The manufacturer of a hospital feed "strongly linked" to the death of one baby and illness of 14 others has said it is "saddened" by what has happened.
ITH Pharma managing director Karen Hamling said it was co-operating fully with an inquiry by health officials.
The baby died from blood poisoning at St Thomas' Hospital in south London from suspected contaminated drip food.
Public Health England said babies at six hospitals developed septicaemia from the Bacillus cereus bacterium.
'Establish facts'
Ms Hamling said in a statement: "ITH Pharma is very saddened to hear about the death of a baby in hospital, and that 14 others are ill with septicaemia.
"ITH Pharma is a specialist manufacturer of parenteral nutrition, which is given to babies in neonatal intensive care units.
"The products in question, which are no longer in circulation, are made to order for individual patients on a daily basis, in response to bespoke orders from hospitals.
"We are co-operating fully with the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) in the investigation, and are doing everything we can to help them establish the facts in this case as quickly as possible."
Public Health England (PHE) said the cases were "strongly linked" with a number of batches of a particular form of the intravenous liquid made by the London-based company.
Paul Cosford, PHE's director of health protection, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that a possible point when contamination entered the products last week had been identified.
Fed into bloodstream
The baby died on Sunday after being diagnosed the previous day.
The babies affected, many of whom were premature, were being cared for in neonatal intensive care units and were given the feed direct to their bloodstream as they could not be fed by mouth.
The cases were reported at:
Chelsea and Westminster NHS Trust, London (four)
Guy's and St Thomas's NHS Foundation Trust, London (three)
Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust (three)
Addenbrooke's, Cambridge University Hospitals (two)
Luton and Dunstable University Hospital (two)
The Whittington Hospital, London (one)
The hospitals said the surviving babies were responding well to antibiotics and their parents had been informed.
An investigation has been launched by PHE and the MHRA.
PHE said inquiries with ITH Pharma had identified "an incident that might have caused the contamination".
A PHE spokeswoman said: "Many of the babies were premature and very vulnerable and one baby has sadly died but the others are responding to antibiotic treatment."
ITH Pharma has launched a product recall to which the MHRA has issued an alert to hospitals.
Bacillus cereus
A type of bacterium that produces toxins that cause two types of illness
The most common form causes nausea and vomiting
The symptoms may start one to six hours after eating contaminated food
The poison is not passed from one person to another and symptoms do not usually last longer than a day
Less common is an illness which causes fever and diarrhoea
These symptoms, which may be serious, usually start six to 24 hours after eating and can last for one or two days
PHE said doctors had been given advice on identifying any potential cases of infection and how to dispose of affected stock.
PHE incident director Professor Mike Catchpole said: "Given that the bacteria is widely spread in the environment, we are continuing to investigate any other potential sources of infection. However, all our investigations to date indicate that the likely source of the infection has been identified.
"We have acted quickly to investigate this issue alongside the MHRA and we have taken action to ensure that the affected batches and any remaining stock of this medicine is not being used in hospitals."
'Rigorous inspection'
Adam Burgess, manager of the MHRA's defective medicines reporting centre, said: "We have sent inspectors to the manufacturer's facility to carry out a detailed and rigorous inspection and we have ensured that the potentially affected medicine is recalled."
Officials said they were not expecting any more cases.
Dr Martin Ward Platt, of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said blood poisoning caused by Bacillus cereus was extremely rare.
"Any baby developing such a serious infection can suffer from fever, pauses in their breathing and vomiting, amongst other symptoms," he said. "It is very important to treat suspected infections as early as possible as they can be fatal."
"It seems that the recently reported infections, and a tragic death, have been associated with an intravenous feeding product.
"The immediate response has been for the affected hospitals to stop using the product, and it is generally easy for them to switch to alternative suppliers so that babies who need intravenous feeding do not go without it for a prolonged period.
"Naturally, parents whose babies are in intensive care anywhere in the country may be concerned and if so I would urge them to talk to the doctors and nurses looking after their baby."
