Samsung invests $500 million in new China facility: media

The company logo is displayed at the Samsung news conference at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas January 7, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Rick Wilking

BEIJING | Sat Sep 14, 2013 3:59am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd will invest $500 million to build a packaging and testing facility in northwestern China, the official China Daily reported on Saturday, as South Korea's biggest company expands operations in China.

Samsung's new plant investment comes on the heels of last year's $7 billion chip complex, also in the industrial city of Xi'an, and January's $1.7 billion injection into the firm's operations in Kunshan, a fast-growing manufacturing hub west of Shanghai.

Samsung, the world's largest maker of handsets, memory chips and televisions, is seeking to diversify its clients and exert greater control over its sprawling manufacturing network, which includes 250 supplier factories in China.

Construction of the packaging and testing facility is expected to begin in January 2014 and aims to be finished by the end of that year, said the report.

(Reporting by Paul Carsten; Editing by Ron Popeski)

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Most steroid skin creams likely safe during pregnancy

By Kathryn Doyle

NEW YORK | Fri Sep 13, 2013 2:42pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Expectant mothers can use corticosteroid creams for irritated skin without putting their fetus at risk, except for large amounts of very strong creams, a new study suggests.

In general, using those ointments during pregnancy was not linked to babies' chances of having cleft palate, being born early or small or any other measured negative outcome, researchers found.

That's not surprising and is in line with previous research, lead author Dr. Ching-Chi Chi of the dermatology department of Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Chiayi, Taiwan, said.

"This is not new information, however this article is reassuring to women who are using some topical corticosteroids," Dr. Heather Lipkind, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven who was not involved in the new study, told Reuters Health.

The researchers did find that when women used more than 300 grams of very potent corticosteroids during pregnancy, babies were at increased risk of low birth weight, which is new, Chi said.

Topical steroid creams are commonly prescribed for rashes, eczema or other skin inflammation. Generic nonprescription forms such as Bactine are very low strength, but prescription forms can be low to high strength.

Using UK data from 1989 to 2006, the researchers compared rates of birth defects and delivery complications among babies born to about 2,700 women who were prescribed a corticosteroid cream during pregnancy and those born to 7,200 women who didn't use the drugs.

Overall, 4.7 percent of babies whose mothers had used corticosteroids were low birth weight, compared to 4.8 percent of those whose mothers didn't use the creams. Just under 1 percent of both groups of babies were born premature, or before 37 weeks' gestation.

With potent creams, babies' risks also did not change when women used a total of 100 to 200 grams of the drugs during their entire pregnancy. But when mothers-to-be used 300 grams - the amount in six standard-size tubes - or more, the risk of low birth weight went up sevenfold.

The most potent topical creams include clobetasol propionate, betamethasone dipropionate and fluocinonide (marketed as Vanos and Lidex) and are used to treat severe inflammation, itching or psoriasis.

Steroids dysregulate placental hormones and probably prevent important proteins from getting to the baby, Chi told Reuters Health.

In his team's study, women who used the ointments were also more likely to have asthma and to take other high-risk medications during pregnancy than those who did not.

Skin irritation, discoloration and thickening are common during pregnancy, and corticosteroid creams are prescribed to about six percent of pregnant women, the researchers wrote in JAMA Dermatology.

Current guidelines recommend mild- or moderate-strength creams for pregnant women unless potent creams are absolutely necessary, which this study supports, Chi said.

If potent drugs are needed, doctors should monitor the growth of the fetus, he added.

"We would not recommend pregnant women stop using topical steroids just because of exaggerated fear of the potential side effects," Chi said. "We encourage women to apply topical steroids appropriately under physicians' guidance, which would treat skin conditions effectively and improve pregnant women's life quality."

SOURCE: bit.ly/1g0WJps JAMA Dermatology, online September 4, 2013.

