Google’s Lawyers Work Behind the Scenes to Carry the Day

SAN FRANCISCO — For 19 months, Google pressed its case with antitrust regulators investigating the company. Working relentlessly behind the scenes, executives made frequent flights to Washington, laying out their legal arguments and shrewdly applying lessons learned from Microsoft’s bruising antitrust battle in the 1990s.

After regulators had pored over nine million documents, listened to complaints from disgruntled competitors and took sworn testimony from Google executives, the government concluded that the law was on Google’s side. At the end of the day, they said, consumers had been largely unharmed.

That is why one of the biggest antitrust investigations of an American company in years ended with a slap on the wrist Thursday, when the Federal Trade Commission closed its investigation of Google’s search practices without bringing a complaint. Google voluntarily made two minor concessions.

“The way they managed to escape it is through a barrage of not only political officials but also academics aligned against doing very much in this particular case,” said Herbert Hovenkamp, a professor of antitrust law at the University of Iowa who has worked as a paid adviser to Google in the past. “The first sign of a bad antitrust case is lack of consumer harm, and there just was not any consumer harm emerging in this very long investigation.”

The F.T.C. had put serious effort into its investigation of Google. Jon Leibowitz, the agency’s chairman, has long advocated for the commission to flex its muscle as an enforcer of antitrust laws, and the commission had hired high-powered consultants, including Beth A. Wilkinson, an experienced litigator, and Richard J. Gilbert, a well-known economist.

Still, Mr. Leibowitz said during a news conference announcing the result of the inquiry, the evidence showed that Google “doesn’t violate American antitrust laws.”

“The conclusion is clear: Google’s services are good for users and good for competition,” David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, wrote in a company blog post.

The main thrust of the investigation was into how Google’s search results had changed since it expanded into new search verticals, like local business listings and comparison shopping. A search for pizza or jeans, for instance, now shows results with photos and maps from Google’s own local business service and its shopping product more prominently than links to other Web sites, which has enraged competing sites.

But while the F.T.C. said that Google’s actions might have hurt individual competitors, over all it found that the search engine helped consumers, as evidenced by Google users’ clicking on the products that Google highlighted and competing search engines’ adopting similar approaches.

Google outlined these kinds of arguments to regulators in many meetings over the last two years, as it has intensified its courtship of Washington, with Google executives at the highest levels, as well as lawyers, lobbyists and engineers appearing in the capital.

One of the arguments they made, according to people briefed on the discussions, was that technology is such a fast-moving industry that regulatory burdens would hinder its evolution. Google makes about 500 changes to its search algorithm each year, so results look different now than they did even six months ago.

The definition of competition in the tech industry is also different and constantly changing, Google argued.

For instance, just recently Amazon and Apple, which used to be in different businesses than Google, have become its competitors. Google’s share of the search market has stayed at about two-thirds even though competing search engines are “just a click away,” as the company repeatedly argued. That would become the company’s mantra to demonstrate that it was not abusing its market power.

Claire Cain Miller reported from San Francisco, and Nick Wingfield from Seattle.

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Pakistani Girl Shot by Taliban Leaves British Hospital

LONDON (Reuters) - A Pakistani girl shot in the head by the Taliban for advocating girls' education has been discharged from a British hospital after doctors said she was well enough to spend time recovering with her family.

Fifteen-year-old Malala Yousufzai, who was shot by the Taliban in October and brought to Britain for treatment, was discharged on Thursday but is due to be re-admitted in late January or early February for reconstructive surgery to her skull, doctors said.

The shooting of Yousufzai, in the head at point blank range as she left school in the Swat valley, drew widespread international condemnation.

She has become a an internationally recognized symbol of resistance to the Taliban's efforts to deny women education and other rights, and more than 250,000 people have signed online petitions calling for her to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for her activism.

Doctors at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham where Yousufzai was treated said that although the bullet hit her left brow, it did not penetrate her skull but instead travelled underneath the skin along the side of her head and into her neck.

She was treated by doctors specializing in neurosurgery, trauma and other disciplines in a department of the hospital which has treated hundreds of soldiers wounded in conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Malala is a strong young woman and has worked hard with the people caring for her to make excellent progress in her recovery," said Dave Rosser, the hospital's medical director.

"Following discussions with Malala and her medical team, we decided that she would benefit from being at home."

Yousufzai has already been leaving the hospital on a regular basis on "home leave" in recent weeks to spend time with her parents and younger brothers, who have a temporary home in central England, Rosser said.

"During those visits assessments have been carried out by her medical team to ensure she can continue to make good progress outside the hospital," Rosser said.

Yousufzai's father said in October he was sure she would "rise again" to pursue her dreams after medical treatment.

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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Your Money: Piecing Together a Tax Plan’s Effects

It is tempting for people who earn less than $400,000 to think that they got off easy this week under the tax deal to end the fiscal impasse, given that only those with incomes above that level will be in a higher income tax bracket in 2013.

