By Parisa Hafezi

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iranian police warned the opposition on Tuesday to avoid using the 30th anniversary of the U.S. embassy takeover in Tehran to revive protests against the clerical establishment, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Opposition leaders Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi have urged their supporters to take to the streets on November 4, when rallies mark the seizure of the U.S. embassy after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution by radical students who took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

To prevent a repeat of the mass street protests that erupted after Iran’s disputed presidential election in June, officials said security forces would confront any “illegal” gatherings.

“We are announcing that only anti-American rallies in front of the former American embassy in Tehran are legal. Other gatherings or rallies on Wednesday are illegal and will be strongly confronted by the police,” Tehran police said in a statement, IRNA reported.

Anti-U.S. rallies will take place outside the former embassy, now called the “den of espionage” in Iran.

Some reformist websites have called on people to gather outside the Russian embassy instead, in an apparent protest at Moscow’s recognition of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election on June 12.

A reformist website said Karoubi would attend the rally outside the former U.S. embassy.

The vote, which moderate defeated candidates Mousavi and Karoubi say was rigged to secure Ahmadinejad’s re-election, sparked Iran’s worst unrest in the past three decades and exposed deep divisions among the ruling elite.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused the United States and its European allies of trying to overthrow the clerical establishment by fomenting post-election unrest.

“Americans should not lay hope on some post-election events in Iran because our system is more well-rooted than they think it is,” Khamenei told a group of students, state radio reported.

“HIDDEN DAGGER”

Ultimate authority in Iran lies not with Ahmadinejad, who often rails against the West, but with Khamenei. He again ruled out a resumption of ties until Washington “abandons its arrogant behavior” toward Iran.

“Every time they (U.S.) smile at the Iranian officials it comes with a dagger hidden behind them. They have not stopped intimidating Iran,” said Khamenei.

“Tactical smiles and cheerful expressions of Americans would only deceive children and not the officials of the great Iranian nation.”

U.S. President Barack Obama has said he is ready to deal directly with Iran, something his predecessor largely rejected. Washington cut diplomatic ties with Tehran shortly after the 1979 revolution.

Nov 3 – The re-elected Afghan President Hamid Karzai vows to root out corruption following stern warnings from Western supporters on the issue.

Kirsty Basset reports.

Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans seeking a comeback from recent losses may pick up the governor’s seats in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday in campaigns that tested the limits of President Barack Obama’s influence.

Democrats were bracing for the unhappy possibility they could go down to defeat not just in those two states but in a congressional district in upstate New York where a conservative candidate was leading.

The election outcome could give some clues as to the national mood a year after Obama was elected president and a year before 2010 congressional elections that will represent the first clear referendum on Obama’s time in office.

While local factors influenced all three races, the weak state of the U.S. economy was an overarching issue that played a role in each state.

In Virginia, Republican Bob McDonnell was leading Democrat Creigh Deeds by double digits in opinion polls as Virginians went to the polls — an opportunity for Republicans a year after Obama became the first Democratic presidential nominee to win the state since 1964.

Two appearances on Deeds’ behalf by Obama appeared to have little impact on the race, as Democrats suffered a lack of enthusiasm without Obama on the ticket and Republicans were energized by the chance to take back the governor’s seat, held by Democrats the past eight years. Voting ends at 7 p.m. EST (0000 GMT) and the winner could be known a few hours later.

OBAMA CAMPAIGNS FOR CORZINE

In New Jersey, Republican Chris Christie has been running neck and neck with Democratic Governor Jon Corzine, the former Wall Street executive who has pumped $23 million of his own money into his campaign. A poll released on Monday gave the Republican a slight lead.

Independent candidate Chris Daggett trailed, and a key question concerned how many of Daggett’s supporters would abandon him for Christie or Corzine and sway the race.

Obama campaigned with Corzine on Sunday and made a last-ditch appeal for the Democrat, trying to generate more enthusiasm for him.

“We will not lose this election if all of you are as committed as you were last year,” he said. “So I want everybody in this auditorium to make a pledge that in these next 48 hours, you will work just as hard for Jon as you worked for me.”

New Jersey polls close at 8 p.m. EST (0100 GMT Wednesday) but it could be some hours before the outcome is clear.

While a Virginia loss for the Democrats could be considered fairly predictable in a state long considered a Republican stronghold, a defeat in New Jersey would be seen as a bigger blow to the party because the state is heavily Democratic. Obama won it by 16 points last year.

“If the Democrats win New Jersey and lose Virginia, I would basically say, no harm, no foul,” said Democratic strategist Doug Schoen. “The only real adverse impact is if the administration loses two campaigns, especially one they’re heavily invested in New Jersey.”

