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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.
AT 8:30 AM THE WIND AND RAIN ARE PULVERISING ALREADY NEW ORLEANS AND THE WORST IS YET TO COME. GUSTAV IS CLOSE TO COMING ON LAND NOW, 10 MILES AWAY.
Gustav's eye closes in on Louisiana coastline By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and MARY FOSTER, Associated Press Writer 8:57 AM SEPT 01,08
NEW ORLEANS - Hurricane Gustav steamed toward the Louisiana coast early Monday on track to hit west of New Orleans as the few remaining in the city watched nervously and hoped levees only partly reinforced in the three years since Katrina would hold.
Those who heeded days of warnings to get out watched from shelters and hotel rooms hundreds of miles away, praying the powerful Category 3 storm and its 115-mph winds would pass without the same deadly toll.We're nervous, but we just have to keep trusting in God that we don't get the water again, said Lyndon Guidry, who hit the road for Florida just a few months after he was able to return to his home in New Orleans. We just have to put our faith in God.Water gushed off buildings and flags hung in tatters, ripped to shreds in the high winds. But there were no reports of serious flooding, and only scattered clusters of power outages.The painful memories of Katrina, which flooded 80 percent of New Orleans and killed more than 1,600 along the Gulf Coast, led officials to aggressively insist that everyone in Gustav's path flee from shore. As the storm grew near, the streets of the city were empty — save for National Guardsmen and just about every officer on the city's police force standing watch for looters.In all, nearly 2 million people left south Louisiana, as did tens of thousands from coastal Mississippi, Alabama and southeastern Texas.
Even presidential politics bowed to the storm, as the Republican Party scaled back its convention plans in deference to Gustav's threat. Mindful of the government's inept response to Katrina, President Bush scrapped his Monday appearance at the convention and instead headed to Texas, where emergency response personnel were getting ready.It's amazing. It makes me feel really good that so many people are saying, We as Americans, we as the world, have to get this right this time, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said. We cannot afford to screw up again.Asked what lessons he learned during Katrina that were being applied now, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told CBS: Planning, preparation and moving early.Gustav killed at least 94 people as it tore through the Caribbean and it will test three years of planning and rebuilding on the Gulf Coast following Katrina's wrath. Billions of dollars were at stake, as Gustav threatened industries ranging from sugar to shipping. If production is significantly interrupted from the region's refineries and offshore oil and gas platforms, price spikes could hit all Americans at the pump.
Officials promised they were ready to respond this time. Chertoff said search and rescue would be the top priority once the storm passed: high-water vehicles, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, Coast Guard cutters and a Navy vessel that is essentially a floating emergency room were posted around the strike zone.I feel a little nervous about the storm and exactly where it's going to end up, but I also feel real good about the resources, Nagin said. Man, if we have resources, we can move mountains.Forecasters had expected Gustav to strengthen further before making landfall around midday, but early Monday they said the storm would hold steady as a Category 3. Katrina also made landfall as a strong Category 3, which carries sustained winds of between 111 mph and 130 mph.At 8 a.m. EDT, the storm's center was located about 85 miles south of New Orleans and was moving northwest at 16 mph.The city of Franklin, about 100 miles west of New Orleans, was bracing for a direct hit if Gustav stays on its current track. Dozens of sheriff's deputies, along with state troopers and guardsmen, waited at an emergency operations center inside the courthouse.We don't rely on backup. If it comes, great, but we don't trust the federal government. They can never get it quite right, said state Rep. Sam Jones.He estimated that at least three-quarters of the city's roughly 9,000 residents evacuated for Gustav. For good reason: Three years ago, Hurricane Rita flooded up to 200 homes in the city.Tropical storm-force winds reached the southeastern tip of the state early Monday morning, but local officials said they had not received any distress calls or reports of unexpected flooding. In Plaquemines Parish, south of New Orleans, officials built an emergency levee to prevent flooding along a highway that runs along the Mississippi River, sheriff's spokesman Maj. John Marie said. But it was extremely quiet. It's really remarkable, we got almost everybody out, he said. In New Orleans, officials were anxiously watching to see what kind of storm surge the city would face: If forecasts hold, the city could experience a storm surge of only 4 to 6 feet, compared to a surge of 10 to 14 feet at the site of landfall, said Corey Walton, a hurricane support meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center. Katrina, by comparison, brought a storm surge of 25 feet, causing levees to break. While the Army Corps of Engineers has shored up some of the city's levee system since then, fears this time center on the city's West Bank, where levee repairs have not been completed. City officials were pleased so many residents heeded warnings to leave. They estimated only about 100,000 along the coast decided to tough it out. When the 911 calls start coming in, we'll know how many people are left in town, said police superintendent Warren Riley. The city's emergency medical service had received only 26 calls as of midnight Monday, a fraction of what they received on the night before Katrina, spokesman Jeb Tate said. Adam Woods didn't need to be told to leave. A Coast Guard helicopter plucked him off his roof after Katrina, and this time, he and his lab mix Mandela headed to the city's Union Station for a ride out of town.