But the legislation that both houses of Congress have now approved could increase taxes on people with incomes that are not quite that high as well. That’s because the bill includes language that begins to do what both President Obama and Mitt Romney proposed at various points in the past: Limit certain tax breaks available to people who are affluent.

The new rules target two tax breaks: personal exemptions and many popular deductions like those for state and local taxes, mortgage interest and charitable contributions. For both breaks, single people with at least $250,000 in adjusted gross income and married people filing jointly with at least $300,000 in income are vulnerable. A hypothetical Texas couple could end up paying about $2,500 more in taxes, for instance.

The mechanics of how the new limits will work are now clear, though it takes a fair bit of explaining to lay them out in plain English. What we don’t know yet is how many people will end up paying more in 2013 than they did in 2012.

The uncertainty is tied to the fact that many of the targets of the legislation often end up ensnared by the alternative minimum tax. The A.M.T., and its high tax bill, may continue to catch most of them.

But let’s start with the basics. Most of the discussion here begins with that adjusted gross income figure. That’s the number you get when you subtract items from your salary or take-home pay that are often referred to as above-the-line deductions.

For the income range we’re talking about, these deductions tend to include things like health savings account contributions and alimony. People who work for themselves also get deductions for health insurance premiums, certain retirement contributions and self-employment taxes that an employer would otherwise pay.

Mark Luscombe, principal analyst with CCH, a tax information provider, points out just how confusing the use of adjustable gross income is, given that the new tax limits, the new tax bracket and the new Medicare tax are all based on different definitions of income.

Under normal circumstances, a personal exemption, for a specific dollar amount, is available for each member of your household. You then add all of the exemptions and subtract the total from your adjusted gross income, which has the effect of lowering your taxable income. CCH predicts that the personal exemption amount for 2013 will be $3,900 per person.

The new law requires taxpayers in the targeted income range to reduce the amount of their exemptions by 2 percent for every $2,500 by which their income exceeds the $250,000 or $300,000 limit. So a married, childless couple with $400,000 in adjusted gross income and $7,800 in potential exemptions could lose $6,240 of that $7,800.

The math for the limit on deductions is different. There, the rules call for you to add up the applicable deductions. Let’s say that equals $50,000. Then, you subtract from that 3 percent of the amount by which your adjusted gross income exceeds those $250,000 or $300,000 thresholds.

So if you’re a married couple with $400,000 in income, you’re $100,000 over the threshold. Three percent of that is $3,000. So you’d subtract that from $50,000. The rule, which existed for years but had been phased out more recently, is known as the Pease limitation, for Representative Donald J. Pease, the Ohio newspaper editor-turned-legislator who got it passed. As before, you can’t lose more than 80 percent of your deductions, no matter how high your income gets.

If you’re trying to figure out whether and how this may affect you, well, join the club. So much depends on your income, your state and your various deductions. All of that will affect whether the A.M.T. hits you as well.

For people who are already in the A.M.T. but will not end up with the $400,000 (for individuals) or $450,000 (for married couples filing jointly) in income necessary to be in the new 39.6 percent tax bracket in 2013, the new exemption and deduction rules may not hurt you. “I don’t think there’s enough there that you would no longer be in the A.M.T.,” said Jude Coard, a tax partner at Berdon L.L.P., of people with income in the $300,000 to $400,000 range.

Much will depend on your own situation. CCH ran two hypothetical cases for me, which you can see in the accompanying graphic. The first examined a family of four in New York with $400,000 in adjusted gross income and $79,000 in total itemized deductions. The household pays the A.M.T. in both 2012 and under the new tax rules in 2013. They pay just $790 more in 2013, but that includes $1,350 in new Medicare taxes. (The total does not include the Social Security payroll tax that has been restored to its prerecession level.)

A family in Texas, however, might have the same income but lower property taxes and no income tax and thus lower deductions for its federal tax return. Their deductions are just $43,700, but they end up being hurt more by the new rules. They would have no A.M.T. liability in 2013 and would end up paying $3,852 more, or about $2,500 if you don’t count the $1,350 from the new Medicare tax.

This is a lot to digest, so much so that even the experts at the Tax Policy Center have not yet finished updating their online calculator. Once they do, if you have the stomach to gather (or try to predict) all of the data, you can take your shot at projecting what these new rules may cost you.

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Chinese Groups Slowly Carve Out Space in Work Against H.I.V./AIDS

Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times

In October, a student gave blood for an H.I.V. test at the Lingnan Health Center in Guangzhou. The center tries to be a safe space for gay men in an environment that can be hostile toward them.

GUANGZHOU, China — As he waited to give blood for an H.I.V. test one recent afternoon, Le, a 25-year-old marketing professional, explained why he was there. “I was aware of the consequences” of not using a condom, he said, “but somehow I didn’t know how to say no.”

