Who is Salman Rushdie? The writer who emerged from hiding -

Over a literary career spanning five decades, Sir Salman Rushdie has been no stranger to death threats arising due to the nature of his work.

The novelist is one of the most celebrated and successful British authors of all time, with his second novel, Midnight's Children, winning the illustrious Booker Prize in 1981.

But it was his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, published in 1988, which became his most controversial work - bringing about international turmoil unprecedented in its scale.

In the Islamic world, many Muslims reacted with fury to the book's publication, arguing that the portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad was a grave insult to their faith.

Death threats were made against Rushdie, 75, who was forced to go into hiding, and the British government placed him under police protection.

Read more at:Who is Salman Rushdie? The writer who emerged from hiding - BBC News

USA: Senate acquits Trump of inciting riot at U.S. Capitol, ending his 2nd impeachment trial - "but his real troubles have only begun"

The U.S. Senate voted 57-43 at Donald Trump's impeachment trial, falling short of the 10 more votes needed to convict him for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol.

Nick Akerman, a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, described Trump's legal exposure as: "Extremely serious. On the tax, the mortgage fraud [laws] and the matter in Georgia, where he's on tape."

Read more at: Senate acquits Trump of inciting riot at U.S. Capitol, ending his 2nd impeachment trial | CBC News

US Economy: Dow Jones Collapses Because New York Is Now Wuhan - by Ben Brown

Wuhan in China went into complete lockdown after 500 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus Covid-19. New York City is now dangerously close to that same figure.

Read more at: Dow Jones Collapses Because New York Is Now Wuhan

USA: Major shortage of Drs by 2030: NYU Is Offering Free Tuition to Medical Students - by Adam Harris

Medical school costs a lot of money that a lot of people don’t have. That often means students do a bit of cost-benefit analysis: Is it worth it to take on hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt now for the possibility of making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year later?

New York University’s School of Medicine is trying remove that calculation as a factor in students’ career decision making. The school announced yesterday that it will provide all new, future, and current students a full-tuition scholarship—financial need and merit aside, meaning wealthy students and low-income students alike will receive it. The scholarship doesn’t cover the rest of the costs associated with college—housing, food, child care—but it takes $55,018 a year out of the picture.
“This decision recognizes a moral imperative that must be addressed, as institutions place an increasing debt burden on young people who aspire to become physicians,” Robert Grossman, the school’s dean, said in a statement. “

A population as diverse as ours is best served by doctors from all walks of life, we believe, and aspiring physicians and surgeons should not be prevented from pursuing a career in medicine because of the prospect of overwhelming financial debt.” The school will need to raise $600 million to fund the project—$450 million of which it says has already been raised.

Read more: NYU Is Offering Free Tuition to Medical Students - The Atlantic

US Elections: Republicans lose big in referendum on Donald Trump

"What a tangled  web we weave when we first practice to deceive"

The president's Republican  party has been trounced in the first major elections held since his inauguration, with Democrats winning a bigger than expected margin in both New Jersey and Virginia today.

Democrats swept the statewide offices in Virginia and are on the verge of taking control of the lower house there.

US President Donald Trump has criticised his party's candidate for Virginia governor just minutes after he lost the election.

Trump fired off a tweet from South Korea after it became apparent that nominee Ed Gillespie would lose to Democrat Ralph Northam.

"Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for," Trump wrote. "Don't forget, Republicans won 4 out of 4 House seats, and with the economy.

Trump was referring to the four congressional special elections held this year, all in which Republicans retained the open seats.

It was a much wider victory than anticipated for the Democrats' Northam, as well as for incoming New Jersey governor Phil Murphy.

Murphy will replace Chris Christie, a former presidential candidate and Trump surrogate with profoundly dire approval ratings.

The big wins have Democrats abuzz with the possibility that they could take back Congress in the midterm election this time next year.

Meanwhile, Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio was comfortably re-elected in Trump's hometown of New York.

Note EU-Digest: The Democrats better don't start congratulating each other. Republicans lost not because the Democrats did such a good job as a party, but rather because with someone like Trump as President of the US , who shoots himself in the foot constantly, just about anyone, or any party could now win against Republican candidates. 

EU-Digest

USA - terrorism: New York attack suspect Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov is 4th derelict Islamic terrorist with links to Uzbekistan in 2017

The president of Uzbekistan on Wednesday offered his country's assistance in investigating the deadly terror attack in the lower Manhattan area of New York City. The suspect in the attack was identified as an Uzbek national, Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov.