I've got oxygen in my lungs, the 53-year-old landscaper said. Remember, you've got to be alive to have problems.Jeffrey Carreras was among those staying behind. Looters wreaked havoc in his neighborhood restaurant in the days after Katrina struck and despite promises of police protection, he wasn't willing to leave his business a second time. I have shotguns, rifles. I collect guns actually, Carreras said. So I have plenty of guns in there, plenty of ammo.Gustav was the seventh named storm in the Atlantic hurricane season. The eighth, Tropical Storm Hanna, was strengthening about 100 miles from the Bahamas. Though a storm's track and intensity are difficult to predict days in advance, long-term projections showed the storm could come ashore along the border of Georgia and South Carolina late in the week.
Associated Press writers Becky Bohrer, Janet McConnaughey, Robert Tanner, Cain Burdeau, Alan Sayre, and Allen G. Breed contributed to this report from New Orleans. Vicki Smith in Houma and Doug Simpson in Baton Rouge also contributed. Michael Kunzelman reported from Lafayette, La.
Hurricane Gustav hits US coast by Glenn Chapman SEPT 01,08
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) - Hurricane Gustav lashed the US state of Louisiana with torrential rain and gale force winds Monday after forcing nearly two million people to flee. Fearing a repeat of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, hundreds of troops were sent into New Orleans after what is being called the biggest evacuation in US history.Three critically ill people were reported to have died as they were being moved from the danger zone. Oil production platforms were shut down, the Republican party suspended the start of its presidential election convention and President George W. Bush headed for Texas to monitor emergency preparations for Gustav which has killed more than 80 people in Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.
Reports of power outages in New Orleans started after wind and rain began hitting the city -- still struggling from Katrina, which struck almost exactly three years ago.Louisiana officials said there were about 750 National Guard troops in New Orleans if a new rescue operation was needed. Mayor Ray Nagin on Sunday ordered a curfew and vowed to throw looters into prison.The edge of the storm has crossed the Mississippi Delta, lashing New Orleans, said National Hurricane Center meteorologists.At 0900 GMT, the eye of the hurricane was 185 kilometers (115 miles) southeast of New Orleans moving towards the coast at 26km (16 miles) an hour.Storm force winds from Gustav extended as far as 370km (230 miles) from the eye, the center said.A category three hurricane, Gustav packed sustained winds of 185km (115 miles) per hour.No significant change in strength is likely before landfall, the US National Hurricane Center said in its latest advisory.This is a serious storm, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said in a final appeal to the people who remained in New Orleans despite government warnings.People in the state capital of Baton Rouge and other inland areas have been warned to watch for storm-spawned tornados.Gustav forced US President George W. Bush to cancel plans to appear at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. The US leader said Sunday that he would instead travel to Texas to monitor the storm.Republican presidential hopeful John McCain drastically scaled back the program for the first day of the convention Monday, saying all activities would be suspended except for those absolutely necessary.