Le, a gay man who would give only his first name, was being tested at the Lingnan Health Center, an organization run largely by gay volunteers, whose walls are adorned with red AIDS ribbons and a smiling condom mascot. In the past, Le went to hospitals to be tested, he said, but the stigma of being a gay man in China made the experience particularly harrowing.

“I’d always be concerned about what the doctors would think of me,” Le said. “Here we’re all in the same community, so there’s less to worry about.”

Le is one of thousands of gay men in this bustling city of 13 million people who are benefiting from a pioneering experiment that supporters hope will revolutionize the way the Communist Party deals with nongovernment groups trying to stop the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Encouraged by the new slate of leaders who came to power in November, civil society activists hope the model taking shape here in the prosperous southern province of Guangdong, which has long served as a petri dish for economic reform, will be replicated nationally, not just in the fight against disease but also on issues like poverty, mental health and the environment.

While China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention has allowed community organizations across the country to participate in disease testing programs since 2008, in practice those efforts remain patchy. But in November, just before World AIDS Day the following month, the grass-roots movement received a high-profile endorsement from the incoming prime minister, Li Keqiang.

At a meeting with advocates for AIDS patients, Mr. Li, a large red ribbon pinned to his jacket, promised more government support and shook hands with H.I.V.-positive people. The image resounded in a society where those infected are routinely turned away from hospitals and hounded from their jobs. “Civil society plays an indispensable role in the national battle against H.I.V./AIDS,” he said, according to the state news media.

Activists remain wary, however, noting that the government has made similar promises in the past. And despite the high-level support and a policy in Guangdong allowing grass-roots groups to register directly with the government — instead of being forced to find an official sponsor, as in much of the country — many organizations say they still are stymied by dizzying bureaucratic hurdles or rejected for missing unannounced deadlines.

Tao Cai, the director of AIDS Care China, which provides support to 30,000 H.I.V.-positive people nationwide but remains unregistered, believes the obstacles come from local officials who are trying to prevent nonprofit groups from competing with their fiefs. “In China,” he said, “we say reform never gets out of Zhongnanhai,” a reference to the walled compound for senior leaders in Beijing.

There is little doubt that public health officials need help. Through October, nearly 69,000 new H.I.V. infections were reported in China in 2012, a 13 percent rise from the same period in 2011. Almost 90 percent of those cases were contracted through sexual intercourse, with rising numbers involving gay men. Medical experts also worry about syphilis, which has returned with a vengeance after being virtually wiped out during the Mao era.

Reported cases of syphilis, known in the south as “Guangdong boils,” have increased more than tenfold in the last decade, according to national statistics. As with H.I.V., gay men and sex workers are particularly at risk. Local health experts estimate that 5 percent of men who have sex with other men carry H.I.V., while around 20 percent test positive for syphilis.

The Chinese authorities have long tackled the rise in communicable diseases among gay men with all the sensitivity of a swinging billy club. In raids on bars, bathhouses and parks, police officers and health officials often force those detained to hand over their IDs and submit to blood tests.

Grass-roots health groups have been frequent targets of official harassment as well. In most provinces, they can legally register with the Bureau of Civil Affairs only if they are sponsored by a government agency. But advocates say few agencies are willing to vouch for groups focused on politically fraught issues like homosexuality, prostitution or sexually transmitted diseases.

In the face of such constraints, the majority of China’s estimated 1,000 H.I.V. organizations operate in a legal purgatory that deprives them of tax benefits and makes it risky to accept foreign donations, usually their main source of support.

Mr. Li, the incoming premier, has a spotty record when it comes to H.I.V. In the 1990s, when he was the top official in central Henan Province, a botched blood-collection program there infected hundreds of thousands of people with H.I.V. Critics say Mr. Li was more interested in covering up the problem than dealing with its causes. Even as he was holding court with AIDS groups, over a hundred of those infected in the scandal marched in Beijing to the Ministry of Health demanding justice.

Mr. Li’s views appear to have changed. In November, social media erupted over the case of a 25-year-old man seeking treatment for lung cancer who was turned away from two Beijing hospitals because he was H.I.V.-positive. A hospital in nearby Tianjin finally removed the tumor — but only after he altered his medical records to conceal his H.I.V. status from doctors. As a battle raged online between those condemning his actions and those sympathizing with his plight, Mr. Li ordered the Health Ministry to prohibit hospitals from rejecting AIDS patients.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 2, 2013

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of a picture caption misspelled part of the name of an organization in Guangzhou. It is the Lingnan Health Center, not Lignan. 

Read More..

Chinese Groups Slowly Carve Out Space in Work Against H.I.V./AIDS

Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times

In October, a student gave blood for an H.I.V. test at the Lingnan Health Center in Guangzhou. The center tries to be a safe space for gay men in an environment that can be hostile toward them.

GUANGZHOU, China — As he waited to give blood for an H.I.V. test one recent afternoon, Le, a 25-year-old marketing professional, explained why he was there. “I was aware of the consequences” of not using a condom, he said, “but somehow I didn’t know how to say no.”