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg appeared headed to victory over Democrat Bill Thompson after engineering a rules change to allow him to run for a third term and spending millions of his own money on his campaign. As of last month, the billionaire mayor had spent $85 million to Thompson’s $6 million.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Best Buy Co Inc plans to start an online service that allows consumers to buy, rent and download movies and television shows, the electronics retailer said on Tuesday.

The system, based on Sonic Solutions’ Roxio CinemaNow service, would be built into devices sold at its stores, including television sets, portable media players, computers, mobile phones and other devices from a variety of manufacturers.

Best Buy said it has set a multiyear agreement to license Roxio CinemaNow technology. Under the terms of the agreement, Best Buy acquired warrants enabling it to purchase shares of Sonic Solutions common stock.

It expects to provide access to new movies, independent films, and older catalog movies, with some new titles available on the same day as the comparable DVD goes on sale.

The service could compete with a number of established online media destinations including Amazon.com Inc, and Apple Inc’s iTunes store.

“Our relationship with Sonic Solutions allows Best Buy to quickly establish a strong position in the digital delivery of video entertainment,” Brian Dunn, chief executive of Best Buy, said in a statement.

Best Buy bought digital music service Napster Inc about one year ago in an effort to compete with Apple’s dominant iTunes service.

The company did not give the name of the service, or when it would launch.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson said on Tuesday it plans to cut 6 percent to 7 percent of its workforce in a battle to prop up profits in the face of generic competition to its prescription drugs.

The company said the cuts will affect 7,000 to 8,000 jobs, and generate annualized cost savings of $1.4 billion to $1.7 billion in 2011, with $800 million to $900 million expected to be achieved in 2010.

J&J, which employs about 117,000 people worldwide, said it will take a charge of $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion against its fourth-quarter earnings, but did not change its 2009 earnings forecast excluding one-time items of $4.54 to $4.59 per share,

The cuts will mainly be achieved by reducing layers of management and simplifying business structures and processes, the company said in a statement.

J&J is more diversified than some of its rivals. William Weldon, the company’s chief executive officer, said the cuts are designed to ensure its broad-based operating model remains appropriately structured for long-term growth.

J&J joins the growing list of major pharmaceutical companies to slash jobs as big-selling drugs lose patent protection. J&J’s prescription drug sales fell more than 14 percent to $5.25 billion in the third quarter, hurt by generic competition to its epilepsy drug Topamax and schizophrenia drug Risperdal.

The company said the job cuts will form only one component of the savings and it will also seek savings at the operating level. The company has a global workforce of 117,000.

Drug companies are struggling to refill their pipelines with new drugs to offset sales lost to generic competition, and although they are acquiring products from biotechnology companies, the new products are not enough.

Pfizer Inc, Merck & Co and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co have all announced sweeping job cuts, as have British drugmakers GlaxoSmithKline Plc and AstraZeneca.

(Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf and Toni Clarke, editing by Dave Zimmerman and Maureen Bavdek)

WHO meets on production of swine flu vaccine

LONDON — As swine flu cases topped 6,600 worldwide, vaccine makers and other experts met Thursday at the World Health Organization in Geneva to discuss the tough decisions that must be made quickly to fight the evolving virus.

Pharmaceutical companies are ready to begin making a swine flu vaccine — but as the virus constantly mutates, questions abound: How much should be produced? How will it be distributed? Who should get it?

The expert group’s recommendations will be passed to WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, who is expected to issue advice to vaccine manufacturers and the World Health Assembly next week.

But some feel the main decision has already been made.

“It’s a foregone conclusion,” said David Fedson, a vaccines expert and former professor of medicine at the University of Virginia. “If we don’t invest in an H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine, then possibly we could have a reappearance of this virus in a mild, moderate, or catastrophic form and we would have absolutely nothing.”

Most flu vaccine companies can only make one vaccine at a time: seasonal flu vaccine or pandemic vaccine. Production takes months and it is impossible to switch halfway through if health officials make a mistake.

Vaccine makers can make limited amounts of both seasonal flu vaccine and pandemic vaccine — though not at the same time — but they cannot make massive quantities of both because that exceeds manufacturing capacity.

Seasonal flu kills up to 500,000 people a year. At the moment, health officials aren’t sure how deadly swine flu is, and whether they will need more seasonal flu vaccine or swine flu vaccine. And if the swine flu mutates, scientists aren’t sure how effective a vaccine made now from the current strain will remain.

WHO estimates that up to 2 billion doses of swine flu vaccine could be produced every year, though the first batches wouldn’t be available for four to six months.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is currently working on a “seed stock” to make the vaccine, which should be ready in the next couple of weeks. That will be distributed to manufacturers worldwide so they can start producing the vaccine.

Until vaccine manufacturers get the seed stock, they won’t know how many doses of vaccine they can make or how long that would take. Sanofi Pasteur, the world’s biggest vaccine producer, said Thursday it is waiting for the green light from WHO before it starts making swine flu vaccine.

