Rwanda sees GDP growth hit if aid doesn’t restart

KIGALI (Reuters) – Rwanda‘s economic growth could be hit if donors fail to reinstate aid payments, with the economy only able to withstand the stoppage until the end of the year, the country’s finance minister said on Friday.

The United States, Sweden and the Netherlands have all suspended some aid to Rwanda, which relies on donors for about 40 percent of its budget, over a U.N. report accusing the central African nation’s defence minister of commanding rebels in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

In September, the European Union froze further budgetary support to Rwanda. .

Another donor, Britain unblocked part of its cash in September, praising Rwanda for constructively pursuing peace.

John Rwangombwa, minister for finance and economic planning, told Reuters in an interview that he was at present unconcerned about the impact of the aid suspensions, but that if they persisted into next year, they could start hurting the economy.

“We think by the end of this year we should have resolved these issues of the donors. If it doesn’t go beyond December it won’t affect us, if it’s prolonged that’s when we will have effects,” he said.

“There’s the possibility of slowing down our economic growth because the government is part of the major players in this economy. It depends on the magnitude of the prolonged delay.”

The minister did not quantify the likely fall in growth.

Rwanda’s central bank says the economy will grow 7.7 percent this year. Output grew by 9.4 percent in its fiscal year ended June from 7.4 percent previously, thanks to robust growth across all sectors.

Like other countries in the sub-Saharan Africa region, the landlocked country has recorded robust economic growth rates in recent years, on the back of increased investments and consumption.

On Monday ratings agency Standard and Poor’s downgraded its outlook for Rwanda to stable from positive, citing the weakening in its external environment due to suspension or delay in disbursing aid.

It was the only country in east Africa that did not suffer last year from soaring inflation and steep currency weakening, faring better than its larger neighbour Uganda.

Rwanda receives about 40 percent of its budget from donors.

Rwangombwa said the only impact the aid suspensions have had so far was on the exchange rate and the delaying some expenditure programmes.

He said they had been working with the World Bank and the African Development Bank to explain the situation to donors, adding he expected the budget to be financed entirely by local resources within five years.

Five years ago, aid contributed 63 percent of the budget and that while the nominal value of donor funding had increased in recent years, its proportion has been decreasing, the minister said.

“I see in the next five years it should have gone down to around 20 percent. What we are doing in terms of increasing our development and our private sector, is we are widening our tax base,” he said.

“If minerals works out well, well and good, that will be a windfall and we will be happy to have that. But the main source of revenues is expected to be widening the tax base.”

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Syrian rebels kill 28 soldiers, several executed

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Anti-government rebels killed 28 soldiers on Thursday in attacks on three army checkpoints around Saraqeb, a town on Syria’s main north-south highway, a monitoring group said.

Some of the dead were shot after they had surrendered, according to video footage. Rebels berated them, calling them “Assad’s Dogs”, before firing round after round into their bodies as they lay on the ground.

The highway linking the capital Damascus to the contested city of Aleppo, Syria’s commercial center, has been the scene of heavy fighting since rebels cut the road last month. Saraqeb lies about 40 km (25 miles) south of Aleppo

In other developments, China put forward a new initiative to resolve the 19-month-old conflict, including a phased, region-by-region ceasefire and the setting up of a transitional governing body.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Beijing had made the proposal to international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi – whose own call for a truce over the Muslim holiday of Eid was largely ignored by both sides.

The United States meanwhile has called for an overhaul of Syria’s opposition leadership, signaling a break with the largely foreign-based Syrian National Council to bring in more credible figures.

A meeting in Qatar next week of foreign powers backing the rebels will be an opportunity to broaden the coalition against President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Zagreb on Wednesday.

The United States and its allies have struggled for months to craft a credible opposition coalition, while Assad has counted on the support of Russia, Iran and, to a lesser extent, China. International efforts to end the violence have all foundered.