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While Ukraine was able to hold a largely peaceful presidential election last month, the situation in the east near the Russian border remains volatile, with armed groups attacking Ukrainian government forces and occupying state buildings.
"We stand ready to intensify targeted sanctions and to consider significant additional restrictive measures to impose further costs on Russia should events so require," the G7 said in a statement after evening talks in Brussels.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Western powers would check "again and again" to verify that Russia was doing what it could to stabilize the situation, which erupted in March after Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine and annexed it.
"We cannot afford a further destabilization in Ukraine," Merkel told reporters.
"If we do not have progress in the questions we have to solve there is the possibility of sanctions, even heavy sanctions of phase 3 on the table," she said, referring to restrictions on trade, finance and energy.
So far, the United States and European Union have imposed relatively minor travel bans and asset freezes on dozens of Russian officials in reaction to the seizure of Crimea.
Further steps were threatened if the May 25 elections were affected. However, they went smoothly and new President Petro Poroshenko will be sworn in on Saturday.
Some saw that as an indication that Russia was being more cooperative, reducing the threat of further sanctions. But Wednesday's statement suggests the West is not yet satisfied that President Vladimir Putin is doing enough to calm the situation.
Russia denies it is behind the revolt in eastern Ukraine, where militias allied to Moscow have seized buildings, attacked Ukrainian troops and declared independence. Putin has also defended his right to protect Russian-speaking people.
While Putin has been cut out of the G7 - this is the first meeting without Russia since it joined the club in 1997 - he will hold face-to-face meetings with Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Britain's David Cameron at a D-Day anniversary gathering in France later this week.
Asked about those bilateral meetings and whether they raised any concerns for President Barack Obama, who has pointedly avoided any contact with Putin, a U.S. official said it wasn't important who Putin met but "what people say in those meetings". Ahead of the G7 summit, Obama met Poroshenko for talks in Warsaw and declared him a "wise choice" to lead Ukraine, part of efforts by the EU and the United States to provide moral and financial support to the new leadership.
Poroshenko, a chocolate-industry billionaire, said he would be willing to meet Putin for peace talks on the sidelines of the D-Day commemorations in Normandy although no meeting has been set up.
"As things stand now, a meeting between me and Putin is not envisaged, but I do not rule out that it could take place in one format or another," he told reporters, adding that he was working on a peace plan for Ukraine that would involve the decentralization of power, local elections and an amnesty.
ECONOMICS AND TRADE
As well as foreign policy, the two-day G7 summit will cover economics, trade, climate and energy policy.
One of the most sensitive discussions will be over energy security, particularly in Europe, which relies on Russia for around a third of its oil and gas - a fact that gives Moscow leverage over the EU and its 500 million people.
European leaders have committed themselves to diversifying away from Russia but doing so will take time and be costly, and may in part depend on the willingness of the United States to supply liquified natural gas to Europe.
A separate communique will be released by the G7 leaders after talks on Thursday which will highlight the need to prioritize security of energy supplies.
"The use of energy supplies as a means of political coercion or as a threat to security is unacceptable," a draft of that statement, seen be Reuters, said.
"The crisis in Ukraine makes plain that energy security must be at the center of our collective agenda and requires a step-change to our approach to diversifying energy supplies."
The economic discussion is not expected to break new ground, instead reiterating that all the G7 members - the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Britain, Japan and Italy - must focus on sustaining economic recovery and tightening regulations to prevent future banking sector problems.
The leaders will reaffirm a commitment to completing financial reforms this year including ending "too-big-to-fail" banking.
(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton, Jan Strupczewski, Robin Emmott and Barbara Lewis in Brussels, Noah Barkin and Stephen Brown in Berlin. Editing by Mike Peacock)
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The robots, which the mobile phone and Internet conglomerate envisions serving as baby-sitters, nurses, emergency medical workers or even party companions, will sell for 198,000 yen ($1,900) and are capable of learning and expressing emotions, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son told a news conference.
