As Shoppers Hop From Tablet to PC to Phone, Retailers Try to Adapt

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Shoppers often visit ModCloth, a Web site that sells women’s clothes, on their phones but return on a different kind of device to buy something, said Sarah Rose, a vice president at ModCloth.

Ryan O’Neil, a Connecticut government employee, was in the market to buy a digital weather station this month. His wife researched options on their iPad, but even though she found the lowest-price option there, Mr. O’Neil made the purchase on his laptop.

“I do use the iPad to browse sites,” Mr. O’Neil said, but when it comes time to close the deal, he finds it easier to do on a computer.

Many online retailers had visions of holiday shoppers lounging beneath the Christmas tree with their mobile devices in hand, making purchases. The size of the average order on tablets, particularly iPads, tends to be bigger than on PCs. So retailers poured money and marketing into mobile Web sites and apps with rich images and, they thought, easy checkout.

But while visits to e-commerce sites and apps on tablets and phones have nearly doubled since last year, consumers like Mr. O’Neil are more frequently using multiple devices to shop. In many cases, they are more comfortable making the final purchase on a computer, with its bigger screen and keyboard. So retailers are trying to figure out how to appeal to a shopper who may use a cellphone to research products, a tablet to browse the options and a computer to buy.

“I’ve been yelling at customers for two years, saying, ‘Mobile, mobile, mobile,’ ” said Jason Spero, director of mobile sales and strategy at Google. “But the funny thing is, now we’re going to say: ‘Don’t put mobile in a silo. It’s also about the desktop.’ ”

The challenges are daunting, though. It is technically difficult to track consumers as they hop from phone to computer to tablet and back again. This means customers who, say, fill shopping carts on their tablets have to do all the work again on their PCs or other devices. The biggest obstacle, retailers say, is that the tools used to track shoppers on computers — cookies, or bundles of data stored in Web browsers — don’t transfer across devices.

Instead, retailers are figuring out how to sync the experience in other ways, like prompting shoppers to log in on each device. And being able to track people across devices gives retailers more insight into how they shop.

The retailers’ efforts are backed by research. While one-quarter of the visits to e-commerce sites occur on mobile devices, only around 15 percent of purchases do, according to data from I.B.M. According to Google, 85 percent of online shoppers start searching on one device — most often a mobile phone — and make a purchase on another.

At eBags, customers are shopping on their tablets in the evening and returning on their work computers the next day. But eBags has not yet synced the shoppers across devices, so customers must build their shopping carts from scratch if they switch devices.

“That is a blind spot with a lot of sites,” said Peter Cobb, co-founder of eBags. “It is a requirement moving forward.”

At eBay, one-third of the purchases involve mobile devices at some point, even if the final purchase is made on a computer.

At eBay, once shoppers log in on a device, they do not need to log in again. Their information, like shipping and credit card details and saved items, syncs across all their devices. If an eBay shopper is interested in a certain handbag, and saves that search on a computer, eBay will send alerts to her cellphone when a new handbag arrives or an auction is about to end.

“They might discover an item on a phone or tablet, do a saved-search push alert later on some other screen and eventually close on the Web site,” said Steve Yankovich, who runs eBay Mobile. “People are buying and shopping and consuming potentially every waking moment of the day.”

ModCloth, an e-commerce site for women’s clothes, said that while a quarter of its visits come from mobile devices, people are not yet buying there in the same proportion, though they are becoming more comfortable with checking out on those devices.

“She’s visiting us more on the phone, but she’s actually transacting somewhere else,” said Sarah Rose, vice president of product at ModCloth.

For example, a shopper will skim through new arrivals on her phone while on the bus and add items to her wish list, then visit that evening on her tablet to make a purchase, Ms. Rose said.

Read More..

The Neediest Cases: The Daughter of a Sick Woman Falls Prey to a Craigslist Scam

Sitting side by side on their living room sofa, Patricia Morales and her daughter, Katherine, could be any mother-daughter duo. Both have dark hair, dark eyes and welcoming, infectious smiles.

Librado Romero/The New York Times

Patricia Morales, 62, at home in the Bronx. Her treatment for ailments like rheumatoid arthritis and hepatitis C led to depression.

2012-13 Campaign

Previously recorded:

$3,375,394

Recorded Wednesday:

182,251

*Total:

$3,557,645

Last year to date:

$3,320,812

*Includes $709,856 contributed to the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.

For the past 100 years, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has provided direct assistance to children, families and the elderly in New York. To celebrate the 101st campaign, an article will appear daily through Jan. 25. Each profile will illustrate the difference that even a modest amount of money can make in easing the struggles of the poor.

Last year donors contributed $7,003,854, which was distributed to those in need through seven New York charities.

The Youngest Donors

If your child or family is using creative techniques to raise money for this year’s campaign, we want to hear from you. Drop us a line on Facebook or talk to us on Twitter.

But the ties that bind them go beyond their genes, beyond the bodies they were born with.

“It’s called a neck ring. It’s a silver curved barbell, one inch,” Katherine, 20, said as she swept aside her shoulder-length black hair to show the piercing in the back of her neck, a show of solidarity with her mother. She had it done when she was 16. “I wanted to know what it felt like for my mom.”

Her mother then turned around and outlined with her finger two lengthy scars that run down her back.

“I’ve had a lot of physical problems,” Ms. Morales, 62, said. Shaking her head at her daughter’s piercing, she added, “I’ve had rods put in my upper and lower spine, but I could never do that.”

The rods were surgically planted to treat herniated discs, the result of having a cruel combination of osteoporosis, hepatitis C, fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis. Ms. Morales contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion she received in 1972 after the birth of her only son, she said.

“I didn’t even know about it until 10 years ago,” she said. “My liver blood count was a little high.”

Since the diagnosis, Ms. Morales, a former schoolteacher, has ridden the arduous highs and lows common to patients with hepatitis C. Her treatments for the disease, which debilitates the liver over time, have included pills and injections that can cause depression. Ms. Morales, a single parent, found an unforgiving salve in alcohol.

“I was depressed; I was totally drunk,” she said. “I didn’t want to live anymore.”

Then, about a year ago, she reached a turning point when visiting her hepatitis C specialist.

“I was 210 pounds,” she said. “The doctor said: ‘You have to stop drinking. You have to lose weight.’ ”

To help combat the depression, her doctor referred her to Jewish Association Serving the Aging, a beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation of New York, one of the organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. She began weekly counseling sessions with a social worker and started taking an antidepressant medication. The federation drew about $600 from the fund in May so that Ms. Morales could buy a mattress.

“I had a horrible bed,” she said. “I felt like I was sleeping on rocks, and with rods in my back, I was waking up every hour.”

After several months of therapy and starting a diet, Ms. Morales was on her way to losing 60 pounds. Today, she weighs 148.

Light was starting to show itself again when the family took an unexpected financial hit this summer. While taking time off from attending Hostos Community College, Katherine Morales looked for work on Craigslist.

“I saw my mom, and I realized I needed to get a job,” Katherine said shyly. “This guy asked me to be his personal assistant, and he asked me to wire money.”

Offering $400 a week, the man requested help transferring almost $2,000 from what he said was his wife’s account. He transferred the money to Katherine’s account, asking her to wire it to a bank account in Malaysia.

Shortly after she wired the money, the bank froze the account, which Katherine and her mother shared. It was then that Katherine realized she had been the victim of a scam. The money transferred into her account turned out to have been stolen, and she was responsible for repaying it.

Katherine went to detectives immediately with more than 20 pages of evidentiary e-mails, but found that she was unable to file a complaint.

“They told me it wasn’t enough,” she said. “These things happen all the time.”

They lost almost $2,000.

Ms. Morales lives on a fixed income. She receives just over $700 a month from Social Security and $200 month in food stamps. The rent for the apartment she shares with her daughter in the Throgs Neck neighborhood of the Bronx is $230, and Ms. Morales has a monthly combined phone and cable bill of $140. Ms. Morales has a son, but he is unable to help the family.

