Thursday, August 30, 2012

CHINA MISSLE TESTS - 10 NUKE WARHEADS

KING JESUS IS COMING FOR US ANY TIME NOW. THE RAPTURE. BE PREPARED TO GO.

THAT PEACE LOVING RELIGION SEX FOR MURDER CULT ISLAM VIDEO LITERALLY CRUCIFYING A CHRISTIAN ON WOOD IN EGYPT.
http://www.prophecyhour.com/#ooid=10NXhxNTq7F3HIYinB2D7sCJKZktU1Bu

DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.

JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.

REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(THE FALSE POPE WHO DEFECTED FROM THE CHRISTIAN FAITH) causeth all,(IN THE WORLD ) both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(MICROCHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark,(MICROCHIP IMPLANT) or the name of the beast,(WORLD DICTATORS NAME INGRAVED ON YOUR SKIN OR TATTOOED ON YOU OR IN THE MICROCHIP IMPLANT) or the number of his name.(THE NUMBERS OF HIS NAME INGRAVED IN THE MICROCHIP IMLPLANT)-(ALL THESE WILL TELL THE WORLD DICTATOR THAT YOUR WITH HIM AND AGAINST KING JESUS-GOD)
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast:(WORLD LEADER) for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM (6006006)OR(60020202006)(SOME KIND OF NUMBER IMPLANTED IN THE MICROCHIP THAT TELLS THE WORLD DICTATOR AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER THAT YOU GIVE YOUR TOTAL ALLIGIENCE TO HIM AND NOT JESUS)(ITS AN ETERNAL DECISION YOU MAKE)(YOU CHOOSE YOUR OWN DESTINY)(YOU TAKE THE DICTATORS NAME OR NUMBER UNDER YOUR SKIN,YOUR DOOMED TO THE LAKE OF FIRE AND TORMENTS FOREVER,NEVER ENDING MEANT ONLY FOR SATAN AND HIS ANGELS,NOT HUMAN BEINGS).OR YOU REFUSE THE MICROCHIP IMPLANT AND GO ON THE SIDE OF KING JESUS AND RULE FOREVER WITH HIM ON EARTH.YOU CHOOSE,ITS YOUR DECISION.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYUgVL9PdxM&list=UU4SH8rh0OjYV3zwqnIfqNbA&index=1&feature=plcp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PX-vW4VccY&feature=player_embedded#!
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/markets/indexes/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfPX59y4KxE&feature=related

HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS THU AUGUST 30,2012

09:30 AM -2.43
10:00 AM -79.16
10:30 AM -104.10
11:00 AM -120.01
11:30 AM -93.08
12:00 PM -100.07
12:30 PM -102.89
01:00 PM -93.76
01:30 PM -90.34
02:00 PM -99.79
02:30 PM -85.25
03:00 PM -83.43
03:30 PM -89.90
04:00 PM -106.77 13,000.71

S&P 500 1349.88 -11.01

NASDAQ 3048.71 -32.48

GOLD 1,658.20 -4.20

OIL 94.77 -0.72

TSE 300 11,886.65 -123.14

CDNX 1217.96 -11.20

S&P/TSX/60 681.18 -6.26

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow -72 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -120 points at low today.
Dow -1 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,665.00.OIL opens at $95.23 today.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -120 points at low today so far.
Dow -1 points at high today so far.

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow  -120 points at low today.
Dow -1 points at high today.

GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,902.60 (NOT AT CLOSE)

NATURAL GAS-THU+66 BCF

WARN THE PEOPLE

EZEKIEL 33:1-6
1 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2  Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman:
3  If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people;
4  Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head.
5  He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul.
6  But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.

WW3 THE 3 WAVES THAT MARCH TO ISRAEL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u820yZWuZf0&feature=youtu.be
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2005/11/questions-ww3-whats-coming.html (WW3 COMPLETE HAPPENINGS)

AMOS 9:10
10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.

DANIEL 11:40-45
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south( EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) and the king of the north (RUSSIA AND MUSLIM HORDES OF EZEK 38+39) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
41 He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.(JORDAN)
42 He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
43 But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.
44 But tidings out of the east(CHINA 2ND WAVE OF WW3) and out of the north(RUSSIA, MUSLIMS WHATS LEFT FROM WAVE 1) shall trouble him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.( 1/3RD OF EARTHS POPULATION)
45 And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.

REVELATION 14:18-20
18 And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.
19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
20 And the winepress was trodden without the city,(JERUSALEM) and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.(200 MILES) (THE SIZE OF ISRAEL)

ISAIAH 6:9-12
9  And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.
10  Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.
11  Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate,
12  And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.