Le, a gay man who would give only his first name, was being tested at the Lingnan Health Center, an organization run largely by gay volunteers, whose walls are adorned with red AIDS ribbons and a smiling condom mascot. In the past, Le went to hospitals to be tested, he said, but the stigma of being a gay man in China made the experience particularly harrowing.

“I’d always be concerned about what the doctors would think of me,” Le said. “Here we’re all in the same community, so there’s less to worry about.”

Le is one of thousands of gay men in this bustling city of 13 million people who are benefiting from a pioneering experiment that supporters hope will revolutionize the way the Communist Party deals with nongovernment groups trying to stop the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Encouraged by the new slate of leaders who came to power in November, civil society activists hope the model taking shape here in the prosperous southern province of Guangdong, which has long served as a petri dish for economic reform, will be replicated nationally, not just in the fight against disease but also on issues like poverty, mental health and the environment.

While China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention has allowed community organizations across the country to participate in disease testing programs since 2008, in practice those efforts remain patchy. But in November, just before World AIDS Day the following month, the grass-roots movement received a high-profile endorsement from the incoming prime minister, Li Keqiang.

At a meeting with advocates for AIDS patients, Mr. Li, a large red ribbon pinned to his jacket, promised more government support and shook hands with H.I.V.-positive people. The image resounded in a society where those infected are routinely turned away from hospitals and hounded from their jobs. “Civil society plays an indispensable role in the national battle against H.I.V./AIDS,” he said, according to the state news media.

Activists remain wary, however, noting that the government has made similar promises in the past. And despite the high-level support and a policy in Guangdong allowing grass-roots groups to register directly with the government — instead of being forced to find an official sponsor, as in much of the country — many organizations say they still are stymied by dizzying bureaucratic hurdles or rejected for missing unannounced deadlines.

Tao Cai, the director of AIDS Care China, which provides support to 30,000 H.I.V.-positive people nationwide but remains unregistered, believes the obstacles come from local officials who are trying to prevent nonprofit groups from competing with their fiefs. “In China,” he said, “we say reform never gets out of Zhongnanhai,” a reference to the walled compound for senior leaders in Beijing.

There is little doubt that public health officials need help. Through October, nearly 69,000 new H.I.V. infections were reported in China in 2012, a 13 percent rise from the same period in 2011. Almost 90 percent of those cases were contracted through sexual intercourse, with rising numbers involving gay men. Medical experts also worry about syphilis, which has returned with a vengeance after being virtually wiped out during the Mao era.

Reported cases of syphilis, known in the south as “Guangdong boils,” have increased more than tenfold in the last decade, according to national statistics. As with H.I.V., gay men and sex workers are particularly at risk. Local health experts estimate that 5 percent of men who have sex with other men carry H.I.V., while around 20 percent test positive for syphilis.

The Chinese authorities have long tackled the rise in communicable diseases among gay men with all the sensitivity of a swinging billy club. In raids on bars, bathhouses and parks, police officers and health officials often force those detained to hand over their IDs and submit to blood tests.

Grass-roots health groups have been frequent targets of official harassment as well. In most provinces, they can legally register with the Bureau of Civil Affairs only if they are sponsored by a government agency. But advocates say few agencies are willing to vouch for groups focused on politically fraught issues like homosexuality, prostitution or sexually transmitted diseases.

In the face of such constraints, the majority of China’s estimated 1,000 H.I.V. organizations operate in a legal purgatory that deprives them of tax benefits and makes it risky to accept foreign donations, usually their main source of support.

Mr. Li, the incoming premier, has a spotty record when it comes to H.I.V. In the 1990s, when he was the top official in central Henan Province, a botched blood-collection program there infected hundreds of thousands of people with H.I.V. Critics say Mr. Li was more interested in covering up the problem than dealing with its causes. Even as he was holding court with AIDS groups, over a hundred of those infected in the scandal marched in Beijing to the Ministry of Health demanding justice.

Mr. Li’s views appear to have changed. In November, social media erupted over the case of a 25-year-old man seeking treatment for lung cancer who was turned away from two Beijing hospitals because he was H.I.V.-positive. A hospital in nearby Tianjin finally removed the tumor — but only after he altered his medical records to conceal his H.I.V. status from doctors. As a battle raged online between those condemning his actions and those sympathizing with his plight, Mr. Li ordered the Health Ministry to prohibit hospitals from rejecting AIDS patients.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 2, 2013

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of a picture caption misspelled part of the name of an organization in Guangzhou. It is the Lingnan Health Center, not Lignan. 

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Chinese Firm Is Cleared to Buy American DNA Sequencing Company

Ramin Rahimian for The New York Times

DNA sequencing machines at Complete Genomics in California. The firm dismissed concerns about its acquisition.