Falling behind on her bills, Ms. Morales turned once again to JASA for help paying a combined phone and cable bill of nearly $200, a grant the agency drew from the Neediest Cases Fund.

“It was terrible, because my intention was to help my mom,” said Katherine, who has since found a part-time job at a vitamin shop.

Ms. Morales has been feeling much better, but she is nervous about an appointment with her hepatitis C specialist in January.

“I’m taking things one day at a time, but I’m looking forward to someone taking care of me,” she said. “I want to live a little bit longer, but not that long.”

“Why are you putting a time limit on it?” Katherine said, jokingly. “Seventy’s the new 20!” she added, nudging her mother in the side. “Remember, the doctor said you wouldn’t live past your late 50s, but you did.”

Read More..

The Neediest Cases: The Daughter of a Sick Woman Falls Prey to a Craigslist Scam

Sitting side by side on their living room sofa, Patricia Morales and her daughter, Katherine, could be any mother-daughter duo. Both have dark hair, dark eyes and welcoming, infectious smiles.

Librado Romero/The New York Times

Patricia Morales, 62, at home in the Bronx. Her treatment for ailments like rheumatoid arthritis and hepatitis C led to depression.

2012-13 Campaign

Previously recorded:

$3,375,394

Recorded Wednesday:

182,251

*Total:

$3,557,645

Last year to date:

$3,320,812

*Includes $709,856 contributed to the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.

For the past 100 years, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has provided direct assistance to children, families and the elderly in New York. To celebrate the 101st campaign, an article will appear daily through Jan. 25. Each profile will illustrate the difference that even a modest amount of money can make in easing the struggles of the poor.

Last year donors contributed $7,003,854, which was distributed to those in need through seven New York charities.

The Youngest Donors

If your child or family is using creative techniques to raise money for this year’s campaign, we want to hear from you. Drop us a line on Facebook or talk to us on Twitter.

But the ties that bind them go beyond their genes, beyond the bodies they were born with.

“It’s called a neck ring. It’s a silver curved barbell, one inch,” Katherine, 20, said as she swept aside her shoulder-length black hair to show the piercing in the back of her neck, a show of solidarity with her mother. She had it done when she was 16. “I wanted to know what it felt like for my mom.”

Her mother then turned around and outlined with her finger two lengthy scars that run down her back.

“I’ve had a lot of physical problems,” Ms. Morales, 62, said. Shaking her head at her daughter’s piercing, she added, “I’ve had rods put in my upper and lower spine, but I could never do that.”

The rods were surgically planted to treat herniated discs, the result of having a cruel combination of osteoporosis, hepatitis C, fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis. Ms. Morales contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion she received in 1972 after the birth of her only son, she said.

“I didn’t even know about it until 10 years ago,” she said. “My liver blood count was a little high.”

Since the diagnosis, Ms. Morales, a former schoolteacher, has ridden the arduous highs and lows common to patients with hepatitis C. Her treatments for the disease, which debilitates the liver over time, have included pills and injections that can cause depression. Ms. Morales, a single parent, found an unforgiving salve in alcohol.

“I was depressed; I was totally drunk,” she said. “I didn’t want to live anymore.”

Then, about a year ago, she reached a turning point when visiting her hepatitis C specialist.

“I was 210 pounds,” she said. “The doctor said: ‘You have to stop drinking. You have to lose weight.’ ”

To help combat the depression, her doctor referred her to Jewish Association Serving the Aging, a beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation of New York, one of the organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. She began weekly counseling sessions with a social worker and started taking an antidepressant medication. The federation drew about $600 from the fund in May so that Ms. Morales could buy a mattress.

“I had a horrible bed,” she said. “I felt like I was sleeping on rocks, and with rods in my back, I was waking up every hour.”

After several months of therapy and starting a diet, Ms. Morales was on her way to losing 60 pounds. Today, she weighs 148.

Light was starting to show itself again when the family took an unexpected financial hit this summer. While taking time off from attending Hostos Community College, Katherine Morales looked for work on Craigslist.

“I saw my mom, and I realized I needed to get a job,” Katherine said shyly. “This guy asked me to be his personal assistant, and he asked me to wire money.”

Offering $400 a week, the man requested help transferring almost $2,000 from what he said was his wife’s account. He transferred the money to Katherine’s account, asking her to wire it to a bank account in Malaysia.

Shortly after she wired the money, the bank froze the account, which Katherine and her mother shared. It was then that Katherine realized she had been the victim of a scam. The money transferred into her account turned out to have been stolen, and she was responsible for repaying it.

Katherine went to detectives immediately with more than 20 pages of evidentiary e-mails, but found that she was unable to file a complaint.

“They told me it wasn’t enough,” she said. “These things happen all the time.”

They lost almost $2,000.

Ms. Morales lives on a fixed income. She receives just over $700 a month from Social Security and $200 month in food stamps. The rent for the apartment she shares with her daughter in the Throgs Neck neighborhood of the Bronx is $230, and Ms. Morales has a monthly combined phone and cable bill of $140. Ms. Morales has a son, but he is unable to help the family.

Falling behind on her bills, Ms. Morales turned once again to JASA for help paying a combined phone and cable bill of nearly $200, a grant the agency drew from the Neediest Cases Fund.

“It was terrible, because my intention was to help my mom,” said Katherine, who has since found a part-time job at a vitamin shop.

Ms. Morales has been feeling much better, but she is nervous about an appointment with her hepatitis C specialist in January.

“I’m taking things one day at a time, but I’m looking forward to someone taking care of me,” she said. “I want to live a little bit longer, but not that long.”

“Why are you putting a time limit on it?” Katherine said, jokingly. “Seventy’s the new 20!” she added, nudging her mother in the side. “Remember, the doctor said you wouldn’t live past your late 50s, but you did.”

Read More..

As Shoppers Hop From Tablet to PC to Phone, Retailers Try to Adapt

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Shoppers often visit ModCloth, a Web site that sells women’s clothes, on their phones but return on a different kind of device to buy something, said Sarah Rose, a vice president at ModCloth.

Ryan O’Neil, a Connecticut government employee, was in the market to buy a digital weather station this month. His wife researched options on their iPad, but even though she found the lowest-price option there, Mr. O’Neil made the purchase on his laptop.

“I do use the iPad to browse sites,” Mr. O’Neil said, but when it comes time to close the deal, he finds it easier to do on a computer.

Many online retailers had visions of holiday shoppers lounging beneath the Christmas tree with their mobile devices in hand, making purchases. The size of the average order on tablets, particularly iPads, tends to be bigger than on PCs. So retailers poured money and marketing into mobile Web sites and apps with rich images and, they thought, easy checkout.

But while visits to e-commerce sites and apps on tablets and phones have nearly doubled since last year, consumers like Mr. O’Neil are more frequently using multiple devices to shop. In many cases, they are more comfortable making the final purchase on a computer, with its bigger screen and keyboard. So retailers are trying to figure out how to appeal to a shopper who may use a cellphone to research products, a tablet to browse the options and a computer to buy.

“I’ve been yelling at customers for two years, saying, ‘Mobile, mobile, mobile,’ ” said Jason Spero, director of mobile sales and strategy at Google. “But the funny thing is, now we’re going to say: ‘Don’t put mobile in a silo. It’s also about the desktop.’ ”

The challenges are daunting, though. It is technically difficult to track consumers as they hop from phone to computer to tablet and back again. This means customers who, say, fill shopping carts on their tablets have to do all the work again on their PCs or other devices. The biggest obstacle, retailers say, is that the tools used to track shoppers on computers — cookies, or bundles of data stored in Web browsers — don’t transfer across devices.

Instead, retailers are figuring out how to sync the experience in other ways, like prompting shoppers to log in on each device. And being able to track people across devices gives retailers more insight into how they shop.

The retailers’ efforts are backed by research. While one-quarter of the visits to e-commerce sites occur on mobile devices, only around 15 percent of purchases do, according to data from I.B.M. According to Google, 85 percent of online shoppers start searching on one device — most often a mobile phone — and make a purchase on another.