More than 32,000 people have been killed since protests against Assad, an Alawite who succeeded his late father Hafez in ruling the mostly Sunni Muslim country, first broke out on city streets. The revolt has since degenerated into full-scale civil war, with the government forces relying heavily on artillery and air strikes to thwart the rebels.

CHECKPOINT ATTACKS

The army has lost swathes of land in Idlib and Aleppo provinces but is fighting to control towns along supply routes to Aleppo city, where its forces are fighting in many districts.

The head of the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdelrahman, said two of the attacked checkpoints at Saraqeb were on the Damascus-Aleppo highway. The third was near a road linking Aleppo with Latakia, a port city still mostly controlled Assad’s forces.

“The rebels will not stay at the checkpoints for long as Syrian warplanes normally bomb positions after rebels move in,” Abdelrahman said.

Five rebels died in the fighting and at least 20 soldiers were killed at the third site, including those shot after surrendering, he said.

The video footage showed a group of petrified men, some bleeding, lying on the ground as rebels walked around, kicking and stamping on their captives.

One of the captured men says: “I swear I didn’t shoot anyone” to which a rebel responds: “Shut up you animal … Gather them for me.” Then the men are shot dead.

Reuters could not independently verify the footage.

The Observatory said the al Qaeda-inspired Jabhat al-Nusra rebel group was responsible for the executions.

Islamist rebel units are growing in prominence in the war – a cause for concern for international powers as they weigh up what kind of support to give the opposition.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has said it is not providing arms to internal opponents of Assad and is limiting its aid to non-lethal humanitarian assistance. It concedes, however, that some of its allies are providing lethal assistance.

Russia and China have blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at increasing pressure on the Assad government, leading the United States and its allies to say they could move beyond U.N. structures for their next steps.

China has been strongly criticized by some Arab countries for failing to take a stronger stance on the conflict. Beijing has urged the Assad government to talk to the opposition and take steps to meet demands for political change.

“More and more countries have come to realize that a military option offers no way out, and a political settlement has become an increasingly shared aspiration,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in Beijing.

He said China’s new proposal was aimed at building international consensus and supporting peace envoy Brahimi’s mediation efforts.

(Additional reporting by Ayat Basma, Laila Bassam and Dominic Evans in Beirut and Terril Yue Jones in Beijing; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Citi banking site briefly down, bank declines to discuss cause

BOSTON (Reuters) – Some of Citigroup Inc‘s banking sites went down for about half an hour on Wednesday, making its online banking system temporarily inaccessible to customers, some of whom were housebound in the wake of giant storm Sandy.

Bank spokesman Andrew Brent said the outage also affected applications for mobile devices such as the iPad, but that all sites and apps had been restored to service.

It was not clear what caused the problem, which occurred after the New York-based bank moved some of its operations to backup facilities. Its lower Manhattan buildings used for trading and investment banking were closed on Wednesday as the city struggled to recover from the historic storm.

Brent declined to say if the outage was caused by fallout from Sandy or other issues.

Citi, Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co and other U.S. banks have repeatedly been attacked by Iranian hackers over the past year as part of a broad cyber campaign targeting the United States, according to people familiar with the situation.

The industry kept that campaign a secret until last month after a group that calls itself the Cyber Fighters of Izz ad-din Al Qassam began claiming credit for a spree of high-profile attacks that caused temporary outages at major U.S. banks.

The hackers behind the attacks have used sophisticated and diverse tools that point to a carefully coordinated campaign, security researchers have told Reuters.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston; Additional reporting by Rick Rothacker and David Henry in New York; Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Dan Grebler)

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The Devil’s General? German film seeks to debunk Rommel myth

BERLIN (Reuters) – Erwin Rommel, the World War Two German field marshal celebrated as the brilliant and humane “Desert Fox“, is portrayed in a new film as a weak man torn by his loyalty to Adolf Hitler and the dawning realization that he was serving a devil.

The drama, due to be broadcast on the public ARD television on Thursday, has angered Rommel‘s son and granddaughter who believe it underplays his role in the resistance against Hitler.