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev expressed his condolences to the families of the victims in what appeared to be the first instance of Uzbekistan officially acknowledging or commenting on a security incident abroad involving one of its citizens, but the country has been linked to at least three other terrorist incidents over the last year.

In April, Uzbek national Rakhmat Akilov drove a truck into pedestrians in Stockholm, Sweden, killing five people.

Earlier that same month, Akbarzhon Jalilov, a Russian citizen who was born in Kyrgyzstan but of Uzbek heritage, blew himself up on a train in St. Petersburg, Russia, killing 15 people along with himself.

And, in the early hours of New Year's Day, another Uzbek national, Abdulkadir Masharipov, attacked a party at a nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey, killing 39 revelers.

The Muslim-majority nation of Uzbekistan, which gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, is located north of Afghanistan and governed by an authoritarian regime. The harsh conditions there have meant a number of nationals leave, looking for opportunities abroad.

Read more: New York attack suspect Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov is 4th alleged terrorist with links to Uzbekistan in 2017 - CBS News

United Nations General Assembly: From North Korea to global terror threats, these are the issues on the agenda

Facing an escalating nuclear threat from North Korea and the mass flight of minority Muslims from Myanmar, world leaders will gather this week at the United Nations starting to tackle these and other tough challenges — from the spread of terrorism to a warming planet.

UN Secretariat New York

The spotlight will be on US President Donald Trump and France's new leader, Emmanuel Macron, who will both be making their first
appearance at the General Assembly, which begins tomorrow.

They will be joined by more than 100 heads of state and Government, including Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, one of Africa's longest-serving leaders who is said to be bringing a 70-member entourage.

These are the key issues to follow during the UN General Assembly, in no particular order1: 1. North Korea, 2. Myanmar, 3. Extreme weather events, 4. Global terror threats, 5. UN management reform, 6. Peacekeeping operations, 7. Improving international relations.

New York police and a host of federal agencies are preparing for the annual traffic and security nightmare known as the United Nations General Assembly, featuring a week of speeches by U.S. President Donald Trump and a parade of other dignitaries. 

The meeting of the world’s top leaders and diplomats, scheduled to begin on Tuesday, will bring street closures, thousands of police officers and hundreds of protesters to midtown Manhattan, an area already plagued with gridlock on an average weekday. 

“It’s the equivalent of the Super Bowl of security,” said J. Peter Donald, a spokesman for the New York City Police Department. 

Trump will be on hand on Monday and Tuesday, when he will address the body of world leaders for the first time. It was not immediately clear whether he would stay at his Manhattan penthouse about a mile away from United Nations headquarters or sleep at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Read more: United Nations General Assembly: From North Korea to global terror threats, these are the issues on the agenda - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

US Drug Epidemic: Obama joins fight against opioid abuse -yearly in America more people die from drug overdoses than from car accidents

Lending his voice to the fight against a drug scourge that kills 28,000 Americans a year, President Obama told nearly 2,000 policymakers, professionals and parents Tuesday that the nation must provide more treatment for people addicted to opioids and reframe the addiction problem through the lens of public health.

“The most important thing we can do is reduce demand for drugs, and the only way that we reduce demand is by providing treatment and thinking about this as a public health problem and not just a criminal issue,” Obama said during a panel discussion at the 2016 National Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit.

“Part of what has made it difficult to emphasize treatment over criminal justice system has to do with the fact that the populations affected in the past were ... stereotypically identified as poor and minority,” he said. “And as a consequence, the thinking was it is often a character flaw in those individuals who live in those communities. ... One of the things that’s changed ... is a recognition that this reaches everybody.”

Given its widespread reach, administration officials announced a wide range of actions to fight the epidemic, such as expanding access to drug treatment, bolstering efforts to ensure health coverage for substance abuse and mental health are on par with benefits for other medical services, investing in partnerships between law enforcement and communities, and providing guidance on using federal funds to start or expand needle exchanges.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy,meanwhile, said he will release a report later this year on substance use, addiction and health, similar to the landmark surgeon general’s report on smoking released 50 years ago that focused public attention on that issue.

US Drug Abuse: 't’s a plague for families and communities 

They shared their news at the fifth annual summit, organized by Operation UNITE, an Eastern Kentucky anti-drug organization launched in 2003 by U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers. The summit has grown from an upstart event into the major national gathering on the issue, drawing people from both sides of the political aisle.
“This is a bipartisan issue — actually a non-partisan issue,”

Rogers, a Republican who represents Kentucky’s fifth district, said in an interview. “We’re united in the drive to stop this death rage that we’re in.”