At eBags, customers are shopping on their tablets in the evening and returning on their work computers the next day. But eBags has not yet synced the shoppers across devices, so customers must build their shopping carts from scratch if they switch devices.

“That is a blind spot with a lot of sites,” said Peter Cobb, co-founder of eBags. “It is a requirement moving forward.”

At eBay, one-third of the purchases involve mobile devices at some point, even if the final purchase is made on a computer.

At eBay, once shoppers log in on a device, they do not need to log in again. Their information, like shipping and credit card details and saved items, syncs across all their devices. If an eBay shopper is interested in a certain handbag, and saves that search on a computer, eBay will send alerts to her cellphone when a new handbag arrives or an auction is about to end.

“They might discover an item on a phone or tablet, do a saved-search push alert later on some other screen and eventually close on the Web site,” said Steve Yankovich, who runs eBay Mobile. “People are buying and shopping and consuming potentially every waking moment of the day.”

ModCloth, an e-commerce site for women’s clothes, said that while a quarter of its visits come from mobile devices, people are not yet buying there in the same proportion, though they are becoming more comfortable with checking out on those devices.

“She’s visiting us more on the phone, but she’s actually transacting somewhere else,” said Sarah Rose, vice president of product at ModCloth.

For example, a shopper will skim through new arrivals on her phone while on the bus and add items to her wish list, then visit that evening on her tablet to make a purchase, Ms. Rose said.

Read More..

Taliban Claim Role in Attack That Kills Pakistan Politician

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility on Saturday for a suicide bomb attack that killed a senior politician in northwest Pakistan who was one of the group’s most vocal critics. At least eight other people were killed in the attack and more than 15 others were wounded, senior government officials and doctors at a local hospital said.

The politician, Bashir Ahmad Bilour, was a senior minister in the northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, where the Taliban have a strong presence. Mr. Bilour was long on the target list of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, an umbrella organization of the Pakistani militant groups, for publicly denouncing them and challenging their violent policies.

Mr. Bilour was coming out of a meeting of his Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party in the provincial capital of Peshawar, when the suicide bomber blew himself up, said the secretary of home and tribal affairs, Azam Khan.

Mr. Bilour had been taken to the hospital in critical condition, said Dr. Arshad Javed, chief executive of the city’s Lady Reading Hospital.

Among those killed were Mr. Bilour’s secretary and a police officer, Mr. Khan said.

The provincial information minister, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, called for immediate action against militants in the nearby tribal region of North Waziristan, the safest haven for militants in Pakistan, saying it was time to take action against all militants. “Let there be no difference between good Taliban and bad Taliban,” he said.

A security analyst, Asad Munir, a retired brigadier, said the attack would further complicate campaigning in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province for a national election expected next year. He said that secular, liberal and nationalist parties would have a difficult time because they are on the Taliban hit list, and that, “Religious parties will take advantage of the situation.”

Also on Saturday, police officials in the southern province of Sindh said that a mob had tortured and killed a man accused of burning the Koran, the latest in a series of violent episodes in Pakistan stemming from allegations of blasphemy.

The killing occurred Friday in Seeta, a remote village in the Dadu district in southern Sindh Province. The village’s head cleric, Usman Memon, said charred remnants of the Koran had been found in the mosque that morning, and that the victim had been staying at the mosque alone. It is common for impoverished travelers and religious proselytizers to stay at mosques while traveling.

The man, whose name was not known, was handed over to the police and accused of violating Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, Mr. Memon said.

But as news of the episode spread later on Friday, an angry crowd gathered outside the police station and eventually forced its way in. The man was dragged out, tortured and killed, and his body was set on fire, according to the police.

Usman Ghani, the district’s senior police superintendent, said that he had suspended the official in charge of the police station and filed administrative charges against seven other officers for negligence.

He said that charges had been filed against 1,000 people believed to have participated in the mob action and that 150 people had been arrested.

Little was known about the victim or what motive he was thought to have had for burning the Koran, if he did so. Cases of violence arising from blasphemy accusations appear to be on the rise in Pakistan. Human rights groups have said that most of those victimized are members of religious minorities, particularly Christians, but Muslims are sometimes accused.

In a case similar to Friday’s, a mentally disabled man was beaten and burned to death in Punjab Province in July, also after an angry crowd broke into a police station.

Blasphemy is a capital crime in Pakistan, and it is a highly delicate and emotional issue for the deeply conservative country. Calls for repealing or revising the blasphemy laws have met with strong resistance from religious leaders, who have organized large protests against efforts to amend them. Two prominent advocates of changing the laws were assassinated last year.

Ismail Khan reported from Peshawar, and Salman Masood from Islamabad, Pakistan. Zia ur-Rehman contributed reporting from Karachi, Pakistan.

Read More..

Op-Ed Contributor: Labs, Washed Away

BEDPAN ALLEY is the affectionate name given to a stretch of First Avenue in Manhattan that is packed with more hospitals than many cities possess. This stretch also happened to be right in the flood zone during Hurricane Sandy. Water damage and power failures closed down all three of the New York University teaching hospitals — Bellevue Hospital, Tisch Hospital and the Manhattan V.A. Two months later, they are still not admitting patients, though two are on schedule to begin doing so shortly.

The harrowing evacuation of hundreds of patients made headlines nationwide. The disruption of regular medical care for tens of thousands of outpatients was a clinical nightmare that is finally easing. And the education of hundreds of medical students and residents is being patched back together.

All academic medical centers, however, rest on a tripod — patient care, education and research. The effect of the hurricane on the third leg of that tripod — research — has gotten the least attention, partly because rescuing cell cultures just isn’t as dramatic as carrying an I.C.U. patient on a ventilator down flights of stairs in the dark.

But, of course, there is an incontrovertible link between those cell cultures and that patient. For every medication that a patient takes, someone researched the basic chemistry of the drug, someone designed the clinical trial to test its efficacy, and of course a volunteer stepped forward to be the first to take the pill. Scientific research has engineered the impressive advancements of medical treatment, and every patient is a beneficiary.

When the hospitals were hit by Hurricane Sandy, hundreds of experiments were obliterated by the loss of power. Precious biological samples carefully frozen over years were destroyed. Temperature-sensitive reagents and equipment were ruined. Medications and records for patients in clinical trials were rendered inaccessible. And sadly, many laboratory mice and rats perished (though 600 cages of animals were rescued during the night by staff members who used crowbars on inaccessible doors and carried the cages out through holes cut in the ceiling).

On a slushy, rainy day earlier this month, I sat in on a meeting of N.Y.U.’s research community. Hundreds of scientists packed the chilly lecture hall to discuss what the future might hold. It was clear that the damage to laboratories and samples would not be amenable to easy repair. Some 400 researchers were being relocated to a patchwork of temporary sites so that they could restart their work.

But scientists can’t just walk in to a new space with a lab coat and a notebook; they need centrifuges, deep-freezes, lab animals, electron microscopes, incubators, autoclaves, gamma counters, PET scanners. They come with graduate students, lab techs, post-docs and collaborating investigators. For clinical researchers, there are also the patients enrolled in their clinical trials, with their medications and voluminous records.

Even beyond their eagerness to get back to work, researchers felt a sense of loss, not just in time, money, momentum, samples and grants, but of a part of their lives. Some senior scientists lost decades of archived samples. Others lost irreplaceable mice with genetic mutations for studying how coronary plaques resolve, the role of inflammation in lymphoma and the development of neural networks. At the other end of the spectrum were post-docs whose nascent careers were suddenly up in the air. Some were in tears.

Walking down First Avenue after the meeting, I passed a young researcher pushing a cart laden with cages, transporting lab rats to their new home. There was a blanket over the cages to protect them from the rain, but it kept slipping. She slogged up the wet avenue, one hand pushing the cart, the other struggling to keep the cover over her charges.

