LONDON (Reuters) - Drugmakers Merck and GlaxoSmithKline have cut the price of cervical cancer shots in a deal that will deliver them to poor countries for less than $5 a dose.

The new record low price for human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines should mean millions of girls in developing countries can be protected against the disease, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations (GAVI) said on Thursday.

"By 2020 we hope to reach more than 30 million girls in more than 40 countries," Seth Berkley, the group's chief executive, said in a statement announcing the price deal.

More than 85 percent of cervical cancer deaths are in poorer countries and globally, 275,000 women a year die of the disease. That means it kills more women worldwide than childbirth, according to GAVI, claiming a life every two minutes.

GAVI, a non-profit group that funds bulk-buy vaccine programs for poor countries, will deliver the cut-price shots.

It said in February that Ghana, Kenya, Laos, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Sierra Leone and Tanzania would be the first countries to get support in pilot projects.

The vaccines - Merck's Gardasil and GSK's Cervarix - can cost more than $100 in developed countries and have been introduced in immunization campaigns in rich regions like the United States and Europe in recent years.

They are generally given to girls aged around eight or nine and over to protect them against the human papillomavirus that causes almost all cervical cancers.

A study published in 2011 found that since 1980, new cervical cancer cases and deaths have dropped substantially in rich countries - mostly due to better screening and earlier detection - but increased sharply in poor regions. Sub-Saharan Africa has 22 percent of all cervical cancer cases worldwide.

"Developing countries bear an increasing burden of cervical cancer and it is only right that our girls should have the same protection as girls in other countries," said Richard Sezibera, former Health Minister of Rwanda and a GAVI board member.

The U.S. drugmaker Merck said it expects to supply around 2.4 million doses of Gardasil at $4.50 per dose to GAVI-eligible countries between 2013 to 2017. British rival GSK said its Cervarix shot would cost $4.60 per dose.

Yet critics said the deal was still far too expensive for many poor countries - particularly since the vaccines need to be given as three doses to ensure full protection against HPV.

"It will still cost nearly $14 to fully protect a girl against HPV," said Kate Elder of the international charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

"It's really disappointing that pharmaceutical companies haven't offered GAVI a much better deal."

MSF said Merck made $1.63 billion and GSK more than $416 million from their HPV vaccines in 2012 alone. It accused the companies of "seeking to maximize their profits on the backs of developing countries".

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by John Stonestreet)

Born December 30, 1984 in Akron, Ohio (age 28)

Height: six feet eight inches, 250 lbs (113 kilograms)

Drafted first overall by Cleveland Cavaliers in 2003

Named NBA rookie of the year in 2004

Nine-time NBA All-Star (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013). Twice named MVP in All-Star game (2006, 2008)

NBA scoring champion in 2008, making him the first Cavalier to lead the league in scoring

Won Olympic gold medal with United States at 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Games

Won his first NBA Championship with Miami in 2012 after previously losing in the final with Cleveland (2007) and Miami (2011)

Was named MVP of the NBA finals in 2012

Four-time winner of the NBA Most Valuable Player (2009, 2010, 2012, 2013)

James is one of just five players to have won the MVP award at least four times. The others are: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (six times), Michael Jordan (five), Bill Russell (five) and Wilt Chamberlain (four).

(Compiled by Julian Linden, Editing by Gene Cherry)

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Marc Gasol scored 24 points and Zach Randolph added 15 as the visiting Grizzlies out-scored the Thunder 30-19 in the fourth quarter. Game Three is in Memphis on Saturday.

Kevin Durant had 36 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists in another big performance for Oklahoma City. Derek Fisher tallied 19 points and went 4-for-5 from three-point range, but the Thunder were hurt by 21 turnovers.

The Grizzlies took a 92-90 lead when Conley drained a three-pointer with 1:58 to play and he followed that up by knocking down an 18-footer with 1:04 left and a free throw with 29.4 seconds remaining to make it a five-point game.

Randolph hit two free throws and Tony Allen slammed home a dunk to cap a 10-0 run and give Memphis a 99-90 advantage.

Gasol had 17 first-half points as Memphis took a 54-51 lead into the break. Durant scored 13 points in the third quarter as Oklahoma City held the Grizzlies to 15 points and led 74-69 entering the final stanza. (Editing by John O'Brien)

An opera bouffe that's usually airy and sometimes saccharine, "La Perichole" devolved into a series of sophomoric sight gags, overshadowing fine vocal work by mezzo-soprano Marie Lenormand as Perichole and tenor Philippe Talbot as Piquillo, the pair of young street singers.