A prototype will be deployed this week, serving customers at SoftBank mobile phone stores in Japan, he added. The sleek, waist-high robot, named Pepper, accompanied Son to the briefing, speaking to reporters in a high-pitched, boyish voice.
"People describe others as being robots because they have no emotions, no heart. For the first time in human history, we're giving a robot a heart, emotions," Son said.
The robots were developed by French robotics company Aldebaran, in which SoftBank took a stake in 2012, and will be manufactured by Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd.
They will use cloud computing to share data that can develop their own emotional capabilities. Son said they would not share an owner's personal information.
Japan's population is one of the most rapidly ageing in the world and the government hopes companies can offset a decline in the labour force by utilising robotics.
Several Japanese technology manufacturers are targeting robotics for growth. Panasonic Corp and robotics research subsidiary ActiveLink Co Ltd this week showcased robotic suits and vests to assist in arduous manual tasks such as carrying heavy loads or picking fruit from trees. Personal or household robots, such as the Asimo robot that Honda Motor Co has been developing for more than a decade, are seen as potential elderly care providers.
Japan's overall robotics market was worth about 860 billion yen ($8.38 billion) in 2012 and is forecast to more than triple in value to 2.85 trillion yen by 2020, according to a trade ministry report last year.
A draft government growth strategy obtained by Reuters calls for a "robotic revolution" that would increase the use of robots in agriculture 20-fold and double manufacturing use. [ID:nL3N0OK2JQ]
($1 = 102.6400 Japanese Yen)
(Additional reporting by Faith Hung in Taipei; Editing by Edmund Klamann and Miral Fahmy)
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San Antonio power forward Tim Duncan has all-but guaranteed a victory after the team suffered a heartbreaking, seven-game loss to Miami in the finals a year ago.
Heat forward LeBron James knows San Antonio is inspired but doesn't believe that matters much once the game begins.
"They are motivated," James, the finals MVP the last two seasons, told reporters on Wednesday. "I think motivation can only go so far. How much motivation can carry you to a championship, I'm not sure.
"At the end of the day, five, ten guys on the floor, three refs and one basketball. You gotta make plays. I can't shoot the ball and say motivation will make it in.
"I can't sit in the lane and take a charge and say, 'Motivation, let me get this call.'"
Needing just one win for title, the Spurs squandered a five-point lead in the final 28 seconds of regulation in Game Six a year ago and lost 103-100 in overtime. The Heat won Game Seven 95-88, leaving the Spurs deflated, angry and wondering what might have been.
James knows the feeling, having lost in the finals to the Dallas Mavericks three years ago. But, he added, there's nothing more you can do than try your hardest.
"Motivation, yes, can carry you to some things, I agree, because I had it a lot after we lost in 2011 to the Mavericks, but at the end of the day you have to play the game of basketball and do it the right way," he said.
"Hopefully, you can sit back and say, 'Well, I did everything it took to win. Win, lose or draw I'm satisfied with it.'"
Duncan tempered his earlier we're-going-to-win-it remarks on Wednesday, saying, "I don't know if we're going in with a chip on our shoulder.
"We're going in this trying to win a championship," said the 38-year-old, 14-time All-Star. "We understand what happened last year, we understand how close we got and we're disappointed in that respect but we're ecstatic that we have an opportunity to challenge that.
"Series starts over again and we'll see what happens."
The first two games of the series are in San Antonio and the next two are in Miami. The Spurs have the home-court advantage, unlike last year's series.
Miami is shooting for its third straight championship, having beaten Oklahoma City in 2012 for the title.
"We have worked hard in training camp and all season to get ourselves back to this point," said San Antonio small forward Danny Green. "And we have been lucky enough to fight through a lot of adversity throughout the season and to get some playoff wins and get back to this point.
"We have tried to get better, be the last team standing. We have to be the best, do all the little things perfect. We want to continue to do that. At this point we're almost there.
"We know we're playing the two time defending champs and the best team in the league right now. It's not going to be easy. We got to earn it."
(Editing by Frank Pingue)
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