The logistical efforts to relocate and reignite such a vast research enterprise are staggeringly complicated. But the administration has cataloged each person’s research needs to match them with available space elsewhere, and hundreds of researchers have successfully rekindled their investigations despite the prodigious challenges.

Bellevue and Tisch are returning to their clinical operations and will be able to admit patients shortly. But even after the hospital wards and clinics are bustling at full capacity, the ribbon won’t feel ready to snip until the researchers are restored to their homes as well. For many patients, the thrum of research within a medical center is invisible. But it is an integral — and very human — part of a hospital. When a hurricane disrupts research, it is a loss that resonates well beyond the laboratories.

Danielle Ofri, an associate professor at New York University School of Medicine, is the editor of the Bellevue Literary Review and the author, most recently, of “Medicine in Translation: Journeys With My Patients.”

Read More..

Op-Ed Contributor: Labs, Washed Away

BEDPAN ALLEY is the affectionate name given to a stretch of First Avenue in Manhattan that is packed with more hospitals than many cities possess. This stretch also happened to be right in the flood zone during Hurricane Sandy. Water damage and power failures closed down all three of the New York University teaching hospitals — Bellevue Hospital, Tisch Hospital and the Manhattan V.A. Two months later, they are still not admitting patients, though two are on schedule to begin doing so shortly.

The harrowing evacuation of hundreds of patients made headlines nationwide. The disruption of regular medical care for tens of thousands of outpatients was a clinical nightmare that is finally easing. And the education of hundreds of medical students and residents is being patched back together.

All academic medical centers, however, rest on a tripod — patient care, education and research. The effect of the hurricane on the third leg of that tripod — research — has gotten the least attention, partly because rescuing cell cultures just isn’t as dramatic as carrying an I.C.U. patient on a ventilator down flights of stairs in the dark.

But, of course, there is an incontrovertible link between those cell cultures and that patient. For every medication that a patient takes, someone researched the basic chemistry of the drug, someone designed the clinical trial to test its efficacy, and of course a volunteer stepped forward to be the first to take the pill. Scientific research has engineered the impressive advancements of medical treatment, and every patient is a beneficiary.

When the hospitals were hit by Hurricane Sandy, hundreds of experiments were obliterated by the loss of power. Precious biological samples carefully frozen over years were destroyed. Temperature-sensitive reagents and equipment were ruined. Medications and records for patients in clinical trials were rendered inaccessible. And sadly, many laboratory mice and rats perished (though 600 cages of animals were rescued during the night by staff members who used crowbars on inaccessible doors and carried the cages out through holes cut in the ceiling).

On a slushy, rainy day earlier this month, I sat in on a meeting of N.Y.U.’s research community. Hundreds of scientists packed the chilly lecture hall to discuss what the future might hold. It was clear that the damage to laboratories and samples would not be amenable to easy repair. Some 400 researchers were being relocated to a patchwork of temporary sites so that they could restart their work.

But scientists can’t just walk in to a new space with a lab coat and a notebook; they need centrifuges, deep-freezes, lab animals, electron microscopes, incubators, autoclaves, gamma counters, PET scanners. They come with graduate students, lab techs, post-docs and collaborating investigators. For clinical researchers, there are also the patients enrolled in their clinical trials, with their medications and voluminous records.

Even beyond their eagerness to get back to work, researchers felt a sense of loss, not just in time, money, momentum, samples and grants, but of a part of their lives. Some senior scientists lost decades of archived samples. Others lost irreplaceable mice with genetic mutations for studying how coronary plaques resolve, the role of inflammation in lymphoma and the development of neural networks. At the other end of the spectrum were post-docs whose nascent careers were suddenly up in the air. Some were in tears.

Walking down First Avenue after the meeting, I passed a young researcher pushing a cart laden with cages, transporting lab rats to their new home. There was a blanket over the cages to protect them from the rain, but it kept slipping. She slogged up the wet avenue, one hand pushing the cart, the other struggling to keep the cover over her charges.

The logistical efforts to relocate and reignite such a vast research enterprise are staggeringly complicated. But the administration has cataloged each person’s research needs to match them with available space elsewhere, and hundreds of researchers have successfully rekindled their investigations despite the prodigious challenges.

Bellevue and Tisch are returning to their clinical operations and will be able to admit patients shortly. But even after the hospital wards and clinics are bustling at full capacity, the ribbon won’t feel ready to snip until the researchers are restored to their homes as well. For many patients, the thrum of research within a medical center is invisible. But it is an integral — and very human — part of a hospital. When a hurricane disrupts research, it is a loss that resonates well beyond the laboratories.

Danielle Ofri, an associate professor at New York University School of Medicine, is the editor of the Bellevue Literary Review and the author, most recently, of “Medicine in Translation: Journeys With My Patients.”

Read More..

North Korea Says It Has Detained an American Citizen

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said on Friday that it had detained an American citizen on charges of committing “hostile acts against the republic,” a crime punishable by years in prison in the isolated country.

The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said the American, Bae Jun-ho, had entered the country on Nov. 3 through a port city near the Russian border. Human rights activists in South Korea said they believed Mr. Bae to be Kenneth Bae, 44, who they said earlier this month had been detained in the North.

The North Korean report said, without elaborating, that an investigation had established Mr. Bae’s guilt and that he had confessed. It said he had been allowed to meet with officials from the Swedish Embassy in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. The Swedish Embassy intervenes on Washington’s behalf on issues involving American citizens in North Korea. Washington has no diplomatic relations with the North.

The charge comes at a sensitive time for Washington, which is trying to rally support for a new round of penalties against North Korea over its launch of a long-range rocket earlier this month. In recent years, North Korea has detained several Americans, in some cases agreeing to let them go only after high-profile American figures visited Pyongyang to seek their release. Analysts have suspected North Korea of trying to use such arrests to counter Washington’s diplomatic pressure over its nuclear and missile programs and force it to engage with the regime.

The human rights activists in South Korea said Mr. Bae ran a travel company that specialized in taking tourists and prospective investors to North Korea. Mr. Bae, a naturalized American citizen born in South Korea, was detained after escorting five European tourists into the North, said Do Hee-youn, who heads the Citizens’ Coalition for the Human Rights of North Korean Refugees, based in Seoul. The Europeans were allowed to leave the country, Mr. Do said.

The South Korean daily newspaper Kookmin Ilbo earlier cited an unnamed source as saying that Mr. Bae was detained after North Korean security officials found a computer hard disk in his possession that they believed contained sensitive information about the country. Mr. Do said that Mr. Bae may have taken pictures of North Korean orphans he wanted to help and that the authorities may have considered that an act of anti-North Korean propaganda.

In 2009, North Korea arrested two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, and sentenced them to 12 years of hard labor for illegally entering the North and committing “hostile acts against the Korean nation.” But the women were pardoned and released five months later, after former President Clinton visited Pyongyang and met with Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s leader at the time.

In 2010, North Korea released Robert Park, a Korean-American Christian activist who entered the country in December 2009 to draw international attention to the North’s poor human rights record. Another American, named Aijalon Mahli Gomes, was arrested the same year in North Korea and was sentenced to eight years of hard labor for illegal entry and “hostile acts.” He was freed after former President Carter visited Pyongyang and, according to North Korea, “apologized” for the man’s crime.

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F.T.C. Pushes Antitrust Inquiry Against Google Into January

WASHINGTON — Google was prepared to start the holidays early this week, by settling its antitrust dispute with federal regulators without a harsh punishment.

But in shelving its inquiry until January, the Federal Trade Commission has put stronger penalties back on the bargaining table, people briefed on the investigation who were not authorized to speak publicly about it said Wednesday.

For two years, the F.T.C. has been looking into whether Google abuses its market power by favoring its own services over rivals in search results. Google and the agency had been planning to sign a settlement this week that would have said Google would change some of its behavior but that would not have been subject to court action.

The agency may now demand a consent decree — a formal order detailing anticompetitive behavior and an agreement that if the company does the same thing again, it could be fined and subject to court sanctions. Google has instead offered voluntary concessions.