Across the USA, more Americans die every year from drug overdoses than from motor vehicle crashes. In 2014, drug overdoses killed 47,055 people, the highest number on record, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The majority, around 28,000, involved opioids such as prescription painkillers and heroin.

In fact, heroin-related overdose deaths have more than tripled since 2010, totaling 10,500 in 2014.

Bottom line: believing that people are able to act responsibly when it comes to recreational, hard drugs or other opiods is total nonsense. Just say no to drugsand report anyone selling drugs immediately to the police.

 Read more: Obama joins fight against opioid abuse | WUSA9.com

The Netherlands: 389 years ago, on May 6, 1626, the Dutch purchased Manhattan - today's New York

Dutch purchase Manhattan, today's New York, May 6,  1626

Towards the end of the 1500's the Dutch were the first country in the world to create a Multi-National Corporation and Amsterdam became the world's leader in shipping, banking, insurance and commerce.

Rembrandt also painted his masterpieces during that time in Amsterdam.

As a result of the Reformation business and religion mixed easily and  their combined intellectual and entrepreneurial efforts brought great prosperity to the Netherlands.

When Spain and Portugal forced Sephardic Jews to flee, some went to the Netherlands, which was Europe’s center of religious toleration and also to the Ottoman Empire ( today's Turkey)

Jews migrated to Holland’s largest city of Amsterdam, which in the 1600s became the wealthiest city in the world.

The Republic of the Seven United Netherlands was in its golden age from 1568 until Napoleon, being one of the few nations not to have a king occupied the Netherlands.

From 1575 on, Holland’s University of Leiden was a center for the studies of Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac, with a Jewish rabbi as a the leading professor.

The original Pilgrims also lived in Leiden before sailing to Massachusetts, and identified themselves with the ancient Hebrew republic.

Medieval Europe forbade paying interest – the sin of usury – but after the Reformation, Amsterdam was where some of the first corporations were started, such as the Dutch East India Company.

Individuals could invest in an expedition of ships going around the world for spices and when the ships returned, interest or “dividends” were paid to the investors from the profit.

If an individual wanted to sell his piece of ownership, he could at the first Amsterdam Stock Exchange. Individual investors had limited liability, only risking the amount they invested. In case the ships sank or were captured by Muslim Barbary pirates, as a consequence the Dutch also invented insurance companies.

On May 6, 1626, Peter Minuit, Dutch governor of the New Netherlands Province, gave 60 guilders of brass buttons, scarlet cloth and trade goods to the Manhattan Indian tribe in exchange for Manhattan Island,  today's New York

The Articles for the New Netherlands’ Colony, issued by the Chamber of Amsterdam, 1624, stated: “They shall within their territory practice no other form of divine worship than that of the Reformed religion … and thus by their Christian life and conduct seek to draw the Indians and other blind people to the knowledge of God and His word, without, however, persecuting any on account of his faith, but leaving each one the use of his conscience.”

New Netherlands’ original Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions, June 1, 1629, stated: “Patroons and colonists shall in particular, and in the speediest manner, endeavor to find out ways and means whereby they may support a Minister and Schoolmaster, that thus the service of God and zeal for religion may not grow cool and be neglected among them, and they shall, for the first, procure a Comforter of the sick there.”

The Dutch set up a New Amsterdam Stock Exchange along the wall of their fort. After a series of Anglo-Dutch Wars, the city of New Amsterdam was unfortunately taken over by the British and renamed New York City.

The New Amsterdam Stock Exchange then became the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street and the rest is history.

EU-Digest

Gaza - Israel: Jews March in New York Rally Against Israel War in Gaza – by Hody Nemes

Holding signs emblazoned with slogans like “Boycott Israeli Apartheid” and “New York Jews Say: Not in Our Name,” hundreds of protesters marched through lower Manhattan on Thursday demanding an end to American support for Israel’s operation in Gaza.

The event was one of many held in the U.S. and around the world as part of a “national day of action” against Israel’s Gaza campaign. Two Jewish groups, Jewish Voices for Peace and Jews Say No!, were among the march’s organizers, and numerous Jews came to protest Israel’s military campaign.

“I’m here because of the massacre that has recently happened, but also because of the ongoing occupation,” said Anna Jacobs, who was pushing her toddler in a stroller.

