarily add anything to what Bigelow and Boal are trying to do here – but it’s a gamble that doesn’t quite pay off.

After spending its first half getting into the false leads and call-tracing and all the nitty-gritty of a manhunt, “Zero Dark Thirty” subjects its capable lead character to the requisite scene in which she snaps and barks at her bureaucrat boss (played by Kyle Chandler) that she’s so close, and not to take her off the case.

It’s a moment that feels like it might have come from any given episode of “Homeland” or any TNT show about a plucky female cop, and it capsizes a movie that, until that point, had been a fairly fascinating examination of the unglamorous sausage-making that goes into a worldwide search for a terrorist.

The somewhat infuriating facet comes early on, as we watch Maya observe seasoned interrogator Dan (Jason Clarke, giving a fascinating performance) torture terror suspects to find out what they know about September 11. The movie indirectly implies that waterboarding and electrodes to the genitals and all that other stuff that George W. Bush‘s consiglieri convinced him were kosher actually resulted in actionable intelligence, despite the reams of reportage that suggested otherwise.

I believe Bigelow and Boal’s after-the-fact denials that they intended to glorify torture in any way, but when you include material like this in a movie that takes such a coolly detached tone in telling its story, you can’t then be surprised later when some viewers interpret a filmmaker’s neutral tone as an implicit endorsement.

Still, even if the eventual raid on the bin Laden compound isn’t as exciting as the film’s first half (this is where some “Argo”-style suspense might have come in handy), there’s a lot to recommend about “Zero Dark Thirty,” which more often than not reflects Bigelow’s consummate abilities as an action filmmaker; her no-frills skills in mounting car chases, surveillance and the other tools of the CIA trade get a full workout.

The acting is also uniformly strong, although if you found the parade of famous faces popping up in “Lincoln” to be distracting, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Many recognizable performers turn up very briefly for their chance to be in the new Bigelow movie, to the occasional point of distraction. (I started counting lines from well-known actors; “Torchwood” star John Barrowman? Two.)

And even if “Zero Dark Thirty” packs something less of a punch than “The Hurt Locker,” it’s still a movie that’s going to part of the national discussion, both politically and artistically, and deservedly so. Whether you love it, hate it, or have mixed feelings, it’s not to be ignored.

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Sony confirms 10 devices will get Jelly Bean upgrade starting in February 2013

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Merck KGaA cancer drug Stimuvax fails late-stage trial

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German drugmaker Merck KGaA‘s cancer vaccine Stimuvax has failed to meet its goal of improving the survival of lung cancer patients in a late-stage trial.

“It is disappointing that the… trial did not meet its primary endpoint, in particular for patients suffering from NSCLC (non-small cell lung cancer),” the trial’s coordinating investigator, Frances Shepherd, said in a statement on Wednesday.

The trial was testing Stimuvax on more than 1,500 patients with stage III non-small cell lung cancer whose tumors could not be completely removed via surgery and whose disease had at least stabilized following chemoradiotherapy.

Merck shares fell 3.5 percent to 98.00 euros in early trade, while Germany’s blue-chip DAX index was up 0.2 percent. The news that Stimuvax failed its Phase III trial is also a fresh blow to Oncothyreon Inc, the vaccine’s developer.

But Merck said it had seen “notable treatment effects” in certain subgroups of patients and would analyse further data on the drug in the coming weeks. It said it would discuss the data with experts and regulatory authorities over the coming months.

Stimuvax is one of a number so-called therapeutic cancer vaccines being developed by drug companies to fight tumors by stimulating the body’s immune system.

The first such vaccine was approved two years ago but Provenge for prostate cancer, made by Dendreon, has met with limited success, due to management missteps and doctors’ reluctance to adopt the difficult-to-administer therapy.

A number of other cancer vaccines are in development that analysts believe may be more successful, including a product from GlaxoSmithKline against melanoma and lung cancer which is set to report clinical trial results next year.

Some investors had already been wary about prospects for Stimuvax after Merck said in March the trial would be continued and final data would be presented later than expected, raising doubts over its success.

“Given the history of the drug development with postponements, discontinuations and break-ups we are not surprised about today’s outcome,” DZ Bank analyst Peter Spengler said.

(Reporting by Maria Sheahan and Ben Hirschler; Editing by David Cowell)

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Sweden cuts main interest rate to 1 percent

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden‘s central bank has cut its key interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 1 percent as inflationary pressures remain benign and problems in Europe weigh on the Scandinavian country’s economy.

Tuesday’s decision was widely expected.

The Riksbank also says that its main interest rate will likely “remain at this low level for the coming year” due to the economic slowdown, rising unemployment and subdued inflation.

By the end of 2013, it expects inflation to start edging up as the global economic recovery gathers steam, partly on the back of recent measures taken by the 17 EU countries that use the euro to get a grip on their 3-year debt crisis.

The Riksbank says the weaker European economy has so far had “a clear effect” on Sweden.

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