But the people briefed, and others close to the negotiations, said the agency was unlikely to take a second look at one of the major issues — Google’s dominance in specialized search, like travel and local reviews — because the legal hurdles remain high.

Google has long said that it does not believe it has broken antitrust laws and that the agency’s case against it is weak. Jill Hazelbaker, a Google spokeswoman, said that it continued to cooperate with the F.T.C. but declined to comment further.

Cecelia Prewett, an F.T.C. spokeswoman, declined to comment.

Competitors of Google called for the agency to use the additional time to take harsher legal action against Google. Failing to do so would hurt consumers in many ways, including by allowing Google too much control over private data, said Pamela Jones Harbour, a former F.T.C. commissioner and a lawyer representing Microsoft.

Supporters of Google said its case had already been made.

“If in 19 months they did not offer the kind of evidence and facts to support a case or conclude the behavior was such that it was posing legal difficulties, then frankly another couple weeks isn’t going to make a difference,” said Ed Black, chief executive of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, of which Google is a member.

Regulators’ decision to delay resolution of the case offered a glimpse of the tense negotiations and a series of missteps that have bedeviled the negotiations.

As details of a possible settlement appeared in news reports over the last week, Google’s competitors began arguing that a settlement without court-enforced sanctions was meaningless.

At the F.T.C., people close to the agency said, commissioners grew irked that they were being portrayed as spineless. In a parallel investigation, European regulators were said to be wringing a more stringent agreement from Google.

But it was unclear that Jon D. Leibowitz, the F.T.C. chairman, could get the two votes necessary to approve a tougher case against Google.

The five commissioners had yet to vote on possible sanctions. Julie Brill, a Democrat commissioner, supported strong antitrust action, while Edith Ramirez, the commission’s other Democrat, has resisted the strictest sanctions, said the people who have been briefed on the inquiry.

J. Thomas Rosch, a Republican, questioned whether the agency had the evidence to bring a case on search manipulation, but also expressed skepticism at a settlement that did not involve a consent decree, the people briefed said. Maureen K. Ohlhausen, the other Republican commissioner, opposed the government’s interference in private enterprise, they said.

Each of the commissioners and an F.T.C. spokeswoman declined to respond to queries about their views on the settlement.

Throughout the deliberations, both sides have complained about leaks to the news media of details of private meetings and settlement terms.

Edward Wyatt reported from Washington and Claire Cain Miller from San Francisco.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 20, 2012

An earlier version of this article incorrectly spelled the surname of the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission as Liebowitz, rather than Leibowitz.

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Female Vaccination Workers, Essential in Pakistan, Become Prey

LAHORE, Pakistan — The front-line heroes of Pakistan’s war on polio are its volunteers: young women who tread fearlessly from door to door, in slums and highland villages, administering precious drops of vaccine to children in places where their immunization campaign is often viewed with suspicion.

Now, those workers have become quarry. After militants stalked and killed eight of them over the course of a three-day, nationwide vaccination drive, the United Nations suspended its anti-polio work in Pakistan on Wednesday, and one of Pakistan’s most crucial public health campaigns has been plunged into crisis. A ninth victim died on Thursday, a day after being shot in the northwestern city of Peshawar, The Associated Press reported.

The World Health Organization and Unicef ordered their staff members off the streets, while government officials reported that some polio volunteers — especially women — were afraid to show up for work.

At the ground level, it is those female health workers who are essential, allowed privileged entrance into private homes to meet and help children in situations denied to men because of conservative rural culture. “They are on the front line; they are the backbone,” said Imtiaz Ali Shah, a polio coordinator in Peshawar.

The killings started in the port city of Karachi on Monday, the first day of a vaccination drive aimed at the worst affected areas, with the shooting of a male health worker. On Tuesday four female polio workers were killed, all gunned down by men on motorcycles in what appeared to be closely coordinated attacks.

The hit jobs then moved to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, which, along with the adjoining tribal belt, constitutes Pakistan’s main reservoir of new polio infections. The first victim there was one of two sisters who had volunteered as polio vaccinators. Men on motorcycles shadowed them as they walked from house to house. Once the sisters entered a quiet street, the gunmen opened fire. One of the sisters, Farzana, died instantly; the other was uninjured.

On Wednesday, a man working on the polio campaign was shot dead as he made a chalk mark on the door of a house in a suburb of Peshawar. Later, a female health supervisor in Charsadda, 15 miles to the north, was shot dead in a car she shared with her cousin.

Yet again, Pakistani militants are making a point of attacking women who stand for something larger. In October, it was Malala Yousafzai, a schoolgirl advocate for education who was gunned down by a Pakistani Taliban attacker in the Swat Valley. She was grievously wounded, and the militants vowed they would try again until they had killed her. The result was a tidal wave of public anger that clearly unsettled the Pakistani Taliban.

In singling out the core workers in one of Pakistan’s most crucial public health initiatives, militants seem to have resolved to harden their stance against immunization drives, and declared anew that they consider women to be legitimate targets. Until this week, vaccinators had never been targeted with such violence in such numbers.

Government officials in Peshawar said that they believe a Taliban faction in Mohmand, a tribal area near Peshawar, was behind at least some of the shootings. Still, the Pakistani Taliban have been uncharacteristically silent about the attacks, with no official claims of responsibility. In staying quiet, the militants may be trying to blunt any public backlash like the huge demonstrations over the attack on Ms. Yousafzai.

Female polio workers here are easy targets. They wear no uniforms but are readily recognizable, with clipboards and refrigerated vaccine boxes, walking door to door. They work in pairs — including at least one woman — and are paid just over $2.50 a day. Most days one team can vaccinate 150 to 200 children.

Faced with suspicious or recalcitrant parents, their only weapon is reassurance: a gentle pat on the hand, a shared cup of tea, an offer to seek religious assurances from a pro-vaccine cleric. “The whole program is dependent on them,” said Mr. Shah, in Peshawar. “If they do good work, and talk well to the parents, then they will vaccinate the children.”

That has happened with increasing frequency in Pakistan over the past year. A concerted immunization drive, involving up to 225,000 vaccination workers, drove the number of newly infected polio victims down to 52. Several high-profile groups shouldered the program forward — at the global level, donors like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations and Rotary International; and at the national level, President Asif Ali Zardari and his daughter Aseefa, who have made polio eradication a “personal mission.”

On a global scale, setbacks are not unusual in polio vaccination campaigns, which, by dint of their massive scale and need to reach deep inside conservative societies, end up grappling with more than just medical challenges. In other campaigns in Africa and South Asia, vaccinators have grappled with natural disaster, virulent opposition from conservative clerics and sudden outbreaks of mysterious strains of the disease.

Declan Walsh reported from Lahore, and Donald G. McNeil Jr. from New York. Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.

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Female Vaccination Workers, Essential in Pakistan, Become Prey

LAHORE, Pakistan — The front-line heroes of Pakistan’s war on polio are its volunteers: young women who tread fearlessly from door to door, in slums and highland villages, administering precious drops of vaccine to children in places where their immunization campaign is often viewed with suspicion.

Now, those workers have become quarry. After militants stalked and killed eight of them over the course of a three-day, nationwide vaccination drive, the United Nations suspended its anti-polio work in Pakistan on Wednesday, and one of Pakistan’s most crucial public health campaigns has been plunged into crisis. A ninth victim died on Thursday, a day after being shot in the northwestern city of Peshawar, The Associated Press reported.

The World Health Organization and Unicef ordered their staff members off the streets, while government officials reported that some polio volunteers — especially women — were afraid to show up for work.

At the ground level, it is those female health workers who are essential, allowed privileged entrance into private homes to meet and help children in situations denied to men because of conservative rural culture. “They are on the front line; they are the backbone,” said Imtiaz Ali Shah, a polio coordinator in Peshawar.

The killings started in the port city of Karachi on Monday, the first day of a vaccination drive aimed at the worst affected areas, with the shooting of a male health worker. On Tuesday four female polio workers were killed, all gunned down by men on motorcycles in what appeared to be closely coordinated attacks.