Seen Tuesday night in the second performance of a run of four, this was City Opera's second staging this season at New York City Center, its home from 1944-65. Alden seemed to be inspired by Monty Python's visit to City Center in 1976. Don Andre de Ribeira, the Viceroy of Peru sung by bass Kevin Burdette, pranced about the stage in the manner of John Cleese as the Minister of Silly Walks. He was costumed by Gabriel Berry as a superhero, a cowboy in black and white, a Gatsby-like charmer and Fidel Castro.

All this was distracting, given that "Perichole" can be charming, with a love story, mistaken identity and a happy ending.

Offenbach and librettists Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halevy set the opening scene in the main square of Lima, outside The Three Cousins tavern. Alden's version is more like a Malibu, Calif., barbecue, where the cousins grill hot dogs and serve the franks to a crowd in modern casual attire, with paper party hats on heads and holding margaritas. Pinatas dangled overhead.

Paul Steinberg's set around them is a gold, black and white mosaic, which transforms into the viceroy's palace for the second act with the addition of a long, aqua sofa in front of a row of cacti.

Performing the 1874 three-act version, with cuts and changes to the spoken dialogue, conductor Emmanuel Plasson led an idiomatic musical performance with verve and grace. But the score was overwhelmed by the hamminess. "Ah, quel diner (Ah, what a lunch)" should be Perichole's comic tipsy aria; here she was a stumbling drunk.

Alden has done some stunning work at City Opera his Magritte-influenced staging of "Cosi fan tutte" was among the most fascinating productions of 2012, even though it was bleak and at times fought Mozart's music. But here he misfires. Don Andre making the sounds of a French police siren in a microphone was not funny. Shining 31 flashlights into the audience's eyes was not entertaining.

More convincing was the use of video: When Piquillo is imprisoned in the third act, he sees Perichole fending off the viceroy in a palace bedroom with a bat.

Lenormand and Talbot, both French, added precise diction and sweet voices. The three cousins, Lauren Worsham, Naomi O'Connell and Carin Gilfry, were seductive. Philip Littell, librettist for Andre Previn's "A Streetcar Named Desire," was a twitching, falling bartender in the first two acts an Alden addition who transformed into The Old Prisoner in the third.

There are additional performances Thursday and Saturday. After leaving Lincoln Center and presenting a pair of four-production, 16-performance seasons, City Opera is expanding to 23 performances of four stagings in 2013-14. Mark-Anthony Turnage's "Anna Nicole" will receive its U.S. premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Sept. 17.

Johann Christian Bach's "Endimione" follows at El Museo del Barrio starting Feb. 8, and Bartok's "Bluebeard's Castle" at Brooklyn's St. Ann's Warehouse begins Feb. 28 in a production that first appeared at the English National Opera in 2009. The season ends with Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)" in an Alden staging at City Center starting April 19.

___

Online:

http://www.nycopera.com/

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By providing the most efficient next-generation mobile memory with a very large data capacity, we are now enabling OEMs to introduce even more innovative designs in the marketplace, said Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing for Samsung. Our 20nm-class four gigabit mobile DRAM provides another example of our ability to deliver well-differentiated, high-performance, high-density memory to customers in a timely manner.

[More from BGR: ]

Compared to older 30-nanometer class low power DDR3 mobile RAM, the new memory chip improves performance by more than 30% and reduces power consumption by 20%.

Samsung said that it plans to increase production of its 20nm-class mobile memory chip later this year.

This article was

Ventura County fire spokesman Bill Nash says the 18,000-acre fire is burning new fuel in mostly unpopulated canyons. He says it's 20 percent contained.

The fire was estimated to have burned about 15 square miles as of early Friday morning.

The wind-whipped fire erupted Thursday in the Camarillo area, threatening as many as 4,000 homes but only damaging 15.

After burning to the Pacific Ocean, a shift in winds caused the flames to reverse course and burn inland.

No injuries have been reported.

WHO:Brigadier General John Adams (U.S. Army, Retired),president, Guardian Six ConsultingU.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)U.S. Representative Mo Brooks (R-Ala.)U.S. Representative Tim Ryan (D-Ohio)Scott Paul, president, Alliance for American Manufacturing

WHAT:Remaking American Security: Supply Chain Vulnerabilities & National Security Risks Across the U.S. Defense Industrial Base

WHEN:Wednesday, May 8, 201311:30 a.m. ET

WHERE:Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room G11 (SDG11)(Entrance at 1st & C Street NW or 1st & Constitution Avenue NW)

If you are unable to attend the briefing, please contact Kirk Monroe, for dial-in information.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing is a non-profit, non-partisan partnership formed in 2007 by some of America's leading manufacturers and the United Steelworkers to explore common solutions to challenging public policy topics such as job creation, infrastructure investment, international trade, and global competitiveness. For more information, please visit .