I hope and pray we will be able to resume some of our normal operations as quickly as possible, he told reporters from St. Louis, after returning from a tour of relief preparations in Mississippi.Military and civilian disaster relief operations were prepared, with memories still fresh of the destruction wrought by Katrina, and the government's botched response.Katrina made landfall near New Orleans on August 29, 2005, smashing poorly-built levees surrounding the city and causing massive floods that destroyed tens of thousands of homes and killed nearly 1,800.New Orleans mayor Nagin told local television that the city had become a ghost town after a massive evacuation campaign, and that only about 10,000 residents remained. Some of those who left said they felt reassured. The mayor assured us our property will be safe, Wilson Patterson, 48, said as he prepared to board a bus with wheelchair-bound 84-year-old Earline Martin. We don't want to get caught up in the Katrina craziness, he said, recalling the lawlessness that swept New Orleans in 2005. Jindal said rescue teams were in place. We will begin search-and-rescue operations as soon as we safely can. That would be when winds are below 140 miles per hour, he said, which probably will occur late Monday.We've got ... boots on the ground, eyes on the ground. So before that, even before we can get into the air, before we can get boats on the water, we do have people on the ground to make sure that we're doing everything that we can to save every single life.Jindal told reporters there were unconfirmed reports that three critically ill patients died while being transported to safer ground. They had to weigh the risk between sheltering in place and evacuating and made the decision they thought was best for their patients, he said.
Gulf oil fields idled ahead of Gustav By Erwin Seba SEPT 01,08
HOUSTON (Reuters) - U.S. energy companies shut nearly all offshore Gulf oil and gas production and raced to bring down flood-prone Louisiana refineries on Sunday ahead of Hurricane Gustav, which threatens to rival the wrath of 2005's Katrina. Gustav is set to hit the Louisiana coast west of New Orleans on Monday morning as a Category 3 hurricane with wind speeds up to 125 mph (200 kmh) in the first major test of the energy industry's preparedness since the devastating 2005 hurricane season.In the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, which normally pumps a quarter of all U.S. oil production and 15 percent of its natural gas output, energy companies had shut in more than 96 percent of the area's oil output and 82 percent of gas as of Sunday afternoon, the U.S. Minerals Management Service said.At least nine refineries with a combined capacity of 2.2 million bpd, or 12.5 percent of U.S. refining capacity, were shut down along the south Louisiana coast ahead of Gustav.More than half a dozen other plants, including Exxon Mobil's Baytown, Texas, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, facilities, the two biggest in the United States, were reducing processing rates, sources and industry officials said.This is Katrina's legacy, said Phil Flynn of Alaron Trading in Chicago. The industry is much more prepared and taking things much more seriously. That's why so much has been shut down so quickly.Despite Gustav's course through the heart of the U.S. oil patch, oil prices rose a modest 91 cents or 0.8 percent to $116.37 a barrel by 1:12 a.m. EDT in electronic trading, with traders waiting to see if it would leave lasting damage in its wake.U.S. RBOB gasoline futures climbed 2.2 percent.This is definitely a dangerous storm, but I think most of the market is in a wait-and-see mode, waiting to see (if there are) disruptions to oil facilities and pipeline infrastructure before they make a big move, said Gerard Burg, a commodities analyst at the National Bank of Australia in Melbourne.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita wrecked more than 100 oil platforms in 2005, shutting down a quarter of U.S. oil production and closing several large refineries for months. Katrina was a Category 3 when its 28-foot (8.5 meter) storm surge hit the coast.The Gulf normally pumps 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil -- approximately 1.5 percent of world supply -- and 7.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas.This could be potentially the most dangerous storm for the energy sector we've ever seen, said Chris Jarvis, senior analyst at Caprock Risk Management in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire. It is going right across the most important areas.