Standing nearby, Jews Say No! activist Dorothy Zellner lamented that outsiders assume the Jewish community uniformly supports Israel. “This is heartbreaking. Everyone thinks Israel represents us and speaks for us,” she said.

“I think there’s a myth that the Jewish community supports the Israeli attack on Gaza,” she added, and asserted that there are “hundreds of thousands” of Jews in the U.S. that oppose the Israeli occupation.

Most of the Jewish protesters interviewed opposed Israeli policies long before the current campaign. But they view the current hostilities as deplorable, or even criminal.

Read more: Jews March in New York Rally Against Israel War in Gaza – Forward.com

US Elections: Democrats win key New York City and Virginia polls

With almost all votes counted, Bill de Blasio will succeed Mayor Michael Bloomberg to become the first Democrat leading New York City in two decades.

In Virginia, Terry McAuliffe beat Republican Ken Cuccinelli in a very close race for the governor's seat.
Republican Chris Christie was easily re-elected governor of New Jersey.

With 99% of votes counted in New York, Mr de Blasio secured 73% of the vote, convincingly defeating his Republican rival Joe Lhota, who polled 24%.

In his victory speech, Mr de Blasio said the poll showed that America's largest city had chosen "a progressive path", and he promised to make fighting income inequality his top priority.

He is the city's first Democratic mayor since 1993.

He ran Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign, and is seen as one of the most liberal politicians to run for mayor in decades.

With the results in from 99.7% of precincts, Mr McAuliffe ( Democrat) polled 47% to his opponent's 45% in the race for Governor.

Virginia, long a Republican stronghold, has seen a demographic shift in recent years. Mr Obama, a Democrat, won the state in the last two presidential elections.

Read more: BBC News - Democrats win key New York City and Virginia polls

Turkey: Demonstrations against Government of Erdogan now also in the US - by RM

Protest at South Florida  Pompano Beach

Spontaneous demonstrations took place today in South Florida and New York against the Turkish Government of Erdogan and its ever increasing dictatorial behavior, corruption and suppression of press freedom.

More demonstrations are expected  in US cities tomorrow.

There are presently more journalists locked up in Turkey than anywhere in the world, leaving Iran and China scrabbling in the dust, with by most reckonings 103 reporters behind bars, as opposed to 42 in Tehran and 27 in China. More journalists were arrested in Istanbul in one morning over last Christmas than the Chinese managed all year.

Protest Zucotti Park New Yok

One can only ask how a country that was held up as a "poster boy" for democratic reform by the US and the EU,  because of its apparent readiness to embrace western style democracy and capitalism, and be an example for so-called "moderate Muslim democracy" for the Middle East, went so horribly wrong?

Gulen the inspirational leader of Erdogan may preach openness and tolerance, but the movement run in his name is really a model of deceit and gradual establishment of Sharia law in Turkey.

This popular protest might be the last chance for all freedom loving Turks inside and outside the country to make a difference.

EU-Digest

NYC Sandy benefit concert with a mainly British cast of musicians- Robin Hood Foundation

The Concert for Sandy Relief at Madison Square Garden in New York held on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2012 was a great success and seen by millions around the world.   Proceeds from the show will be distributed through the Robin Hood Foundation..

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/12/5050640/nyc-sandy-benefit-concert.html?mi_rss=Photo%20Galleries#storylink=cpy

To read more and see the pics click on:  NYC Sandy benefit concert - Lifestyle Galleries - The Sacramento Bee

Flood Control: How Dutch innovations could prevent Sandy-type flooding in New York - by Jason Sheftell

How can we prevent this from happening again?

That’s the question on the lips of those from New York’s hardest-hit streets. City architects and officials have been trying to answer that question and consider ways to protect New York from another storm of Sandy’s magnitude since her waters receded.

Jackson Heights-based architect Haiko Cornelissen grew up below sea level in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He took note as his country employed flood-prevention measures in harbors, along the coastline and in various housing styles constructed specifically to survive water disasters.
Acting fast after Sandy, Cornelissen has set up the website NL4US.com, which offers safe and sustainable solutions for rebuilding in flood-prone areas in the United States.

Concepts including amphibious houses and anti-flood systems around bridges are described in detail. Speaking to engineers in his home country, the architect considered cost, time, building codes and location before lending his thoughts.

The Dutch government took a bold step in the 1950s to preserve the Netherlands’ southern end with an unprecedented flood protecting infrastructure called Delta Works.