Rommel was forced to commit suicide in 1944 after Hitler suspected the general of being linked to the July 1944 plot to kill him, though historians disagree about how close he was to the failed assassination attempt.

Nazi propaganda feted Rommel as a military genius after his successful, bold offensives against the Allies in North Africa from 1941 until late 1942 when his Afrikakorps was defeated at El Alamein, a battle commemorated in London last week by the dwindling band of surviving British and Commonwealth veterans.

Even wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill hailed Rommel as a “great general”.

Rommel’s standing among his enemies was enhanced by his humane treatment of prisoners. The Afrikakorps eschewed the atrocities committed by the German army in other theatres of war, especially on the Eastern Front.

By 1944, in Normandy trying to defend the coast from an impending Allied landing, Rommel realized the war was lost and grew disillusioned. Despite having links to some of the plotters, he never joined the abortive July 20, 1944 conspiracy to assassinate Hitler.

“The idea is to demystify Rommel,” producer Nico Hofmann told Reuters.

“There is a lot of speculation surrounding the myth of Rommel. To some he is a brave, proud soldier, the ‘Desert Fox’. Some people don’t know he committed suicide under pressure from Hitler and think he perished in the war and there are many questions about how close he was to the resistance.”

“These are taboos, subjects for discussion and historical evaluation,” he said.

Film director Niki Stein described Rommel as a “weak man” who chose to look away and many historians say he was primarily bent on serving Hitler to advance his career.

Rommel’s family has denounced the script of the 6 million euro film which focuses on his growing internal conflict during the seven months of his life leading up to his death.

His son, Manfred – who was 15 when his father died and is now 83 – and granddaughter wrote to the producers last year accusing the script of the film “Rommel” of presenting “lies”.

They argued that he played a greater role in the resistance than the producers believed, said Hofmann.

The family have declined to talk to media about the film.

CYANIDE ULTIMATUM

Historians say the film is important as it will show millions of viewers the dramatic last months of the general’s life and the dilemma faced by many Germans who felt a sense of duty to their country, but were disenchanted with Hitler.

“Please watch, this film explains a little how it was back then with our grandparents, with Hitler, with fear, with joining in,” wrote a columnist in top-selling Bild daily, which has been serializing Rommel’s life.

“The Rommel film shows how a man believes he is serving a king and realizes too late that he is a devil.”

Other newspapers have also run long articles on the Rommel figure and the authoritative weekly Der Spiegel splashed “The Myth of Erwin Rommel” on its cover this week.

The film shows how a conflicted general, who was one of the Nazi regime’s biggest propaganda tools, gradually turned against Hitler. In line with the historical evidence, it leaves open his role in the plot against Hitler led by Claus von Stauffenberg.

Although he had contact with some of those involved, his son has written that he knew nothing of the assassination attempt.

Rommel was wounded by a Spitfire attack on his staff car days before the July 20 coup attempt, but soon after the plot ringleaders were executed Hitler grew suspicious about him.

Realizing the potential damage of putting Rommel on trial for treason, Hitler sent two officers to put an ultimatum to his once favorite general: if he wanted his wife and son to be looked after, he should swallow a cyanide capsule.

Hitler wrote to his widow and gave the field marshal a state funeral with his coffin draped in a swastika flag.

“I don’t see him as a hero. He is a tragic figure. He was a weak man drawn into an incredible internal conflict,” Stein, the director and author of the screenplay, told Reuters.

“I hope young Germans watch. We’re talking about our grandparents. It explains a lot about the way people act in a dictatorship.”

With popular actor Ulrich Tukur playing the main role, Stein thinks people will identify with Rommel but not necessarily sympathize with him. “Perhaps they will be shocked when they realize he is not so clean,” he said.

Underscoring the many contradictions of his character, Rommel’s legacy has shifted over the years.

Immediately after World War Two, Germans latched on to the myth of Rommel as a “soldier’s soldier” who had no close links to Nazi ideology and was forced to kill himself by the regime.

Much was made of the behavior of his Afrikakorps and his decision to disobey Hitler’s “victory or death” order at El Alamein and instead oversee a retreat which saved many lives.