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Exclusive: Berlin mulls way to bank union without Treaty change - officials

The EU flag and the German national flag fly outside the Reichstag, the seat of Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, in Berlin November 29, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Thomas Peter

By Annika Breidthardt and Jan Strupczewski

VILNIUS | Sat Sep 14, 2013 2:32pm EDT

VILNIUS (Reuters) - Germany is working on a plan that would allow the completion of a euro zone banking union without changing existing EU law, potentially removing a major hurdle to finish the most ambitious EU project since the start of the euro, EU officials said.

So far, Berlin has insisted the 28-nation bloc needs to amend its Treaty if it is to move the power to unwind or fix struggling banks from a national to a European level.

The compromise solution that officials in Berlin's Chancellery are working on, and discussing with European Union partners, would be a break-through because Germany's insistence so far would cause a lengthy and politically risky process.

The euro zone badly needs a banking union to restore lending to the economy, regain confidence and boost growth so that struggling economies in the south can repay their debt. It would also help to prevent another sovereign debt crisis.

"The Chancellery is preparing a solution for after the German elections. They are working together with euro zone officials on this," said one senior euro zone source involved in the negotiations.

In Berlin, a senior official said the government was thinking about many scenarios, not just one. Serious negotiations would only take place in November or December and were up to the next government, to be elected on September 22, the source said. The choice of plan would depend on the outcome of coalition talks.

EU officials were encouraged that Germany was now engaging in the negotiations, having so far pointed to legal obstacles. One Brussels official said the proposal had raised hopes for a solution by year-end even if positions were still far apart.

The head of the EU's finance ministers, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said on Saturday work would pick up after Germany's elections to set up the agency that could order the restructuring or closure of any euro zone bank.

CURRENT TREATY IS ENOUGH

Two senior euro zone officials told Reuters that according to the compromise proposal discussed in Angela Merkel's Chancellery, Berlin could agree to set up a pan-European resolution agency on the basis of Art. 114 of the EU Treaty.

This legal base had been suggested as sufficient by legal services of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the EU Council, but has not been endorsed by Germany so far.

However, in exchange the agency would only get to decide over the fate of the 130 euro zone banking groups that will be directly supervised by the ECB from the second half of 2014.

This would remove the smaller German savings banks, Sparkassen, often closely linked to local German politicians, from the remit of a European - rather than national - agency, officials said.

While no German politician is likely to talk openly about this idea before next Sunday's elections, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, asked if he could rule out a compromise solution based on Art 114 of the Treaty, said:

"Article 114 gives only limited scope and of course you can find a solution that is based on Article 114 but that would not be what the Commission proposed."

In order to avoid Treaty change, the Commission proposed earlier this year that it should have the final say on bank resolution itself even though it could act on the recommendation of a board that would include national authorities and the ECB.

Schaeuble has argued for a two-step approach to the "Single Resolution Mechanism" (SRM). The first step would be coordinated action between national resolution agencies and funds but without a pan-European agency. The second stage would require limited Treaty change to set up such an agency, he has said.

One of Germany's - and other member states' - concerns is the role the Commission would take in its own proposal. Berlin would be reluctant to accept a transfer of powers to the EU executive arm as it is already in charge of competition issues.

One source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said ideally a new, independent institution would be created to resolve banks but in the meantime the permanent rescue fund European Stability Mechanism (ESM) could take on that role.

This would require a change of a separate Treaty between euro zone governments, on which the ESM is based. That would be much easier than changing EU's fundamental law because it would not require the consent of non-euro zone members, especially euroskeptic Britain.

The official said a solution could be found for the ESM to accommodate non-euro zone members if they decided to join the banking union.

However, the Brussels official - who does not work for the Commission - said that ultimately the authority to unwind banks would likely fall on the Commission as only that was feasible.

"By a process of elimination, you eventually get back to the Commission, even if it might be some time and lots of negotiation before we do get back there," said the official.

Another key German concern, limiting German taxpayer exposure to financing foreign bank closures, could be solved by using the ESM as a backstop for a future resolution fund.

The resolution fund is to be financed by banks themselves, but until enough money is accrued through their contributions, the ESM could lend to the fund to be repaid later, ECB board member Joerg Asmussen said on Friday.