The federal government has given national security clearance to the controversial purchase of an American DNA sequencing company by a Chinese firm.

The Chinese firm, BGI-Shenzhen, said in a statement this weekend that its acquisition of Complete Genomics, based in Mountain View, Calif., had been cleared by the federal Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews the national security implications of foreign takeovers of American companies. The deal still requires antitrust clearance by the Federal Trade Commission.

Some scientists, politicians and industry executives had said the takeover represented a threat to American competitiveness in DNA sequencing, a technology that is becoming crucial for the development of drugs, diagnostics and improved crops.

The fact that the $117.6 million deal was controversial at all reflects a change in the genomics community.

A decade ago, the Human Genome Project, in which scientists from many nations helped unravel the genetic blueprint of mankind, was celebrated for its spirit of international cooperation. One of the participants in the project was BGI, which was then known as the Beijing Genomics Institute.

But with DNA sequencing now becoming a big business and linchpin of the biotechnology industry, international rivalries and nationalism are starting to move front and center in any acquisition.

Much of the alarm about the deal has been raised by Illumina, a San Diego company that is the market leader in sequencing machines. It has potentially the most to lose from the deal because BGI might buy fewer Illumina products and even become a competitor. Weeks after the BGI deal was announced, Illumina made its own belated bid for Complete Genomics, offering 15 cents a share more than BGI’s bid of $3.15. But Complete Genomics rebuffed Illumina, saying such a merger would never clear antitrust review.

Illumina also hired a Washington lobbyist, the Glover Park Group, to stir up opposition to the deal in Congress. Representative Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia, was the only member of Congress known to have publicly expressed concern.

BGI and Complete Genomics point out that Illumina has long sold its sequencing machines — including a record-setting order of 128 high-end machines — to BGI without raising any security concerns. Sequencing machines have not been subject to export controls like aerospace equipment, lasers, sensors and other gear that can have clear military uses.

“Illumina has never previously considered its business with BGI as ‘sensitive’ in the least,” Ye Yin, the chief operating officer of BGI, said in a November letter to Complete Genomics that was made public in a regulatory filing. In the letter, Illumina was accused of “obvious hypocrisy.”

BGI and Complete said that Illumina was trying to derail the agreement and acquire Complete Genomics itself in order to “eliminate its closest competitor, Complete.”

BGI is already one of the most prolific DNA sequencers in the world, but it buys the sequencing machines it uses from others, mainly Illumina.

Illumina, joined by some American scientists, said it worried that if BGI gained access to Complete’s sequencing technology, the Chinese company might use low prices to undercut the American sequencing companies that now dominate the industry.

Some also said that with Complete Genomics providing an American base, BGI would have access to more DNA samples from Americans, helping it compile a huge database of genetic information that could be used to develop drugs and diagnostic tests. Some also worried about protection of the privacy of genetic information.

“What’s to stop them from mining genomic data of American samples to some unknown nefarious end?” Elaine R. Mardis, co-director of the genome sequencing center at Washington University in St. Louis, said in an e-mail.

Dr. Mardis could not specify what kind of nefarious end she imagined. But opponents of the deal cited a November article in The Atlantic saying that in the future, pathogens could be genetically engineered to attack particular individuals, including the president, based on their DNA sequences.

BGI and Complete Genomics dismissed such concerns as preposterous.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 3, 2013

An article on Monday about the national security clearance of a Chinese firm’s acquisition of Complete Genomics, an American DNA sequencing company, misstated, in one reference, part of the name of a rival sequencing company whose chief executive, Michael W. Hunkapiller, commented on the decision. As the article correctly noted elsewhere, it is Pacific Biosciences, not Pacific Biosystems.

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Letter from Europe: Ghetto Survivors Fight for Recognition and Pensions

BERLIN — Uri Chanoch has a gift for plain speaking, which brought a welcome reprieve during a highly technical and legalistic meeting of the German Parliament’s labor and social affairs committee last month.

The federal lawmakers had invited pension experts, lawyers, historians and Holocaust survivors to discuss one of the chapters of World War II that Germany has yet to close: how to pay pensions to Jews who worked voluntarily in the ghettos.

That may seem a strange topic to be discussing so long after 1945. The German government has already compensated Jews who were forced to work in the ghettos. But until 2002, there was no payment system for Jews who chose to work.

“We wanted to work. It meant surviving,” Mr. Chanoch, 84, a board member of the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, told the committee.

As a young boy, Mr. Chanoch worked in the ghetto of Kaunas, Lithuania, after the city’s thriving community of 40,000 Jews was rounded up in August 1941. “We got paid for our work. We also paid into the insurance funds,” he said in an interview. “That money is our money.”

Mr. Chanoch was later deported to the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland and then to Dachau. His grandparents, parents and sister were killed in Auschwitz and Stutthof.

“For me and every other ghetto survivor, recognition for the work we did in the ghetto would mean that this aspect of history has also finally been acknowledged and will be taken into account in both compensation and social legislation,” Mr. Chanoch told the committee.