“By the 1970s a German destroyer and army barracks were named after him,” said history Professor Soenke Neitzel, who has written about Rommel and advised the filmmakers.

He was favorably portrayed in 1951 by James Mason in “The Desert Fox”, which gave prominence to his disputed role in the von Stauffenberg plot.

But many historians say it is implausible that a field marshal who regularly met top Nazis, including Hitler, did not know of the Holocaust, a point critics say the film brushes over.

“On the one hand he didn’t commit war crimes that we know of and ordered a retreat at El Alamein despite Hitler’s order,” said Neitzel.

“But he took huge German casualties elsewhere and he was a servant of the regime. He was not exactly a shining liberal or Social Democrat. Mostly, he was interested in his career.”

(Editing by Jon Hemming)

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La desvenlafaxina actúa contra los sofocos: estudio

NUEVA YORK (Reuters Health) – El antidepresivo

desvenlafaxina (Pristiq, de Pfizer) reduce los sofocos en las

mujeres postmenopáusicas, según señala un equipo médico.

A pesar de este resultado, que surge de un subestudio de un

ensayo aleatorio, la Administración de Alimentos y Medicamentos

de Estados Unidos (FDA, por su sigla en inglés) rechazó la

solicitud de Pfizer de aprobación de desvenlafaxina para el

tratamiento de los síntomas vasomotores de la menopausia, como

los sofocos, moderados a graves.

“El único tratamiento que aprobó la FDA para los sofocos de

la menopausia es la terapia con estrógeno”, dijo por e-mail la

autora principal, doctora JoAnn V. Pinkerton. “Las mujeres

necesitan alternativas no hormonales. Necesitan opciones”.

En Menopause, el equipo de Pinkerton, del Sistema de Salud

de University of Virginia, Charlottesville, publica los

resultados de un subestudio de efectividad de 12 semanas de

duración durante un estudio de un año con desvenlafaxina.

El grupo a tratar incluía 365 mujeres que, al azar, tomaron

100 mg/día de desvenlafaxina o placebo. Comparado con el

placebo, el fármaco redujo significativamente la cantidad y la

gravedad de los sofocos a la cuarta y la decimosegunda semanas.

A la semana número 12, desvenlafaxina redujo un 62 por

ciento la cantidad diaria de sofocos moderados y graves,

mientras que el placebo lo hizo un 38 por ciento, mientras que

la gravedad de los síntomas disminuyó, respectivamente un 25 y

12 por ciento.

Los autores analizaron también “una diferencia clínicamente

poco significativa”, es decir, una reducción de 5,35 sofocos

moderados y graves por día. Este resultado se obtuvo en el 64

por ciento de las mujeres tratadas con desvenlafaxina y en el 41

por ciento del grupo control.

“La desvenlafaxina es un tratamiento no hormonal seguro,

bien tolerado y efectivo, con reducciones estadísticamente y

clínicamente significativas de la frecuencia y la gravedad de

los sofocos en las mujeres postmenopáusicas con sofocos de

rápida aparición”, afirmó el equipo.

Pfizer retiró su solicitud de la FDA en febrero, pero el

producto sigue disponible para tratar el trastorno depresivo

mayor.

Pinkerton agregó por e-mail: “Es importante desarrollar

alternativas porque hasta el 75 por ciento de las mujeres padece

sofocos en la menopausia y el 25 por ciento de ellas necesita un

tratamiento”.

La autora comentó también que existen otros remedios no

hormonales. Dijo a Reuters Health que con su equipo evaluó la

gabapentina de liberación extendida (Serada, de Depomed) versus

placebo en un ensayo durante 24 semanas con 600 mujeres

postmenopáusicas.

La frecuencia y la intensidad de los sofocos disminuyeron

con gabapentina a las 12 y 24 semanas, y los sofocos “mejoraron

mucho” o “mejoraron” a las 24 semanas.