(Reporting by Annika Breidthardt and Jan Strupczewski; additional reporting by Luke Baker in Brussels and Andreas Rinke in Berlin; editing by James Jukwey)

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Nuclear plants don't raise child leukaemia risk: study

By Kate Kelland

LONDON | Thu Sep 12, 2013 7:02pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Despite fears to the contrary, children who live near nuclear power plants have no greater risk of developing leukaemia or a type of cancer known as non-Hodgkin lymphoma, according to a large British study published on Friday.

Researchers who studied some 10,000 children aged under 5 and analyzed birth records for nearly every case of childhood leukaemia in Britain from 1962 to 2007 found no apparent extra risk from living near an atomic power station.

John Bithell of the Childhood Cancer Research Group, who led the study, noted there have been concerns about child leukaemia near nuclear plants in Britain since the 1980s, when a television program reported an excess of cancer in children near the Sellafield plant in north-west England.

There have since been conflicting reports in Britain and other European countries about whether children living near such reactors are at greater risk of developing childhood cancers.

A study on Germany, published in 2007, did find a significantly increased risk. But a 35-year-long survey in Britain by the Committee on the Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment, published in 2001, found no evidence that living near nuclear plants increased the incidence of children developing leukaemia.

Bithell said the findings of his research, published in the British Journal of Cancer, should be reassure the public.

"Our case-control study has considered the birth records for nearly every case of childhood leukaemia born in Britain and, reassuringly, has found no such correlation with proximity to nuclear power plants," he said in a statement.

Leukaemia is a cancer of immature white blood cells that mostly occurs in children between 2 and 4 years old.

It is rare, affecting around 500 children a year in Britain, and experts say 85 to 90 percent can now be cured.

Bithell's research group was funded by the Scottish and English governments and the charity Children with Cancer UK.

They measured the distance children lived from the nearest nuclear plant both at birth and when diagnosed with leukaemia or non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Data on cancer cases came from the National Registry of Childhood Tumours, which has kept records of nearly all children diagnosed since 1962 and is estimated to be more than 99 percent complete for leukaemia cases over the period studied.

Hazel Nunn, head of health information at the charity Cancer Research UK, said the results were "heartening".

"This study supports the findings of the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment that being born or living near a nuclear power station doesn't lead to more cases of leukaemia and similar cancers in children under 5 in the UK," she said.

"But these results can't rule out any possible risk, so it's still important that we continue to monitor both radiation levels near nuclear power plants and rates of cancer among people who live close by."

(Editing by Paul Taylor)

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Eurogroup head says banking agency won't be delayed

Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem (R) arrives at an euro zone finance ministers meeting in Luxembourg June 20, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Francois Lenoir

By Andrius Sytas

VILNIUS | Sat Sep 14, 2013 6:34am EDT

VILNIUS (Reuters) - Work will pick up after Germany's elections to set up a European agency that can order the restructuring or closure of any euro zone bank, the head of group's finance ministers Jeroen Dijsselbloem said on Saturday.

The agency, called the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM), is to complement the European Central Bank as part of a banking union that will break the vicious circle between weak banks and indebted governments.

The ECB is to take up its new responsibilities in autumn of 2014 and EU policymakers are now planning to have the resolution body - which would also have a fund - ready on January 1, 2015.

Until then, bank resolution would be governed by a set of common rules for all national authorities called the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive.

But the timetable appears optimistic because Germany is adamant that to create a true resolution agency, the European Union needs to change its fundamental law, the EU treaty. This would be a lengthy and politically risky process.

Germany holds elections on September 22 and officials say Berlin is unlikely to be ready to seek a compromise before. Dijsselbloem appeared to share that view.

"There hasn't actually been a debate on how it can be solved. As of next month, I think we should have that debate and have it in depth and work on solutions," Dijsselbloem told reporters on entering talks of EU finance ministers.

"We're still on schedule. There was always the plan that the SRM proposal would come this summer. It did. And it was always the plan that we would finalize the discussions at the end of this year and we will," he said.

"In a week and a half the world might look different already," he said in a clear reference to the vote in Germany.