In 2002, the Bundestag, or German Parliament, retroactively passed a law: “German Pensions for Work in the Ghettos.” The Federal Social Court, which is responsible for insurance claims, ruled in 1997 that work carried out in the ghettos could be recognized as employment time under German pension laws.

At the time, the government believed the payments would not be exorbitant. It estimated that about 700 of the ghetto workers would apply for pensions. This was despite the fact that there had been more than 1,150 ghettos, according to Stephan Lehnstaedt, a historian at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw who participated in the committee hearing. The Warsaw ghetto alone held more than half a million Jews.

Once the 2002 law was enacted, 70,000 survivors applied to receive pensions. The pension insurance funds were taken aback because of the costs involved. After assessments, they rejected more than 90 percent of the applications.

The pension insurance funds argued that those who had worked in the ghettos were forced laborers. They were therefore entitled to compensation to be paid by the Finance Ministry, not from the public pension fund.

As for boys barely in their teens, like Mr. Chanoch, they were considered too young to have held proper jobs. “The pension fund experts did not understand the historical conditions of life in the ghetto,” Mr. Lehnstaedt said at the committee hearing.

In 2009, after criticism by Israel and Jewish organizations over the rejection of so many claimants, the German Federal Social Court relaxed the restrictive measures. Rejected cases were reconsidered.

But the court’s ruling did not end the matter. The National Pension Board announced that payments under review would be backdated by four years, the statutory limit, to 2005. Germany’s Federal Social Court backed that position.

In the meantime, thousands of elderly claimants had died, according to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or Claims Conference. The conference represents world Jewry in negotiating compensation and restitution for victims of Nazi persecution and their heirs.

Jan-Robert von Renesse, one of the German judges who attended the committee hearing, said it was shameful how the pension funds and courts had acted.

“What has been established is that in dealing with the ghetto pension issue, the National Pension Fund misjudged both real and legal conditions of the ghetto — culpably,” he said.

Even after the hearing last month, nothing was decided. The opposition Social Democrats, Green and Left parties said they wanted payments to be backdated to 1997. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government coalition is more cautious, fearing new legal entanglements and lawsuits. All acknowledged, however, that somehow this ignominious chapter of German history needs to be closed.

On his return to Israel after the hearing, Mr. Chanoch was cautiously optimistic that some compromise could be found.

“All I ask,” he said, “is that we get old gracefully.”

Judy Dempsey is Editor in Chief, Strategic Europe for Carnegie Europe. (www.carnegieeurope.eu)

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Scant Proof Is Found to Back Up Claims by Energy Drinks

Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry, with sales in the United States reaching more than $10 billion in 2012 — more than Americans spent on iced tea or sports beverages like Gatorade.

Their rising popularity represents a generational shift in what people drink, and reflects a successful campaign to convince consumers, particularly teenagers, that the drinks provide a mental and physical edge.

The drinks are now under scrutiny by the Food and Drug Administration after reports of deaths and serious injuries that may be linked to their high caffeine levels. But however that review ends, one thing is clear, interviews with researchers and a review of scientific studies show: the energy drink industry is based on a brew of ingredients that, apart from caffeine, have little, if any benefit for consumers.

“If you had a cup of coffee you are going to affect metabolism in the same way,” said Dr. Robert W. Pettitt, an associate professor at Minnesota State University in Mankato, who has studied the drinks.

Energy drink companies have promoted their products not as caffeine-fueled concoctions but as specially engineered blends that provide something more. For example, producers claim that “Red Bull gives you wings,” that Rockstar Energy is “scientifically formulated” and Monster Energy is a “killer energy brew.” Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, a Democrat, has asked the government to investigate the industry’s marketing claims.

Promoting a message beyond caffeine has enabled the beverage makers to charge premium prices. A 16-ounce energy drink that sells for $2.99 a can contains about the same amount of caffeine as a tablet of NoDoz that costs 30 cents. Even Starbucks coffee is cheap by comparison; a 12-ounce cup that costs $1.85 has even more caffeine.

As with earlier elixirs, a dearth of evidence underlies such claims. Only a few human studies of energy drinks or the ingredients in them have been performed and they point to a similar conclusion, researchers say — that the beverages are mainly about caffeine.

Caffeine is called the world’s most widely used drug. A stimulant, it increases alertness, awareness and, if taken at the right time, improves athletic performance, studies show. Energy drink users feel its kick faster because the beverages are typically swallowed quickly or are sold as concentrates.

“These are caffeine delivery systems,” said Dr. Roland Griffiths, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University who has studied energy drinks. “They don’t want to say this is equivalent to a NoDoz because that is not a very sexy sales message.”