ISAIAH 24:1
1 Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste,(NUKES USED) and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.(WORLD IMMIGRATION)

The Third and Final Wave of WW3 is when all Nations march to Jerusalem, but JESUS bodily returns to earth and destroys them,sets up his KINGDOM OF RULE FOR 1000 YEARS THEN FOREVER.

ISAIAH 11:10-16
10  And in that day (WHEN JESUS IS RULING ON EARTH AT THE END OF THE 7 YEAR TRIBULATION PERIOD) there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.
11  And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.
12  And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.
13  The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.
14  But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them.
15  And the LORD shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod.
16  And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.

2ND WAVE CHINA AND KINGS OF THE EAST MARCH TO ISRAEL

REVELATION 16:12
12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.(THIS IS THE ATATURK DAM IN TURKEY,THEY CROSS OVER).

DANIEL 11:44 (2ND WAVE OF WW3)
44 But tidings out of the east(CHINA) and out of the north(RUSSIA, MUSLIMS WHATS LEFT FROM WAVE 1) shall trouble him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.( 1/3RD OF EARTHS POPULATION)

REVELATION 9:12-18
12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.
13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four(DEMONIC WAR) angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.(4 WINDS OF THE WORLD-WORLDWIDE WAR)(TURKEY-IRAQ-SYRIA)(EUPHRATES RIVER CONSISTS OF 760 MILES IN TURKEY,440 MILES IN SYRIA AND 660 MILES IN IRAQ)
15 And the four(DEMONIC WAR) angels were loosed,(COULD ALSO MEAN THE 4 CORNERS OF THE EARTH OR WORLDWIDE WAR) which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.(1/3 Earths Population die in WW 3 2ND WAVE)
16 And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand:(200 MILLION MAN ARMY FROM CHINA AND THE KINGS OF THE EAST) and I heard the number of them.
17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.(NUCLEAR BOMBS)
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.(NUCLEAR BOMBS)

WARS AND RUMURS OF WARS.

MATTHEW 24:6-8
6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

MARK 13:7
7 And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet.


China tests new generation ICBM capable of carrying 10 nuclear warheads


China today announced testing of a new generation of inter-continental ballistic missile, Dongfeng-41, with a strike range of 14,000 km and capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads.
China today announced testing of a new generation of inter-continental ballistic missile, Dongfeng-41, with a strike range of 14,000 km and capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads.
BEIJING: China today announced testing of a new generation of inter-continental ballistic missile, Dongfeng-41, with a strike range of 14,000 km and capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads.

"China last month tested a new generation of intercontinental ballistic missile, the Dongfeng-41, or DF-41, which is believed to have a maximum strike distance of 14,000 km," the state-run CCTV said in a brief report.

The television also showed a rare footage of its missile unit in action, which included the formation of new mobile women's missile wing.

It quoted experts of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission as saying that as many as 10 nuclear warheads can be put on the missile.

Last week state-run Global Times reported that China was developing the capability to put multiple warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles.The CCTV report followed New York Times article that said China has developed a new generation of inter-continental and submarine launched missiles capable of carrying as many as 10 nuclear warheads, increasing its ability to reach US and to overwhelm missile defence systems.The US military and intelligence officials say that China has developed the new long range Dongfeng-41 ICBM with mobile launching system making it harder to find and destroy the missile before it is launched, the Times report said.Separately, the CCTV today carried a report about the People's Liberation Army (PLA) mobile missile units undergoing training in different parts of the country to get used to local and climatic conditions.Massive trucks with huge missiles were seen moving around and how the troops take positions and fire them.The report also said the missile unit now have women's wing and shown several women soldiers taking part in missile firing exercises.The NYT, quoting a Congressional panel, said that US and other western powers might have underestimated the size of China's nuclear arsenal, suggesting that the new reports say that Beijing currently have 55 to 65 ICBM.The US experts also said that Beijing had separately tested submarine launched missiles in recent weeks, which it could use to outflank American missile defence systems.

And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.

Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.