To avoid a change of the EU treaty, the European Commission proposed in July that it could become the resolution agency itself. But Germany and several other countries oppose that because it would mean the transfer of great new powers to the EU executive arm, which is already overseeing competition issues.

Elke Koenig, president of the German financial watchdog Bafin, criticized the Commission proposal in an article due to be published in German magazine WirtschaftsWoche on Monday.

"Brussels' plan, under which the ECB will in future make proposals for restructuring banks, the EU Commission will decide on whether to wind them down and the individual state must bear the consequences, is half-baked," she said.

"It encroaches on ownership rights, which could burden taxpayers. That lacks a solid legal basis," she said.

Legal work on the first pillar of the banking union, the ECB supervision of around 130 euro zone banking groups or about 80 percent of the banking sector in Europe, was completed last week, allowing the ECB to start technical preparations.

(Additional reporting by Michelle Martin in Berlin; writing by Jan Strupczewski; editing by James Jukwey)

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Delayed vaccines tied to whooping cough risk

By Andrew M. Seaman

NEW YORK | Fri Sep 13, 2013 1:33pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Children who are not vaccinated according to the schedule recommended by U.S. health officials are at an increased risk of catching whooping cough, according to a new study.

Researchers found kids who fell significantly behind on their diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis (DTaP) shots were between 19 and 28 times more likely to be diagnosed with whooping cough, also known as pertussis, than children who were vaccinated on time.

"What we found - not surprisingly - was that kids who were not vaccinated on time were at a greater risk of pertussis, compared to those who were vaccinated on time," Jason Glanz, the study's lead author from the Kaiser Permanente Colorado Institute for Health Research in Denver, said.

Studies have shown pertussis cases have been on the rise across the U.S.

Researchers suspect that's due to the use of a new type of pertussis vaccine - which has fewer side effects, but is less effective over the long run - and to more children missing or delaying vaccination (see Reuters Health story of May 20, 2013 here: reut.rs/18aYu17.)

Although parents sometimes believe delaying their children's vaccines and following alternative schedules is safer, Glanz said there is no evidence that they are "any safer in terms of adverse events than what's typical."

For the new study, he and his colleagues compared the vaccination records of 72 children who were diagnosed with pertussis in one of eight healthcare systems between 2004 and 2010 and 288 similar kids who didn't get the disease. All of the children were between the ages of three and 36 months.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends children receive doses of the DTaP vaccine at two, four and six months of age, another dose between 15 and 18 months and a booster shot when they're four to six years old.

The researchers found that about 47 percent of children diagnosed with pertussis were not vaccinated according to that recommended schedule, versus about 22 percent of kids in the comparison group.

"Just over a third of the cases could have been prevented had they been vaccinated on time," Glanz said.

His team also found that the longer parents delayed getting their children vaccinated, the higher the kids' risks of catching pertussis climbed.

Those who were three doses behind, for example, were 19 times more likely to get whooping cough than kids who were caught up on their shots, and those who were four doses behind had 28 times the risk.

"I think the nice thing about this study is that it quantifies the risk," Dr. Mary Healy, director of vaccinology and maternal immunization for the Center for Vaccine Awareness and Research at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, said.

"Pertussis is a particularly serious disease. The difficulty with pertussis is that it's very often underappreciated how serious it can be," Healy, who was not involved with the study, said.

In an ongoing pertussis outbreak in Texas, about 2,000 cases have been reported in the state this year. So far, two infants, who were too young to receive the DTaP vaccine, have died (see Reuters story of September 5, 2013 here: reut.rs/1dWKX3J.)

Healy told Reuters Health it's also important for adults including pregnant women in their third trimester to get booster shots of the vaccine to protect young children and those with weakened immune systems.

Glanz said common side effects of the vaccine include fever, discomfort and a sore arm. Serious side effects are rare, he said, adding that parents should understand that delaying their kids' vaccines puts the children at a greater risk of catching pertussis.

"The purpose isn't to demonize parents or marginalize them. We're doing this not because we're pro-vaccine but because we're pro-child," he said.

SOURCE: bit.ly/14Pft6k JAMA Pediatrics, online September 9, 2013.

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