The hit jobs then moved to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, which, along with the adjoining tribal belt, constitutes Pakistan’s main reservoir of new polio infections. The first victim there was one of two sisters who had volunteered as polio vaccinators. Men on motorcycles shadowed them as they walked from house to house. Once the sisters entered a quiet street, the gunmen opened fire. One of the sisters, Farzana, died instantly; the other was uninjured.

On Wednesday, a man working on the polio campaign was shot dead as he made a chalk mark on the door of a house in a suburb of Peshawar. Later, a female health supervisor in Charsadda, 15 miles to the north, was shot dead in a car she shared with her cousin.

Yet again, Pakistani militants are making a point of attacking women who stand for something larger. In October, it was Malala Yousafzai, a schoolgirl advocate for education who was gunned down by a Pakistani Taliban attacker in the Swat Valley. She was grievously wounded, and the militants vowed they would try again until they had killed her. The result was a tidal wave of public anger that clearly unsettled the Pakistani Taliban.

In singling out the core workers in one of Pakistan’s most crucial public health initiatives, militants seem to have resolved to harden their stance against immunization drives, and declared anew that they consider women to be legitimate targets. Until this week, vaccinators had never been targeted with such violence in such numbers.

Government officials in Peshawar said that they believe a Taliban faction in Mohmand, a tribal area near Peshawar, was behind at least some of the shootings. Still, the Pakistani Taliban have been uncharacteristically silent about the attacks, with no official claims of responsibility. In staying quiet, the militants may be trying to blunt any public backlash like the huge demonstrations over the attack on Ms. Yousafzai.

Female polio workers here are easy targets. They wear no uniforms but are readily recognizable, with clipboards and refrigerated vaccine boxes, walking door to door. They work in pairs — including at least one woman — and are paid just over $2.50 a day. Most days one team can vaccinate 150 to 200 children.

Faced with suspicious or recalcitrant parents, their only weapon is reassurance: a gentle pat on the hand, a shared cup of tea, an offer to seek religious assurances from a pro-vaccine cleric. “The whole program is dependent on them,” said Mr. Shah, in Peshawar. “If they do good work, and talk well to the parents, then they will vaccinate the children.”

That has happened with increasing frequency in Pakistan over the past year. A concerted immunization drive, involving up to 225,000 vaccination workers, drove the number of newly infected polio victims down to 52. Several high-profile groups shouldered the program forward — at the global level, donors like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations and Rotary International; and at the national level, President Asif Ali Zardari and his daughter Aseefa, who have made polio eradication a “personal mission.”

On a global scale, setbacks are not unusual in polio vaccination campaigns, which, by dint of their massive scale and need to reach deep inside conservative societies, end up grappling with more than just medical challenges. In other campaigns in Africa and South Asia, vaccinators have grappled with natural disaster, virulent opposition from conservative clerics and sudden outbreaks of mysterious strains of the disease.

Declan Walsh reported from Lahore, and Donald G. McNeil Jr. from New York. Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.

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State of the Art: Android Cameras From Nikon and Samsung Go Beyond Cellphones - Review

60 Seconds With Pogue: Android Cameras:
David Pogue reviews the Nikon Coolpix S800C and the Samsung Galaxy Camera.

“Android camera.” Wow, that has a weird ring, doesn’t it? You just don’t think of a camera as having an operating system. It’s like saying “Windows toaster” or “Unix jump rope.”

But yes, that’s what it has come to. Ever since cellphone cameras got good enough for everyday snapshots, camera sales have been dropping. For millions of people, the ability to share a fresh photo wirelessly — Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, text message — is so tempting, they’re willing to sacrifice a lot of real-camera goodness.

That’s an awfully big convenience/photo-quality swap. A real camera teems with compelling features that most phones lack: optical zoom, big sensor, image stabilization, removable memory cards, removable batteries and decent ergonomics. (A four-inch, featureless glass slab is not exactly optimally shaped for a hand-held photographic instrument.)

But the camera makers aren’t taking the cellphone invasion lying down. New models from Nikon and Samsung are obvious graduates of the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” school. The Nikon Coolpix S800C ($300) and Samsung’s Galaxy Camera ($500 from AT&T, $550 from Verizon) are fascinating hybrids. They merge elements of the cellphone and the camera into something entirely new and — if these flawed 1.0 versions are any indication — very promising.

From the back, you could mistake both of these cameras for Android phones. The big black multitouch screen is filled with app icons. Yes, app icons. These cameras can run Angry Birds, Flipboard, Instapaper, Pandora, Firefox, GPS navigation programs and so on. You download and run them exactly the same way. (That’s right, a GPS function. “What’s the address, honey? I’ll plug it into my camera.”)

But the real reason you’d want an Android camera is wirelessness. Now you can take a real photo with a real camera — and post it or send it online instantly. You eliminate the whole “get home and transfer it to the computer” step.

And as long as your camera can get online, why stop there? These cameras also do a fine job of handling Web surfing, e-mail, YouTube videos, Facebook feeds and other online tasks. Well, as fine a job as a phone could do, anyway.

You can even make Skype video calls, although you won’t be able to see your conversation partner; the lens has to be pointing toward you.

Both cameras get online using Wi-Fi hot spots. The Samsung model can also get online over the cellular networks, just like a phone, so you can upload almost anywhere.

Of course, there’s a price for that luxury. Verizon charges at least $30 a month if you don’t have a Verizon plan, or $5 if you have a Verizon Share Everything plan. AT&T charges $50 a month or more for the camera alone, or $10 more if you already have a Mobile Share plan.

If you have a choice, Verizon is the way to go. Not only is $5 a month much more realistic than $10 a month, but Verizon’s 4G LTE network is far faster than AT&T’s 4G network. That’s an important consideration, since what you’ll mostly be doing with your 4G cellular camera is uploading big photo files. (Wow. Did I just write “4G cellular camera?”)

These cameras offer a second big attraction, though: freedom of photo software. The Android store overflows with photography apps. Mix and match. Take a shot with one app, crop, degrade and post it with Instagram.

Just beware that most of them are intended for cellphones, so they don’t recognize these actual cameras’ optical zoom controls. Some of the photo-editing apps can’t handle these cameras’ big 16-megapixel files, either. Unfortunately, you won’t really know until you pay the $1.50 or $4 to download these apps.

E-mail: pogue@nytimes.com

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Lebanon’s Shiites and Sunnis Fight in Syria, but Not at Home

Natalie Naccache for The New York Times

A Lebanese man who had been in Homs, Syria, fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

ARSAL, Lebanon — The patchwork of Sunni Muslim and Shiite villages arrayed along the northern border with Syria are heavily embroiled in the protracted struggle there, but with a distinctive twist.

Fighters from Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese Shiite movement, cross the frontier to fight for Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, who is Alawite and whose sect dominates the government. Sunni Muslims sneak over to join the opposition. Once back home in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, however, both sides observe an uneasy truce.

“Inside they are slaughtering us, but as soon as we cross into Lebanon there is nothing between us,” said Abdullah, 22, a stocky Sunni farmer who now toils as both a fighter and a smuggler, using only one name to protect his identity. “I would say it is something normal to fight on the other side, given that we are against the regime while they are with it.”

Yet the confrontation over controlling the strategic border throws off sparks that could ignite a bigger conflagration given that it is part of the Sunni-Shiite contest to dominate the Middle East. “There is already a kind of chaos along the border which neither Lebanon nor Syria fully controls, so there is a fear that it will spread into Lebanon,” said Talal Atrissi, a Lebanese academic and expert on Arab-Iranian relations.

Recently nearly two dozen Lebanese Sunni jihadists were ambushed by the Syrian Army soon after they crossed the border, but details of the number killed, wounded or captured are still unconfirmed.

With the battle for Damascus heating up, more and more Syrian soldiers are leaving the border area to deploy in the capital, opening up new opportunities for the Lebanese fighters along the frontier.

Accusations that Hezbollah deployed several thousand fighters across Syria started soon after the uprising erupted in March 2011, not least because its Iranian-supplied arsenal and years of fighting Israel had forged it into one of the most able armed forces in the region.