Media Contact:Kirk Monroe, Prism Public Affairs202-207-3646,

SOURCE The Alliance for American Manufacturing

The biggest change: a five-page short form that single people can fill out. That total includes a cover page with instructions, and an extra page to fill out if you want to designate someone to help you through the process.

But the application form for families still runs to 12 pages, although most households will not have to fill out each and every page.

The paperwork takes on added importance because Americans remain confused about what President Barack Obama's health care overhaul will mean for them. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Tuesday found that 4 in 10 are unaware it's the law of the land. Some think it's been repealed by Congress, but in fact, it's still on track.

At his news conference Tuesday, Obama hailed the simplified forms as an example of how his team listened to criticism from consumer groups and made a fix. The law's benefits will be available to all Americans, he emphasized, even if Republicans in Congress still insist on repeal, and many GOP governors won't help put it into place.

When the first draft of the application turned out to be a clunker, "immediately, everybody sat around the table and said, 'Well, this is too long, especially...in this age of the Internet,'" Obama recounted. "'People aren't going to have the patience to sit there for hours on end. Let's streamline this thing.'"

His administration is open to making improvements, Obama added: "Those kinds of refinements, we're going to be working on."

Consumers will start getting familiar with the new applications less than six months from now, on Oct. 1, when new insurance markets open for enrollment in every state. Most people with job-based benefits will not have to bother with the applications, only the uninsured.

Under the law, middle-class people who don't get coverage through their jobs will be able to purchase private insurance. Most will be able to get tax credits, based on their incomes, to make their premiums more affordable. Low-income uninsured people will be steered to government programs like Medicaid.

Benefits begin Jan. 1, and nearly 30 million uninsured Americans are eventually expected to get coverage.

While the first drafts of the applications were widely panned, the new forms were seen as an improvement. Still, consumers must provide a snapshot of their finances to see if they qualify for help. That potentially includes multiple sources of income, from alimony, to tips, to regular paychecks.

"Given the amount of information necessary to determine eligibility, it's hard to see how the forms could be any shorter," said Robert Laszewski, a former insurance executive turned industry consultant.

Activist Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, is an administration ally who had openly criticized the first draft of the forms, worrying that consumers would get discouraged just trying to fill them out. He called the changes "very positive."

"There has got to be a balance to between getting adequate (financial) information to make sure everybody gets the help they're entitled to under the law, while at the same time trying to keep the process consumer-friendly," saidPollack.

Although the new forms are shorter, the administration wasn't able to get rid of all the complexity. Individuals will have to gather tax returns, pay stubs and other financial records before filling out the application.

Administration officials expect most consumers to apply online through the new insurance marketplaces in each state. A single application process will serve to route consumers to either private plans or the Medicaid program. Identification, citizenship and immigration status, as well as income details, are supposed to be verified in close to real time through a federal "data hub" that will involve pinging Social Security, Homeland Security and the Internal Revenue Service.

Currently, applying for health insurance individually entails filling out a lengthy questionnaire about your health. Under Obama's overhaul, insurers will no longer be able to turn away the sick, or charge them more. The health care questions will disappear, but they'll be replaced by questions about your income. Consumers who underestimate their incomes could be in for an unwelcome surprise later on in the form of smaller tax refunds.

"Consumers will have a simple-easy to understand way to apply for health coverage later this year," said Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner, also overseeing the rollout of the health care law. She said the application is "significantly shorter than industry standards."

Among the sections eliminated in the new form was one that asked applicants if they also wanted to register to vote. Some congressional Republicans had criticized that, calling it politically motivated.

The archdiocese sent a subpoena to President Barack Obama's administration in February asking for documents from White House staff, including Obama himself, for use in a church lawsuit against the contraception mandate.

Citing the burden involved and calling a subpoena of the president's office inappropriate, the White House asked a federal judge to toss out the subpoena on April 4.

A notice filed in U.S. District Court in Washington late on Monday said the archdiocese agreed to withdraw its subpoena. It did not say why.

A lawyer for the archdiocese declined to comment on Tuesday. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Justice Department, which represented the White House in court, had no immediate comment.

The archdiocese is continuing its lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court challenging the Obama administration's health policy requirement that employers generally include coverage of birth control in health insurance plans they offer workers.

The Catholic Church teaches that artificial birth control is sinful because it violates natural law.

Part of the 2010 healthcare law championed by Obama and congressional Democrats, the birth control mandate has some exceptions for religious employers but the New York archdiocese said it expected to incur nearly $200 million each year in penalties if it refuses to comply.

(Reporting by David Ingram; editing by Andrew Hay)