A scientist at the University of Wisconsin became puzzled as he researched an ingredient used in energy drinks like Red Bull, 5-Hour Energy and Monster Energy. The researcher, Dr. Craig A. Goodman, could not find any trials in humans of the additive, a substance with the tongue-twisting name of glucuronolactone that is related to glucose, a sugar. But Dr. Goodman, who had studied other energy drink ingredients, eventually found two 40-year-old studies from Japan that had examined it.

In the experiments, scientists injected large doses of the substance into laboratory rats. Afterward, the rats swam better. “I have no idea what it does in energy drinks,” Dr. Goodman said.

Energy drink manufacturers say it is their proprietary formulas, rather than specific ingredients, that provide users with physical and mental benefits. But that has not prevented them from implying otherwise.

Consider the case of taurine, an additive used in most energy products.

On its Web site, the producer of Red Bull, for example, states that “more than 2,500 reports have been published about taurine and its physiological effects,” including acting as a “detoxifying agent.” In addition, that company, Red Bull of Austria, points to a 2009 safety study by a European regulatory group that gave it a clean bill of health.

But Red Bull’s Web site does not mention reports by that same group, the European Food Safety Authority, which concluded that claims about the benefits in energy drinks lacked scientific support. Based on those findings, the European Commission has refused to approve claims that taurine helps maintain mental function and heart health and reduces muscle fatigue.

Taurine, an amino acidlike substance that got its name because it was first found in the bile of bulls, does play a role in bodily functions, and recent research suggests it might help prevent heart attacks in women with high cholesterol. However, most people get more than adequate amounts from foods like meat, experts said. And researchers added that those with heart problems who may need supplements would find far better sources than energy drinks.

Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting from Tokyo and Poypiti Amatatham from Bangkok.

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Scant Proof Is Found to Back Up Claims by Energy Drinks

Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry, with sales in the United States reaching more than $10 billion in 2012 — more than Americans spent on iced tea or sports beverages like Gatorade.

Their rising popularity represents a generational shift in what people drink, and reflects a successful campaign to convince consumers, particularly teenagers, that the drinks provide a mental and physical edge.

The drinks are now under scrutiny by the Food and Drug Administration after reports of deaths and serious injuries that may be linked to their high caffeine levels. But however that review ends, one thing is clear, interviews with researchers and a review of scientific studies show: the energy drink industry is based on a brew of ingredients that, apart from caffeine, have little, if any benefit for consumers.

“If you had a cup of coffee you are going to affect metabolism in the same way,” said Dr. Robert W. Pettitt, an associate professor at Minnesota State University in Mankato, who has studied the drinks.

Energy drink companies have promoted their products not as caffeine-fueled concoctions but as specially engineered blends that provide something more. For example, producers claim that “Red Bull gives you wings,” that Rockstar Energy is “scientifically formulated” and Monster Energy is a “killer energy brew.” Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, a Democrat, has asked the government to investigate the industry’s marketing claims.

Promoting a message beyond caffeine has enabled the beverage makers to charge premium prices. A 16-ounce energy drink that sells for $2.99 a can contains about the same amount of caffeine as a tablet of NoDoz that costs 30 cents. Even Starbucks coffee is cheap by comparison; a 12-ounce cup that costs $1.85 has even more caffeine.

As with earlier elixirs, a dearth of evidence underlies such claims. Only a few human studies of energy drinks or the ingredients in them have been performed and they point to a similar conclusion, researchers say — that the beverages are mainly about caffeine.

Caffeine is called the world’s most widely used drug. A stimulant, it increases alertness, awareness and, if taken at the right time, improves athletic performance, studies show. Energy drink users feel its kick faster because the beverages are typically swallowed quickly or are sold as concentrates.

“These are caffeine delivery systems,” said Dr. Roland Griffiths, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University who has studied energy drinks. “They don’t want to say this is equivalent to a NoDoz because that is not a very sexy sales message.”

A scientist at the University of Wisconsin became puzzled as he researched an ingredient used in energy drinks like Red Bull, 5-Hour Energy and Monster Energy. The researcher, Dr. Craig A. Goodman, could not find any trials in humans of the additive, a substance with the tongue-twisting name of glucuronolactone that is related to glucose, a sugar. But Dr. Goodman, who had studied other energy drink ingredients, eventually found two 40-year-old studies from Japan that had examined it.

In the experiments, scientists injected large doses of the substance into laboratory rats. Afterward, the rats swam better. “I have no idea what it does in energy drinks,” Dr. Goodman said.

Energy drink manufacturers say it is their proprietary formulas, rather than specific ingredients, that provide users with physical and mental benefits. But that has not prevented them from implying otherwise.

Consider the case of taurine, an additive used in most energy products.

On its Web site, the producer of Red Bull, for example, states that “more than 2,500 reports have been published about taurine and its physiological effects,” including acting as a “detoxifying agent.” In addition, that company, Red Bull of Austria, points to a 2009 safety study by a European regulatory group that gave it a clean bill of health.