Los resultados fueron presentados este mes en la reunión

anual de la Sociedad Norteamericana de Menopausia. También este

mes, la FDA aceptó una nueva solicitud de aprobación para

Serada.

FUENTE: Menopause, online 25 de octubre del 2012

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Wall Street up 1 percent boosted by data

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks climbed 1 percent on Thursday after both weekly jobless claims and data on growth in private-sector jobs pointed to improving labor market conditions a day before the government’s closely watched monthly jobs report.

Equities extended gains throughout the morning, though volume remained in the aftermath of the massive storm Sandy in the U.S. northeast, which forced a historic two-day market closure at the beginning of the week.

Weekly jobless claims unexpectedly fell in the latest week, dropping to 363,000 from a revised 372,000 in the previous week. Separately, payrolls processor ADP reported that private employers added 158,000 in October, far more than had been expected. The ADP report was based on a different methodology than previous months, which could impact comparisons.

“There is a general trend of things getting more positive, which should help stocks and the economy at large going forward,” said Bruce McCain, chief investment strategist at Key Private Bank in Cleveland, Ohio.

Markets are still recovering from the aftermath of Sandy, which wreaked havoc up and down the U.S. eastern seaboard and forced financial markets to close Monday and Tuesday. Trading could still be volatile, with many market participants unable to reach their offices and some working from home amid ongoing power outages and limited mass transit.

Still, some stocks sparked heavy trading.

JDA Software Group , a maker of supply-chain management software, soared 17 percent to $ 44.79 after it agreed to be bought by privately held rival RedPrairie Corp for about $ 1.9 billion in cash.

Pfizer Inc , which delayed the release of its quarterly results because of the storm, posted revenue that fell far short of expectations, sending shares down 1.3 percent to $ 24.55. Exxon Mobil Corp , which like Pfizer is a Dow component, slipped 0.2 percent after reporting a drop in quarterly profit. Exxon‘s profit topped expectations, but its oil and gas output declined more than expected.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> was up 158.32 points, or 1.21 percent, at 13,254.78. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index <.SPX> was up 14.48 points, or 1.03 percent, at 1,426.64. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> was up 40.79 points, or 1.37 percent, at 3,018.02.

It was the best daily gain for both the Dow and S&P 500 since September 13 and comes after the S&P fell 2 percent in October, breaking a four-month streak of gains.

In other economic data, private industry group the Conference Board reported U.S. consumer confidence rose to a four-year high in October, at 72.2, though the result was slightly under expectations. The government reported construction spending rose 0.6 percent in September, as forecast. A private survey showed U.S. manufacturing conditions rose in September to the best levels since May.

Overseas markets were higher, with Europe boosted by strong results from such companies as Royal Dutch Shell and Chinese shares posting their strongest daily gains in more than three weeks on bullish data.

U.S. shares of Sony Corp rose 0.5 percent to $ 11.80 after the Japanese company posted a profit in its latest quarter and affirmed its full-year view.

(Editing by Leslie Adler)

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Mexico’s Day of Dead brings memories of missing

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Maria Elena Salazar refuses to set out plates of her missing son’s favorite foods or orange flowers as offerings for the deceased on Mexico‘s Day of the Dead, even though she hasn’t seen him in three-and-a-half years.

The 50-year-old former teacher is convinced that Hugo Gonzalez Salazar, a university graduate in marketing who worked for a telephone company, is still alive and being forced to work for a drug cartel because of his skills.

“The government, the authorities, they know it, that the gangs took them away to use as forced labor,” said Salazar of her then 24-year-old son, who disappeared in the northern city of Torreon in July 2009.

The Day of the Dead — when Mexicans traditionally visit the graves of dead relatives and leave offerings of flowers, food and candy skulls — is a difficult time for the families of the thousands of Mexicans who have disappeared amid a wave of drug-fueled violence.

With what activists call a mix of denial, hope and desperation, they refuse to dedicate altars on the Nov. 1-2 holiday to people often missing for years. They won’t accept any but the most certain proof of death, and sometimes reject even that.