But interviews with more than a dozen government officials, members of Parliament, fighters and analysts suggested a far more limited, but concentrated, engagement.

Hezbollah fighters have been sent to Syria to protect areas important to Shiite Muslims, ranging from a couple of Shiite villages near Aleppo to the tomb of Sayida Zeinab in Damascus, a holy pilgrimage site for the sect, analysts said. Hezbollah has also advised the Syrian Army on strategy and tactics for urban warfare, as well as training, they said.

The fighters’ main focus, however, has been dominating the Lebanese-Syrian border, an essential link in the supply chain for Iranian weapons coming to Hezbollah through Syria. The Syrian government also wants to limit the fighters and weapons coming to the Free Syrian Army, and Hezbollah wants to protect fellow Shiites and Alawites.

For similar reasons, Sunni fighters, particularly jihadists, have also deployed to Syria, seeking to bolster the insurgents and smuggle what weapons they can. The main difference is that Hezbollah deployed as an organization, while the Sunni effort seems more freelance, analysts said.

The number of fighters involved is difficult to assess, but it seems to be small, analysts said, based on circumstantial details like the several dozen funerals for fighters from both sects combined.

Hezbollah strongly denies that it is fighting in Syria, and it is not alone in that — Lebanese of all stripes say that Syria does not need more fighters. Hezbollah’s media relations department rejected requests for an interview for this article, but one senior official commented briefly.

“We are not involved in the fighting inside Syria,” he said, speaking anonymously because he was not given permission to comment publicly. “But since there were attacks on the villages of Shiites, Christians and other sects by the Syrian rebels, resulting in massacres, we have been involved in some activities on the logistics level.”

He declined to elaborate. In his many speeches, Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, generally avoids the topic of Syria.

Hwaida Saad and Hania Mourtada contributed reporting from Lebanon.

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Lawyer Says Ritual Circumcision Is Protected Activity

A lawyer for Orthodox Jewish groups asked a federal judge on Tuesday to throw out a New York City regulation requiring parents to sign a consent form before their infant sons undergo a form of Jewish ritual circumcision in which the circumciser uses his mouth to remove blood from the incision.

The lawyer, Shay Dvoretzky, said the practice, which is prevalent in parts of the ultra-Orthodox community, is a constitutionally protected religious activity. He said that requiring ritual circumcisers, known collectively as mohelim, to be involved in conveying the city’s perspective on the procedure would infringe upon their rights of free speech.

“That lies at the heart of First Amendment protection,” Mr. Dvoretzky said.

But a lawyer for the city argued that the regulation was necessary and that the practice most likely caused 11 herpes infections in infants between 2004 and 2011. Two of the infected babies died; at least two others suffered brain damage.

“The health department is not looking at the religion in determining what to do about this conduct,” said Michelle L. Goldberg-Cahn, a lawyer for the city. “The city is looking at the conduct.”

The Orthodox groups, including Agudath Israel of America and the Central Rabbinical Congress, sued the city in October to block the regulation, which was approved by the New York City Board of Health in September but is suspended until a ruling is issued in this case. The groups say that the procedure is safe and that the city has not definitively linked infections to the practice.

Infectious disease experts, several of whom filed briefs in support of the regulation, widely agree that the oral contact, known in Hebrew as metzitzah b’peh, creates a risk of transmission of herpes that can be deadly to infants because of their underdeveloped immune systems.

On Tuesday, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, heard oral arguments in the case, one that pits the sanctity of ancient religious rituals against the rigors of both modern medicine and secular government regulation. She said her decision would come within a few weeks.

Her sharpest inquiries were directed at Mr. Dvoretzky, the lawyer for the Orthodox groups.

She raised a hypothetical situation in which a single religious group amputates left pinkie fingers at birth, and asked Mr. Dvoretzky whether the city would have the authority to regulate the activity. He said it would depend upon whether the practice caused immediate, serious harm.

Judge Buchwald also said there was a direct comparison to consent requirements placed on physicians when they perform a circumcision.

Mr. Dvoretzky called that an “apples and oranges” comparison, because a physician would not perform a metzitzah b’peh.

“Wait a second,” Judge Buchwald interrupted. “They can’t perform any circumcision without consent. It’s a surgery.”

Mr. Dvoretzky said the city should undertake a broad education campaign, to prevent all infant herpes infections.

But Judge Buchwald said such a campaign would have little impact, because the risk of infections is medically well-known.

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Lawyer Says Ritual Circumcision Is Protected Activity

A lawyer for Orthodox Jewish groups asked a federal judge on Tuesday to throw out a New York City regulation requiring parents to sign a consent form before their infant sons undergo a form of Jewish ritual circumcision in which the circumciser uses his mouth to remove blood from the incision.

The lawyer, Shay Dvoretzky, said the practice, which is prevalent in parts of the ultra-Orthodox community, is a constitutionally protected religious activity. He said that requiring ritual circumcisers, known collectively as mohelim, to be involved in conveying the city’s perspective on the procedure would infringe upon their rights of free speech.

“That lies at the heart of First Amendment protection,” Mr. Dvoretzky said.

But a lawyer for the city argued that the regulation was necessary and that the practice most likely caused 11 herpes infections in infants between 2004 and 2011. Two of the infected babies died; at least two others suffered brain damage.

“The health department is not looking at the religion in determining what to do about this conduct,” said Michelle L. Goldberg-Cahn, a lawyer for the city. “The city is looking at the conduct.”

The Orthodox groups, including Agudath Israel of America and the Central Rabbinical Congress, sued the city in October to block the regulation, which was approved by the New York City Board of Health in September but is suspended until a ruling is issued in this case. The groups say that the procedure is safe and that the city has not definitively linked infections to the practice.

Infectious disease experts, several of whom filed briefs in support of the regulation, widely agree that the oral contact, known in Hebrew as metzitzah b’peh, creates a risk of transmission of herpes that can be deadly to infants because of their underdeveloped immune systems.

On Tuesday, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, heard oral arguments in the case, one that pits the sanctity of ancient religious rituals against the rigors of both modern medicine and secular government regulation. She said her decision would come within a few weeks.

Her sharpest inquiries were directed at Mr. Dvoretzky, the lawyer for the Orthodox groups.

She raised a hypothetical situation in which a single religious group amputates left pinkie fingers at birth, and asked Mr. Dvoretzky whether the city would have the authority to regulate the activity. He said it would depend upon whether the practice caused immediate, serious harm.

Judge Buchwald also said there was a direct comparison to consent requirements placed on physicians when they perform a circumcision.

Mr. Dvoretzky called that an “apples and oranges” comparison, because a physician would not perform a metzitzah b’peh.

“Wait a second,” Judge Buchwald interrupted. “They can’t perform any circumcision without consent. It’s a surgery.”

Mr. Dvoretzky said the city should undertake a broad education campaign, to prevent all infant herpes infections.

But Judge Buchwald said such a campaign would have little impact, because the risk of infections is medically well-known.

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Russia Sends Warships Toward Syria for Possible Evacuation

MOSCOW — Russia sent warships to the eastern Mediterranean Sea on Tuesday, the Defense Ministry announced, in what appeared to be preparation for a possible evacuation of Russian citizens from Syria.

Russian officials began formulating plans during the summer for an evacuation, but have delayed announcements, analysts say, to avoid signaling a loss of confidence in President Bashar al-Assad, a longtime strategic ally. Moscow staunchly opposes international intervention in Syria and has blocked United Nations Security Council resolutions meant to force Mr. Assad from power. Officials have repeatedly said that Russia’s position has not changed.

However, Moscow has signaled in recent days that it sees Mr. Assad’s forces losing ground, and that it is beginning to prepare for a chaotic transition period. One immediate concern is the large number of Russian citizens scattered across Syria, as a result of decades of intermarriage and longstanding economic ties.