WHO is also negotiating with vaccine producers like GlaxoSmithKline PLC to save some of their swine flu vaccine for poorer nations. Many rich nations like Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Switzerland and the United States signed deals with vaccine makers years ago to guarantee them pandemic vaccines as soon as they’re available.

As of Thursday, at least 33 countries reported more than 6,600 cases of swine flu worldwide, with 69 deaths. According to WHO’s pandemic alert level, the world is at phase 5 — out of a possible 6 — meaning that a global outbreak is “imminent.”

“It’s a no-brainer,” Fedson said of the decision to make swine flu vaccine. “All that’s being discussed now is the details of how to make sure you have enough seasonal flu vaccine and the logistics of making the switch to H1N1 vaccine production.”

North America has been the hardest-hit continent. The United States has reported 3,352 laboratory-confirmed cases of swine flu, including three deaths. Mexico has 2,656 cases and 64 deaths, while Canada has 389 cases with one death, according to WHO figures.

Mexico confirmed 374 more cases Thursday including four more deaths, but Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said the new cases show the virus is appearing less deadly. Mexico’s swine flu deaths now represent 2.4 percent of its confirmed cases, he said.

Spain and Britain have the most cases in Europe, at 100 and 78 respectively.

In Central America, Costa Rica has eight cases and one death and Panama has 29 cases.

Mexico pushing for homegrown swine flu vaccine

MEXICO CITY — Grappling with low supplies of swine flu vaccines, President Felipe Calderon persuaded drug makers this week to sell him 30 million doses, while 1,000 Mexicans lined up for an experimental vaccine they hope can speed up supplies.

Meanwhile, French drug maker Sanofi-Aventis announced plans to open a manufacturing plant in Mexico that will produce 25 million flu vaccine doses a year starting in 2012.

Officials are eager to get the plant off the ground, Mexican Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova told reporters Thursday.

“There is a big commitment to this and we are working in a very coordinated manner,” he said.

If a community can vaccinate before the virus arrives, that can reduce the number of severe cases and fatalities, and it can slow the spread, because the flu has trouble establishing itself in a population.

After the first case of swine flu in the world was confirmed in Mexico last April, drug makers immediately began making vaccines to control a potential pandemic.

But most of those supplies were snapped up by the world’s wealthiest countries, including the United States, Canada and those in western Europe, which wanted to ensure they had enough doses should a pandemic emerge. Norway and Switzerland, for example, have about twice as much vaccine as they need.

The U.S. has contracted with vaccine makers to produce and distribute up to 100 million doses, with the ability to produce 150 million more should the need arise this flu season, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

The CDC’s goal is to provide vaccine to anyone who wants it, but right now the U.S. is only receiving half the supply it expected for October due to slow production, said Dr. Mark Mullican, a researcher at the Emory Vaccine Center in Decatur, Georgia.

In Mexico, where vaccine supplies are much lower, officials plan only to provide vaccine to high-risk groups, including health care workers, pregnant women, day care workers and 6-month-old to 23-month-old youngsters, said Dr. Diana Leticia Coronel, director of the infant and adolescent health program. A prescription will be required, she said.

For the past 30 years it has taken drug makers about six months to make a new vaccine, growing the virus inside chicken eggs. This week in Mexico a small company began testing swine flu vaccine cultivated in a new way: inside insect cells.

Dr. Rahul Singhvi, president and CEO of Novavax Inc., the company manufacturing the new vaccine, said: “We absolutely want to help Mexico in getting more vaccine. We want to save lives in Mexico.”

U.s experts praised the idea.

“In general, we need new technologies, such as the insect cell approach, that do not require egg-based growth of the vaccine, which is slow and has problems,” said Mullican, the Emory researcher.

Dr. Andrew Pekosz at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health said the speedier technique could save lives. “The most important thing about these new technologies is the speed in which a vaccine can be generated,” he said.

Pekosz said the insect cell method of making vaccines doesn’t make it more dangerous. “The vaccine itself is purified away from the components of the insect cell,” he said.

While awaiting successful clinical trials, Mexican officials are moving forward, trying to buy what vaccine they can.

Cordova said Thursday that Sanofi Pasteur, a division of Sanofi-Aventis, has guaranteed to send 1 million doses by the end of November. Cordova said the doses will be used to vaccinate health care workers.

The company will provide 4 million more doses by the end of December and 15 million by the end of January, Cordova said. Sanofi Pasteur officials reached the agreement with Mexico’s president in a meeting Thursday morning.

Ten million additional doses will be manufactured by London-based GlaxoSmithKline, Cordova said.

A new wave of swine flu began to flare up in Mexico last month, and officials say it will continue into early 2010. As of Monday, Mexico has had 45,809 reported cases of swine flu and 271 deaths.

Associated Press Writer Catherine E. Shoichet contributed to this report.