Numbers vary on just how many people have disappeared in recent years. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission says 24,000 people have been reported missing between 2000 and mid-2012, and that nearly 16,000 bodies remain unidentified.

But one thing is clear: just as there are households without Day of the Dead altars, there are thousands of graves of the unidentified dead scattered across the country, with no one to remember them.

An investigation conducted by the newspaper Milenio this week, involving hundreds of information requests to state and municipal governments, indicates that 24,102 unidentified bodies were buried in paupers’ or common graves in Mexican cemeteries since 2006. The number is almost certainly incomplete, since some local governments refused to provide figures, Milenio reported.

And while the number of unidentified dead probably includes some indigents, Central American migrants or dead unrelated to the drug war, it is clear that cities worst hit by the drug conflict also usually showed a corresponding bulge in the number of unidentified cadavers. For example, Mexico City, which has been relatively unscathed by drug violence, listed about one-third as many unidentified burials as the city of Veracruz, despite the fact that Mexico City’s population is about 15 times larger.

Consuelo Morales , who works with dozens of families of disappeared in the northern city of Monterrey, said that “holidays like this, that are family affairs and are very close to our culture, stir a lot of things up” for the families. But many refuse to accept the deaths of their loved ones, sometimes even after DNA testing confirms a match with a cadaver.

“They’ll say to you, ‘I’m not going to put up an altar, because they’re not dead,” Martinez noted. “Their thinking is that ‘until they prove to me that my child is dead, he is alive.”

Martinez says one family she works with at the Citizens in Support of Human Rights center had refused to accept their son was dead, even after three rounds of DNA testing and the exhumation of the remains.

“It was their son, he was very young, and he had been burned alive,” Martinez said by way of explanation.

The refusal to accept what appears inevitable may be a matter of desperation. Martinez said some families in Monterrey also believe their missing relatives are being held as virtual slaves for the cartels, even though federal prosecutors say they have never uncovered any kind of drug cartel forced-labor camp, in the six years since Mexico launched an offensive against the cartels.

But many people like Salazar believe it must be true. “Organized crime is a business, but it can’t advertise for employees openly, so it has to take them by force,” Salazar said.

While she refuses to erect an altar-like offering for her son, she does perform other rituals that mirror the Day of the Dead customs, like the one that involves scattering a trail of flower petals to the doorsteps of houses to guide spirits of the departed back home once a year.

Salazar and her family still live in the same home in Torreon, though they’d like to move, in the hopes that Hugo will return there. They pray three times a day for God to guide him home.

“We live in the same place, and we try to do the same things we used to,” said Salazar, “because he is going to come back to his place, his home, and we have to be waiting for him.”

Mistrust of officials has risen to such a point that some families may never get an answer they’ll accept.

The problem is that, with forensics procedures often sadly lacking in Mexican police forces, the dead my never be connected with the living, which is the whole point of the Mexican traditions.

“As long as the authorities don’t prove the opposite, for us they’re still alive,” Salazar said. “Let them prove it, but let us have some certainty, not just the authorities saying ‘here he is.’ We don’t the government to just give us bodies that aren’t theirs, and that has happened.”

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Facebook shares fall as lock-up period expires

(Reuters) – Facebook Inc shares fell 4 percent in busy trade early on Wednesday as the company allowed employees to start selling some stock.

The world’s largest social network waived a provision that prevented employees from selling shares until November 14. As a result, Facebook staffers were able to sell their vested shares on Monday. [ID:nL2E8K4E8Y] About 234 million shares held by employees were eligible for sale in the public market.

However, because the markets were closed on Monday and Tuesday in the wake of powerful storm Sandy, Wednesday was the first trading day.

“I don’t really understand why Facebook (chose) to unlock virtually all of its compensation within the year of its IPO, but they did,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Securities.

“They made a mistake and set the company up for volatility.”

More than 1 billion Facebook shares held by employees, insiders and early investors are set to become available for trading by year’s end.