INFRASTRUCTURE CLOSURES
Besides closing oil and gas fields and refineries, energy companies were also shutting down important fuel transportation systems.The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, the only U.S. port capable of offloading the biggest oil tankers and a major conduit for U.S. crude imports, halted all operations on Sunday.It's coming right at us, said LOOP spokeswoman Barb Hestermann of Gustav's forecast path. It looks like we're Ground Zero.Gustav was forecast to slam into the coast just west of the LOOP's onshore operations center at Galliano, Louisiana.The Sabine Pipeline, which includes the delivery point for U.S. natural gas futures, shut at noon CST (1:00 p.m. EDT). The move led the NYMEX to declare force majeure on its August and September natural gas futures contracts, meaning sellers were not contractually bound to make physical delivery. Mississippi River traffic south of New Orleans closed Saturday night. Ship channels into Lake Charles in west Louisiana as well as Houston, Beaumont and Port Arthur in Texas planned to shut by Sunday night, cutting off crude oil shipments to refineries. The region's largest offshore producer, Shell Oil Co, said all of its Gulf production would be shut by Sunday night. All 1,300 of the company's workers were onshore. Rival energy giants BP, Chevron had shut almost all production. ConocoPhillips, and Exxon were also shutting off production as they evacuate workers. (Reporting by Erwin Seba, Bruce Nichols, Robert Campbell and Haitham Haddadin, and Fayen Wong in Perth; Editing by Chris Baltimore, Gunna Dickson and Ben Tan)
EARTH DESTROYED WITH THE EARTH
GENESIS 6:11-13
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.(WORLD TERRORISM,MURDERS)
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence (TERRORISM) through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
EARTHQUAKES
MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
Rescuers appeal for tents after deadly China quake By ANITA CHANG, Associated Press Writer SEPT 01,08
BEIJING - Rescuers appealed for temporary housing and tents Monday after a weekend earthquake in southwest China killed at least 36 people, injured hundreds and left tens of thousands of homes in ruins. The temblor Saturday in Sichuan province, which the U.S. Geological Survey measured at magnitude 5.7, struck along the same fault line as a May 12 earthquake that killed nearly 70,000.We need temporary houses ... we need more than 10,000 tents, said Zhang Hai, head of the foreign liaison office of the Communist Party propaganda department in Panzhihua city. This is a mountainous place and so we can't build temporary houses everywhere.The beginning of the school year, which was supposed to be Monday, was postponed for a week because authorities were inspecting damage in classrooms, he said.We still can't bring all kids back to their previous classrooms, Zhang said.China is still basking in the glory of hosting an extravagant and widely viewed Olympic Games that International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge called truly exceptional. But the earthquake underscores the country's need to turn its attention back to pressing domestic issues such as high inflation, pollution, and now disaster relief.The quake killed five people in Panzhihua and surrounding rural areas, and the death toll also included 25 victims in Sichuan province's Huili county, local officials said. Authorities in the Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture in neighboring Yunnan province reported six deaths.
We are trying to maintain order and make sure that there's enough supply. The disaster relief office has sent 17 medical teams made up of over 200 people, said Song Ming, an official in the propaganda department of Liangshan prefecture, which includes Huili county.Saturday's quake killed 33 people, state broadcaster China Central Television said on its noon newscast. The temblor destroyed 258,000 homes, damaged major bridges and cracked three reservoirs, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.Local officials told The Associated Press they did not have any information on the reservoirs or whether the damage might place people in danger.Xinhua said 467 people were injured by the earthquake, which struck 20 miles southeast of Panzhihua city in the southwestern corner of Sichuan. A 5.6-magnitude aftershock struck just one minute later, the USGS said.About 152,000 people were evacuated in Sichuan province and relief efforts were under way, despite being hampered by heavy rains and the region's rugged terrain, Xinhua said. It said 6,200 tents, 3,500 quilts and 55,000 pounds of rice had been sent to the quake zone.Since the 7.9-magnitude May 12 temblor, the region has been hit by scores of aftershocks.
DISEASES
REVELATION 6:7-8
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).