Based on the Dutch example, the Storm Surge Research Group at Stony Brook recommended in 2004 to use a similar solution with movable barriers around the New York Harbor, including under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

“Thinking along these lines, I combined the Verrazano with the Maeslantkering, a barrier that protects Rotterdam, the busiest harbor of Europe," Cornelissen says. “The Maeslantkering completed the Delta Works after four decades of building the complete flood-protection infrastructure. The area has not flooded since.

“While the Bloomberg administration has aggressively promoted waterfront development in the city, the New York waterfronts are now the areas hit hardest by the recent storms,” says the architect.

“Therefore one alternative to promote waterfront development is to use floating houses as seen in new parts of Amsterdam.”

Read more: How Dutch innovations could prevent Sandy-type flooding in New York - NY Daily News

US Presidential Elections: Bloomberg Endorses Obama, Citing Climate Change - by Raymond Hernandez

In a surprise announcement, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Thursday that Hurricane Sandy had reshaped his thinking about the presidential campaign and that as a result, he was endorsing President Obama.

Mr. Bloomberg, a political independent in his third term leading New York City, has been sharply critical of Mr. Obama, a Democrat, and Mitt Romney, the president’s Republican rival, saying that both men had failed to candidly confront the problems afflicting the nation. But he said he had decided over the past several days that Mr. Obama was the better candidate to tackle the global climate change that he believes contributed to the violent storm, which took the lives of at least 38 New Yorkers and caused billions of dollars in damage. 

“The devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to New York City and much of the Northeast — in lost lives, lost homes and lost business — brought the stakes of next Tuesday’s presidential election into sharp relief,” Mr. Bloomberg wrote in an editorial for Bloomberg View.

Read more: Bloomberg Endorses Obama, Citing Climate Change - NYTimes.com

The Netherlands: A Dutch Solution for New York's Storm Surge Woes? - by John McQuaid

The Netherlands Delta Works

Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge did a number on New York City, flooding lower Manhattan, inundating the subway system, triggering fires and power outages, and causing other widespread damage that will take a long time to repair. As this New York Times story from September notes, the city has been only moderately proactive in prepping itself for the long-term risk posed by ocean floods, stressing how to respond when water breaches existing barriers rather than stopping floods altogether.

That’s not surprising, really, because there is little political incentive to prep for something that hasn’t happened, even if you know it’s coming at some point. Now it has. Moreover, the risks are rising inexorably: sea level rise is happening at an accelerated rate along the East Coast. Every extra inch of sea level increases the annual risk of flooding. So what was once a vanishingly rare event becomes a rare one, then a common one. Existing systems just won’t cut it.

Matthew Yglesias suggests that New York (and by extension, other East Coast cities) think big and start looking at the Dutch flood protection model, which employs large-scale flood gates to repel storm surges off from the North Sea:

The idea of essentially damning up New York Harbor sounds extreme, but that’s equivalent to what the Dutch did with the Zuiderzee Works and especially the Delta Works projects undertaken after the 1953 flood. Some of the Dutch works are permanent dijks, but others are open sluices that merely shut when storms are coming to block surges. You could imagine something similar at the Arthur Kill and across the Verazano Narrows or even between Sandy Hook and Rockaway. Projects like that wouldn’t immunize Staten Island or the beachfront parts of Brooklyn and Queens from storm surges but they would defend Lower Manhattan, the badly flooded Red Hook part of Brooklyn, Long Island City, LaGuardia Airport, and a big swathe of New Jersey.

Ultimately, I think something like this is exactly what we’ll see in New York and other coastal cities. It sounds fanciful, but New York is simply too big and important not to protect, and a system of surge barriers and other structures is probably the only way to protect it long-term. Which is exactly the thinking behind the Dutch system.

As it happens, I visited the Netherlands after Hurricane Katrina to look at how Dutch flood control worked, and how its success might apply to New Orleans. (It was part of a mega-series – worth rereading now – that looked for lessons in how other places, from Kobe, Japan to Galveston, had  recovered from disasters.) After crawling over New Orleans’ crappy levees and floodwalls, it was like stepping from “Deadwood” into “Star Trek.”

Note EU-Digest:  The most powerful nation on the globe which has invested billions on the most modern weaponry and has more shopping malls and different flavors of ice-cream and cola than any other country in the world has unfortunately for many years completely neglected to upgrade its antiquated infra-structure. The proof of the pudding is the terrible damage and loss of lives that results every time a natural disaster strikes the US. New Orleans and more recent the US East Coast, New York, New Jersey, are two prime examples where a modern water surge levee protection system like the Delta works in the Netherlands would have made a major difference.  Kudos to the Netherlands !