But Red Bull’s Web site does not mention reports by that same group, the European Food Safety Authority, which concluded that claims about the benefits in energy drinks lacked scientific support. Based on those findings, the European Commission has refused to approve claims that taurine helps maintain mental function and heart health and reduces muscle fatigue.

Taurine, an amino acidlike substance that got its name because it was first found in the bile of bulls, does play a role in bodily functions, and recent research suggests it might help prevent heart attacks in women with high cholesterol. However, most people get more than adequate amounts from foods like meat, experts said. And researchers added that those with heart problems who may need supplements would find far better sources than energy drinks.

Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting from Tokyo and Poypiti Amatatham from Bangkok.

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Safed Journal: New Insights on Marijuana in Israel, Where It’s Illegal

Baz Ratner/Reuters

Tikkun Olam, a medical marijuana farm in Israel, blends the high-tech and the spiritual.

SAFED, Israel — Among the rows of plants growing at a government-approved medical marijuana farm in the Galilee hills in northern Israel, one strain is said to have the strongest psychoactive effect of any cannabis in the world. Another, rich in anti-inflammatory properties, will not get you high at all.

Marijuana is illegal in Israel, but farms like this one, at a secret location near the city of Safed, are at the cutting edge of the debate on the legality, benefits and risks of medicinal cannabis. Its staff members wear white lab coats, its growing facilities are fitted with state-of-the-art equipment for controlling light and humidity, and its grounds are protected by security cameras and guards.

But in addition to the high-tech atmosphere, there is a spiritual one. The plantation, Israel’s largest and most established medical marijuana farm — and now a thriving commercial enterprise — is imbued with a higher sense of purpose, reflected by the aura of Safed, an age-old center of Jewish mysticism, as well as by its name, Tikkun Olam, a reference to the Jewish concept of repairing or healing the world.

There is an on-site synagogue in a trailer, a sweet aroma of freshly harvested cannabis that infuses the atmosphere and, halfway up a wooded hillside overlooking the farm, a blue-domed tomb of a rabbinic sage and his wife.

In the United States, medical marijuana programs exist in 18 states but remain illegal under federal law. In Israel, the law defines marijuana as an illegal and dangerous drug, and there is still no legislation regulating its use for medicinal purposes.

Yet Israel’s Ministry of Health issues special licenses that allow thousands of patients to receive medical marijuana, and some government officials are now promoting the country’s advances in the field as an example of its pioneering and innovation.

“I hope we will overcome the legal obstacles for Tikkun Olam and other companies,” Yuli Edelstein, the minister of public diplomacy and diaspora affairs, told journalists during a recent government-sponsored tour of the farm, part of Israel’s effort to brand itself as something beyond a conflict zone. In addition to helping the sick, he said, the effort “could be helpful for explaining what we are about in this country.”

Israelis have been at the vanguard of research into the medicinal properties of cannabis for decades.

In the 1960s, Prof. Raphael Mechoulam and his colleague Yechiel Gaoni at the Weizmann Institute of Science isolated, analyzed and synthesized the main psychoactive ingredient in the cannabis plant, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. Later, Professor Mechoulam deciphered the cannabinoids native to the brain. Ruth Gallily, a professor emerita of immunology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has studied another main constituent of cannabis — cannabidiol, or CBD — considered a powerful anti-inflammatory and anti-anxiety agent.

When Zach Klein, a former filmmaker, made a documentary on medical marijuana that was broadcast on Israeli television in 2009, about 400 Israelis were licensed to receive the substance. Today, the number has risen to about 11,000.

Mr. Klein became devoted to the subject and went to work for Tikkun Olam in research and development. “Cannabis was used as medicine for centuries,” he said. “Now science is telling us how it works.”

Israeli researchers say cannabis can be beneficial for a variety of illnesses and conditions, from helping cancer patients relieve pain and ease loss of appetite to improving the quality of life for people with post-traumatic stress disorder and neuropsychological conditions. The natural ingredients in the plant, they say, can help with digestive function, infections and recovery after a heart attack.

The marijuana harvest, from plants that can grow over six feet tall, is processed into bags of flowers and ready-rolled cigarettes. There are also cannabis-laced cakes, cookies, candy, gum, honey, ointments and oil drops. The strain known as Eran Almog, which has the highest concentration of THC, is recommended for severe pain. Avidekel, a strain rich in CBD and with hardly any psychoactive ingredient, allows patients to benefit from the drug while being able to drive and to function at work.

Working with Hebrew University researchers, the farm has also developed a version in capsule form, which would make exporting the drug more practical, should the law allow it.

Professor Mechoulam, now 82, said in an interview that he had been urging producers over the years to grow cannabis with less THC and more CBD, something in which nonmedical marijuana growers had little interest. He said what Tikkun Olam had done was not great science but “a very practical development.”

In Israel, he said, research in the field is “definitely a work in progress,” and he cautioned, “Science is not a 100-meters Olympic race; it is not who is first on the line that is important.”

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