12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE

JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people(ISRAEL) and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.(UPROOTED ISRAELIS AND DIVIDED JERUSALEM)(THIS BRINGS ON WW3 BECAUSE JERUSALEM IS DIVIDED,WARNING TO ARABS-MUSLIMS AND THE WORLD)

ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)

Abbas arrives in Tehran to promote statehood bid

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
08/29/2012 19:27

Sources tell 'Post' visit is not expected to improve PA-Iran relations; Abbas set to give speech about peace process at NAM summit.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas [file photo] Photo: Luis Galdamez / Reuters
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas arrived in Tehran Wednesday to attend the Non-Aligned Movement conference.
This is Abbas's first visit to Iran since he was elected as president of the PA in 2005.
Abbas is accompanied by chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, Foreign Minister Riad Malki and Majed Faraj, head of the PA's General Intelligence Service.Relations between the PA and Iran have been very tense over the past few years due to Tehran's support for Hamas.It was not clear Wednesday whether Abbas would meet during his visit to Tehran with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.Abbas is scheduled to deliver a speech before the conference about the latest developments in the region and the stalled peace process with Israel, sources in the PA president's office said.The sources said they did not expect the visit to lead to improvement in relations between the PA and Iran."Iran has long been opposed to the policies of the Palestinian Authority," the sources told The Jerusalem Post. "They consider President Abbas a traitor because he believes in the two-state solution and has renounced violence."Abbas's spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, said that the PA president would meet with heads of several delegations to the conference.
Abbas will brief the foreign dignitaries on the current situation in the Palestinian territories and seek their backing for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital, Abu Rudanieh added.The Bethlehem-based Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported that several Palestinian officials tried to persuade Abbas to cancel his trip to Iran, but to no avail.Last week, PA officials accused Iran of seeking to divide the Palestinians by inviting Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to attend the Tehran parley.The officials called on Haniyeh to cancel his visit out of fear that his participation in the conference would be interpreted as a sign that the Palestinians have two different and separate entities - one in the West Bank and the other in the Gaza Strip.Abbas also threatened to boycott the NAM conference if Haniyeh or any other Hamas representative took part.Haniyeh later announced that he had apologized to the Iranians for being unable to accept their invitation to attend the conference, paving the way for Abbas to travel to Tehran.

Netanyahu slams 'disgrace' of Tehran summit

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday slammed the wide international participation at a Non-Aligned summit in Tehran as a "stain on humanity" following Iran's denial of Israel's right to exist.
"Today, over 120 countries are in Tehran, saluting a regime that not only denies the Holocaust but pledges to annihilate the Jewish state, brutalises its own people, colludes in the murder of thousands of innocent Syrians and leads millions in chanting 'Death to America, death to Israel'," he said."So many in the international community appear to have learned nothing. I think this is a disgrace and a stain on humanity," Netanyahu said in a statement.UN chief Ban Ki-moon, in Tehran for the summit of the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement that opens on Thursday, told Iranian leaders on Wednesday that their anti-Israel comments were "offensive and inflammatory," a UN spokesman said.Ban "strongly objected" to the remarks in talks with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has called Israel a "cancerous tumor," and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has doubted its right to exist, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters from Tehran.
Ban travelled to the summit despite US and Israeli criticism of his attendance, along with 36 heads of state or government who Iran says have confirmed they will take part.

Israeli archeologists find rare stone age figures

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's Antiquities Authority says archeologists have unearthed two 9,500-year-old figurines near Jerusalem that help shed light on religion and society during the stone age.It says archaeologists unearthed the two rare figurines last week in Tel Motza between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv during a dig ahead of the expansion of a major highway in the area.One of the objects is shaped like a ram and made of limestone. The other depicts an ox and is made of dolomite. Both are 15 centimeters (5.9 inches) long.
Wednesday's statement says the figurines could have been either good luck hunting icons or a representation of the animal's domestication.

STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES

LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

THE FIRST JUDGEMENT OF THE EARTH STARTED WITH WATER-IT ONLY MAKES SENSE THE LAST GENERATION WILL BE HAVING FLOODING
GENESIS 7:6-12
6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
GOD PROMISED BY A RAINBOW-THE EARTH WOULD NEVER BE DESTROYED TOTALLY WITH A FLOOD AGAIN.BUT FLOODIING IS A SIGN OF JUDGEMENT.