Read more: A Dutch Solution for New York's Storm Surge Woes? - Forbes

Cyber Security Summit in New York looks to address the growing ‘cyber-arms race’

Cyber-warfare and cyber-espionage incidents have grown into headline fodder as governments worldwide look to digital means of self-protection, aggressive action and information gathering.

Feeling the zeitgeist, the first annual Cyber Security Summit is scheduled to kick off in New York City on Oct. 24, with a mission to “expose the truth about what is really happening on both the offensive and defensive sides of the growing cyber-arms race.”

“Within the next couple of years, the world will experience more intentionally executed and demonstrated cyber-attacks,” said Jarno Limnell, director of cybersecurity at Stonesoft, host of the event. “The development of offensive cyber weapons will become fiercer and publicly more acceptable. Defense, resilience and offense make up the components required for a company or country to protect itself. You need them all.”

Limnell said that the goal of the summit is to help executives responsible for their company’s information security to be aware of the growing global threats presented by cyber attackers. He said top-of-mind questions include what happens when sophisticated tools become available for sale in the malware marketplace? And, who should be held accountable when a government-sponsored espionage tool is repurposed for criminal activity? And the bottom line question, of course, is what can organizations do to protect their own networks?

Cyber-warfare and cyber-espionage are clearly on the rise, with this summer’s spate of attacks in the Middle East merely the latest example. That’s because cyber-espionage is easier, safer and far more cost-effective than the traditional James Bond method, argues PandaLabs' technical director, Luis Corrons.

“Modern-day spies no longer need to infiltrate a building to steal information,” he said. “As long as they have the necessary computer skills, they can wreak havoc and access the best-kept secrets of organizations without ever leaving their living-rooms.” And, cyber-war “will become more than ever a reality,” he explained, “as we learn how different governments such as China, the US, and the UK, allocate specific budgets for it.”

Read more: nfosecurity - Cyber Security Summit looks to address the growing ‘cyber-arms race’

The US Autumn revolution: Occupy Wall Street: - Billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg's nightmare scenario

Billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg exercised a show of brute force shortly after midnight Tuesday morning and ordered police to clear Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, New York. The place where the Occupy Wall Street protestors had decided to settle for the past few months, protesting by day and sleeping in tents by night.

The Mayor might think differently but Occupy Wall Street could become his public-relations nightmare. It could even make him go down in history as another public official who caved in to his own moneyed interests. Bloomberg could very well be remembered as a desperate mayor who bowed to the will of his wealthy citizens — the very population group that Occupy Wall Street demonstrators have targeted.

Bloomberg should know better than most people that whenever a figure in a position of authority resorts to an overt public demonstration of force, people who find themselves in a lose, lose situation can and will react with powerful emotions and often with violence.

A blogger wrote: "Perhaps New York Mayor Bloomberg, much like the obnoxiously rich plutocrats and right-wing puppets in the media paid to tout their corporate bottom line, fears this truly people-inspired movement might end in a Egyptian style revolt in which the 99 percent plebeians reclaim their country. After all, you can only beat the living crap out of your wife before she eventually rises up and runs you down with her car."

EU-Digest

USA politcs: Republican upset win in NY portends challenge for Obama

It sounded improbable on the surface that a New York City congressional district where Democrats have a 3-1 registration edge and have held office for nearly a century could even come close to electing a Republican to the U.S. House.

But voter frustration over the sour economy and President Barack Obama's policies made the improbable a reality, as a Republican political novice, Bob Turner, scored an upset victory in a special election Tuesday over David Weprin, a Democratic assemblyman from a prominent local political family. The surprising results in the Brooklyn and Queens-area district portend a perilous national environment for Obama as he prepares to seek re-election next year.

For more: GOP upset win in NY portends challenge for Obama - CBS News

9/11 threats: New York authorities fear terrorists disguised as construction workers

An NYPD police official said tonight terrorists could be trying to masquerade as construction officials in order to carry out an attack during tomorrow's 9/11 anniversary service.

Police are hunting for three stolen vans belonging to construction companies doing work in or around the World Trade Center site.

The news comes as the identity of one of the three alleged terrorists plotting a possible attack was revealed

For more: 9/11 threats: New York authorities fear terrorists disguised as construction workers | Mail Online