Late on Monday, Russian diplomats said that two Russian citizens had been kidnapped by an armed group. The two Russians, evidently workers in a privately owned steel factory, were seized as they traveled on a road between Homs and Tartus and were held for ransom. An Italian citizen, Mario Belluomo, was abducted with them, the Italian Foreign Ministry said.

Then on Tuesday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that a flotilla of five ships — a destroyer, a tugboat, a tanker and two large landing vessels — was being sent from Baltiysk, a port in the Baltic Sea, to relieve ships that have been near Syria for months. At typical cruising speeds for such vessels, the ships would arrive on station around the beginning of January.

A naval official, speaking on the condition of anonymity as is customary, told the Interfax news service that the ships were “on their way to the coast of Syria for possible participation in the evacuation of Russian citizens” to a Russian port on the Black Sea. The official said that the mission had been planned swiftly but under total secrecy, and that the timeline for the ships’ return to port “depends on the development of the situation in Syria.”

Aleksandr I. Shumilin, a regional analyst and a foreign correspondent, said that Russian leaders had avoided openly taking steps toward evacuation until now, to avoid signaling that Russia was scaling back its support for Mr. Assad, but that they also risked public anger if Russians became targets of violence in Syria.

“It appears that some break has taken place, but whether that means a change of policy, or a modification of policy, that’s hard to say,” said Mr. Shumilin, who is head of the Middle East conflict analysis center at the Russian Academy of Science’s Institute for Canada and the United States. “The decision makers are now concentrating on humanitarian questions, the protection of Russian citizens.”

The Syrian rebels have been moving aggressively around the capital, Damascus, in recent weeks, and Mr. Assad’s forces have responded by firing Scud missiles. On Tuesday, Syrian fighter jets bombed the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk for the second time this week, seeking to drive back rebel forces that had moved in, The Associated Press reported.

Iran, Syria’s last ally in the region, appeared to remain firmly committed to Mr. Assad. On Tuesday, Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian of Iran told reporters in Moscow, “The Syrian Army and the state machine are working smoothly.”

A planned visit by the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to Ankara, the capital of Turkey, was suddenly canceled on Monday amid tensions between Iran and Turkey over NATO’s decision to deploy Patriot antimissile batteries on the Turkish border with Syria.

Iranian leaders, politicians and commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps have denounced NATO’s decision on Dec. 4 to send six batteries of American, German and Dutch Patriot systems to intercept any Scud missiles that the embattled Syrian government may launch toward Turkey.

Iran fears that NATO will use the batteries, which are staffed by about 1,000 soldiers and can also be used against aircraft, to set up a no-fly zone and a rebel safe haven in northern Syria.

Iran’s top general, Hassan Firouzabadi, said at a meeting of senior commanders on Saturday that the deployment was part of a Western plan to start a “world war” and that Iran’s own ambitious missile program was the real target.

“They signify concerns over Iran’s missiles and the presence of Russia for defending Syria,” he said. “The sensible people in America, Turkey and Europe must prevent this situation from getting out of control.”

The mobile Patriot systems could technically be used to intercept Iranian as well as Syrian missiles. They are effective against missiles at a range of about 12 miles, and against aircraft up to 100 miles.

Iran has threatened to fire missiles at Israel if its nuclear installations come under attack.

On Tuesday, Iran’s defense minister, Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, said Israel was the winner in the Syrian conflict because it was witnessing the destruction of an enemy — the Assad government — while the Syrian people were being “manipulated” by “terrorists.”

Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, urged Iran to use its political clout with Damascus to end the violence in Syria, instead of making statements about the Patriot systems.

“Turkey and NATO have stressed over and over again that this system is solely for defensive purposes,” Mr. Davutoglu told reporters. “Turkey has the right to do what it wants in order to protect its territory. It is time for Iran to give a clear message to the Syrian regime.”

Ellen Barry reported from Moscow, and Thomas Erdbrink from Tehran.

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Sasol Betting Big on Gas-to-Liquid Plant in U.S.

Oryx

The Oryx natural gas processing plant in Qatar, where Sasol is converting natural gas to diesel fuel.

RAS LAFFAN INDUSTRIAL CITY, Qatar — The compact assembly of towers, tubes and tanks that make up the Oryx natural gas processing plant is almost lost in a vast petrochemical complex that rises here like a hazy mirage from a vast ocean of sand.

A blog about energy and the environment.

ORYX GTL

The Sasol plant in Qatar makes 32,000 barrels of liquid fuels daily. Experts say the economics of the process are challenged.

But what is occurring at Oryx is a particular kind of alchemy that has tantalized scientists for nearly a century with prospects of transforming the energy landscape. Sasol, a chemical and synthetic fuels company based in South Africa, is converting natural gas to diesel fuel using a variation of a technology developed by German scientists in the 1920s.

Performing such chemical wizardry is exceedingly costly. But executives at Sasol and a partner, Qatar’s state-owned oil company, are betting that natural gas, which is abundant here, will become the dominant global fuel source over the next 50 years, oil will become scarcer and more expensive and global demand for transport fuels will grow.

Sasol executives say the company believes so strongly in the promise of this technology that this month, it announced plans to spend up to $14 billion to build the first gas-to-liquids plant in the United States, in Louisiana, supported by more than $2 billion in state incentives. A shale drilling boom in that region in the last five years has produced a glut of cheap gas, and the executives say Sasol can tap that supply to make diesel and other refined products at competitive prices.

Marjo Louw, president of Sasol Qatar, says that his company can produce diesel fuel that burns cleaner, costs less and creates less greenhouse gas pollution than fuel derived from crude oil.

“We believe the planets are aligned for G.T.L.,” Mr. Louw said during a recent tour of the Oryx plant. “Other players — much bigger players — will follow.”

Perhaps. So far, however, the record for converting gas to liquids is spotty.

The newest and largest plant in operation, Royal Dutch Shell’s giant Pearl plant, also in Qatar, cost the leviathan sum of $19 billion, more than three times its original projected cost, and has been plagued with unexpected maintenance problems. BP and ConocoPhillips built and briefly operated demonstration plants in Alaska and Oklahoma, but stopped short of full development of the technology. Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips announced plans to build giant plants in Qatar, but backed out, putting their capital instead into terminals to export liquefied natural gas.

Today only a handful of gas-to-liquids plants operate commercially, in Malaysia, South Africa and Qatar. Together they produce only a bit more than 200,000 barrels of fuels and lubricants a day — equivalent to less than 1 percent of global diesel demand.

“The reason you see so few G.T.L. plants is the economics are challenged at best,” said William M. Colton, Exxon Mobil’s vice president of corporate strategic planning. “We do not see it being a relevant source of fuels over the next 20 years.”

Many analysts and industry insiders say the technology makes sense only when oil and gas supplies and prices are far out of balance, as they are today in Qatar and the United States. When oil and gas come into alignment, gas-to-liquids ventures will become white elephants, these skeptics say. Environmentalists also say that the huge energy inputs required to transform natural gas into diesel or other fuels negate any greenhouse gas benefits.

Until recently, the method used to convert natural gas or coal to liquid fuel — known as the Fischer-Tropsch process after the Germans who invented it — had been used only by pariah nations desperate for transportation fuels when they had little or no oil available. For decades, South Africa defended its system of apartheid from international oil embargoes by producing synthetic oil from its rich coal resources. Nazi Germany did the same to fuel its military machine in World War II.

But with North Africa and the Middle East chronically unstable and natural gas cheap and plentiful in the United States, some say the technology is now an enticing option to produce various fuels without importing a drop of oil.

Shell may soon announce a tentative site for a gas-to-liquids plant on the Gulf Coast of the United States. Given what the company learned from its Qatar plant, executives say it would reduce costs in any new one by using different types of valves and alloys.

But Ken Lawrence, Shell’s vice president for investor relations in North America, said the company was still two years away from a final decision on an American plant.

That leaves Sasol in the forefront of the gas-to-liquids effort.

John M. Broder reported from Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar, and Clifford Krauss from Houston.

John M. Broder reported from Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar, and Clifford Krauss from Houston.

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