Facebook suffered a painful public debut earlier this year, as investors worried about the company’s ability to keep up revenue growth and the large pool of additional shares in the lock-up that are now hitting the market.

Wall Street also has cast a gimlet eye on Facebook and its ability to attract mobile revenue as more people turn to smartphones and tablet devices to access the Web.

Last week, Facebook said it increased mobile advertising revenue at a faster than expected pace, totaling $ 150 million in the third quarter. Estimates had pegged mobile revenue at $ 40 million to $ 50 million in the second quarter.

Shares of Facebook are down more than 40 percent since the IPO. The stock was down 3.8 percent at $ 21.11 on Wednesday morning, off an earlier low at $ 20.73.

(Reporting By Jennifer Saba; editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Claudia Parsons and Matthew Lewis)

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“Community” returning to old time slot in February

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – “Community” will return Thursday, February 7 to its previous timeslot after a long absence from NBC‘s lineup.

NBC confirmed the show’s return date soon after star Yvette Nicole Brown, who plays Shirley on the ensemble comedy, announced the news on Twitter.

“Guys, #Community officially has an airdate: Thursday, February 7th at 8pm!,” tweeted the actress. NBC also announced several others return and premiere dates Tuesday.

The move means the network has abandoned its plans to move the show to Friday nights. “Community” will take the place of “30 Rock,” which will have completed its 13-episode final season by February.

“Community” was scheduled to move to Fridays beginning on October 19. But NBC opted to delay the Friday debut of “Community” and “Whitney” so it could devote itself to promoting its new fall comedies.

When one of them, “Animal Practice,” was cancelled, its timeslot went to “Whitney,” and the fate of “Community” was left up in the air.

Despite the long delay – “Community” hasn’t aired since the spring – the Thursday timeslot is good news for the show since Fridays usually draw much lower ratings.

NBC fired “Community” creator and showrunner Dan Harmon at the end of last season. Though it is critically acclaimed and has many diehard fans online, that hasn’t translated into many viewers.

NBC’s entertainment chairman has said that the network wants to focus more this season on broad comedies than on its quick-witted but odd Thursday shows, which tend to struggle for ratings.

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Canada, Switzerland lift ban on Novartis flu vaccines

ZURICH (Reuters) – Canadian and Swiss health authorities lifted a ban on Novartis‘s flu vaccines on Wednesday after the drugmaker showed they posed no risk to safety.

Italy last week banned the sale of four anti-influenza vaccines produced by Novartis pending tests for possible side effects after small particles were found in some of the injections.

Other countries including Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Spain and France followed suit by suspending deliveries, recommending the use of alternative products or recalling batches of the vaccines.

Swissmedic and Health Canada said information from Novartis and their own testing had shown that white particles found in the vaccines were normal clumps of protein particles and did not indicate a safety issue.

“According to the scientific data presented to us, the safety of the vaccines is not compromised by the stray aggregates,” Swissmedic said in a statement.

Novartis’ Chief Executive Joseph Jimenez said last week he was confident the vaccines were safe after the company reported third-quarter sales that missed forecasts.

The drugmaker said on Wednesday it was pleased with the Canadian and Swiss decisions and was working with other national health authorities to address concerns and resume deliveries.

Italy‘s drug safety authority said it was still reviewing the results of tests on Novartis’s anti-influenza vaccines, but is “cautiously positive” about being able to lift a ban on some lots in coming days.

Novartis’s vaccines Fluad and Agrippal, which are manufactured at a production site in Italy, were banned in Switzerland and Canada. Italy has also withdrawn subunit Influpozzi and adjuvanted Influpozzi.

Germany’s vaccine agency said it had retracted approval of some lots of Novartis’s vaccines Begripal and Fluad, meaning those particular lots could not be released onto the market.

Austria’s health ministry said it is maintaining for now its advice for physicians to avoid using Novartis’s Fluad and Sandovac in favor of other products.

(Reporting by Caroline Copley. Additional reporting by Steve Scherer in Rome, Angelika Gruber in Vienna and Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt; Editing by David Cowell)

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