Isaac moves north after drenching U.S. Gulf, New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Tropical storm Isaac is expected to weaken further as it heads north on Thursday, after causing significant damage to the U.S. Gulf Coast but nothing on the scale of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005.The former Category One hurricane was likely to become a tropical depression on Thursday, and could still bring heavy rain and floods as it moved across the center of the country over the next few days, the National Hurricane Center said.As Isaac ebbs, probes should show an elaborate flood containment plan developed for low-lying New Orleans survived its first major test, seven years to the day after Katrina laid waste to the city and killed more than 1,800 people.And as the focus shifts from the coast, many further north will hope that Isaac brings rain desperately needed to ease a drought in the center of the United States, where summer crops have been ravaged and many rivers and dams are critically low.The mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, said the $14.5 billion system built for New Orleans by the Army Corps of Engineers - an array of walls, floodgates, levees and pumps - had performed "exactly as it should".More than 730,000 residents of Louisiana and Mississippi were still without power.Isaac never came close to the power of Katrina, which was a Category 3 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale when it smashed into New Orleans on August 29, 2005 - a day that still reverberates in the nation's psyche.And early indications are that property damage from Isaac will not make the top-10 list of worst U.S. hurricanes by inflation-adjusted losses.But the storm still produced major headaches, especially the seemingly endless rain that caught many long-time residents by surprise, trapped some on rooftops, and caused significant flooding in low-lying coastal areas.
SLOW MOVING
Isaac's advance slowed to a crawl after it first grazed the southeast Louisiana coast on Tuesday. That slowdown allowed it to pick up strength and dump rain for many more hours than expected. Flooding and storm surges forced thousands from their homes in areas not far from New Orleans."There is no such thing as 'just' a tropical storm," Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said after Isaac was downgraded on Wednesday.U.S. President Barack Obama, declared the impact on Louisiana and Mississippi major disasters and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts.
It estimated total rainfall from Isaac of 7 to 14 inches, enough for widespread lowland flooding. Isolated maximum amounts over much of Louisiana and parts of Mississippi, Alabama and even Arkansas were expected to be as much as 25 inches.Storm surges at high tide were also as high as 12 feet on the coast of Mississippi and southeastern Louisiana. Thousands were evacuated from St. John the Baptist Parish, north of New Orleans, after surges in Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas.Tropical storm strength winds were blowing off the coasts of both states, though seas have been dropping over the past 24 hours as Isaac weakens, the NHC said early on Thursday. Tornadoes remained a risk, it said.There was a heavy security presence in New Orleans to prevent any repeat of the days-long crime wave and general chaos that followed Katrina.Police and National Guard units, many armed with assault rifles, patrolled dark and nearly deserted streets in downtown New Orleans, usually a hotbed of tourism.The city was still being lashed by rain and high winds on Wednesday night and about 60 percent of all homes and businesses were without power.
GHOST TOWN
"It's a ghost town," said Sgt. Joseph Jennings, a member of the Louisiana Army National Guard patrolling the streets in an armored humvee."Everybody saw the widespread looting during Katrina and nobody wants that to happen again."The darkness of the Lower Ninth Ward was eerily reminiscent of Katrina, when a nearby levee failed and the largely poor and black neighborhood was inundated by deadly floodwaters.In the nearby Seventh Ward, one of the city's poorest and most crime-ridden areas, residents could be seen in shadows on porches, standing outside their darkened homes.Earlier, along the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, Donalyn Lott watched a pumping station sucking water out of an overflowing drainage canal and into the lake.
"We're holding up pretty good ... no flooding," Lott said.About 3,000 residents were forced from their homes in St. John the Baptist Parish, upriver from New Orleans, by flooding caused by storm surges.
Evacuations were also needed in Plaquemines Parish, a major shrimping area southeast of New Orleans that bore the brunt of the northward-moving storm.Dozens were plucked from the roofs of their houses by local boatmen after earlier deciding they could ride out what compared with Katrina seemed like a small storm.
"This storm has delivered more of a punch than people thought," said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser.More than 730,000 Louisiana and Mississippi customers of Entergy Corp and other local utilities were without power as of late Wednesday.City officials also said Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, which closed late on Monday, would remain shut on Thursday as the lines that supply it with power were knocked out by the storm.Benchmark crude oil prices slipped on Wednesday on expectations that damage to oil facilities, offshore and along the coast, would be limited. Major oil companies including Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil Corp, began making plans to assess or restart operations.
(Additional reporting by Ben Gruber and Kathy Finn in New Orleans, Emily Le Coz in Tupelo, Mississippi, Chris Baltimore in Houston, Ben Berkowitz in Boston and Jane Sutton and David Adams in Miami; Writing by Andrew Heavens and Ros Krasny; Editing by Louise Ireland and David Brunnstrom)

Syria opposition: Assad tried to explain stalemate

BEIRUT (AP) — A member of Syria's main opposition group says President Bashar Assad's latest comments aim to explain his security forces' failure in putting down the country's uprising.British-based opposition activist Ausama Monajed, who is a member of the Syrian National Council, said in a telephone interview Thursday that Assad's statements tried to "justify the failure of the security solution."Assad said in an interview broadcast Wednesday that his armed forces will need time to defeat the rebels, claiming that his army is fighting a regional and global war. Damascus says the rebels are backed by other Arab states.
Despite their heavy arms, Assad's troops are stalemated with the rebels in key cities and other fronts across the country.

ALLTIME