11 deaths confirmed in listeriosis outbreak
Sun Aug 31, 8:10 PM
VANCOUVER (CBC) - Listeriosis, which has triggered a series of recalls of processed meat products, was the underlying or contributing cause in 11 deaths, up from 10, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.The death most recently linked to the food-bourne illness was in Ontario and likely occurred in the past several weeks, Dr. Mark Raizenne of the Public Health Agency of Canada said Sunday.Since news of an outbreak emerged two weeks ago, Listeria monocytogenes has been the underlying or contributing cause in 11 deaths, including nine in Ontario, one in B.C. and one in Alberta, according to the agency.Another six deaths are suspected and still under investigation, including four in Ontario, one in Quebec and one in Saskatchewan, the agency said.A total of 33 cases across the country have been conclusively linked to the outbreak, up from the 31 cases reported in the agency's update Saturday. An additional 25 suspected cases are still under investigation, down from Saturday's update of 32.Public health officials have warned the public to expect more confirmed or suspected cases to emerge because of the bacterium's long incubation period of up to 70 days.The infection is of most concern to individuals who have weakened immune systems, the elderly, pregnant women and young children, the Public Health Agency of Canada said in newspaper advertisements published Saturday.Last Saturday, as a precaution, Maple Leaf Foods expanded a recall of meat products to include everything that's processed at its Toronto plant after government lab tests conclusively linked the bacterium in the outbreak to some of the company's products. Several more products were added to the list of items Friday night.Dr. Brian Evans, executive vice president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said while it may seem that the list of recalled products is growing, the additional recalls reflect the fact that several different products were made from the recalled meat.Many of our recalls relate to products such as sandwiches and pre-packaged meats carrying best-before dates that have now already expired, Evans said at a news conference Saturday afternoon.Nevertheless, in the public interest and in the interest of openness, we feel it is important that such info is visible.On Saturday, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency warned people against eating certain roast beef sub and kaiser bun sandwiches by King Bean Wholesalers sold in B.C. stores in Surrey, New Westminster and Langley because they may be contaminated with the bacterium.With files from the Canadian Press.
MUSLIM NATIONS
EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY)of the north quarters, and all his bands:(SUDAN,AFRICA) and many people with thee.
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
ISAIAH 17:1
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
PSALMS 83:3-7
3 They (ARABS,MUSLIMS) have taken crafty counsel against thy people,(ISRAEL) and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7 Gebal, and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)
EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.
JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
Georgia crisis defines new Russian defense policy By Oleg Shchedrov SEPT 01,008
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's decision to send troops to Georgia has set a new standard for defending its national interests and the United States must learn to live with it, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday.Russia crushed its southern neighbor in a brief war last month after Georgia tried to recapture by force its pro-Moscow, separatist region of South Ossetia. It drew Western condemnation by pushing far beyond the disputed area, bombing and deploying troops deep inside Georgia proper.Through its response to the Georgian aggression, Russia has set a kind of standard for reaction, which fully complies with international law, Lavrov told students of Moscow's diplomatic college in a speech to mark the start of the new academic year.Russia has returned to the world stage as a responsible state which can defend its citizens.Any doubts about this should have been dispelled by its action in Georgia and recognition of two pro-Russian provinces as independent states, said Lavrov, whose harshest words were addressed to Washington and NATO.America needs to acknowledge the reality of the post-American world and start adapting to it, Lavrov said. An attempt to live in its own unipolar world has gone on too long, and this is dangerous in every respect.He added: There is a feeling that NATO again needs frontline states to justify its existence.owever, he reiterated Moscow's commitment to continue dialogue with the United States.We will deal with any America, Lavrov said, urging Washington to exercise reciprocity and absolute honesty in ties. We will continue talking to Washington as long as there is a tiny hope of understanding each other and making a deal.
MOMENT OF TRUTH
The speech, focused on new relations between Russia and the West, was made hours before EU leaders were due to gather in Brussels to discuss a common stance in the Georgian crisis. Lavrov made clear Russia would not bow to any pressure.He was expounding new foreign policy guidelines set by President Dmitry Medvedev, who despite Western expectations of a softer line has formalized the assertive stance of his predecessor Vladimir Putin.Medvedev said in a television interview on Sunday that Russia would adhere to international law but not accept a U.S.-led unipolar world, and laid claim to specific spheres of national interest that Russia would defend.Over the past few years, the West has been watching with alarm the increasingly assertive policy of a resurgent Russia, fearing a revival of Soviet-era imperialism.Russia, in turn, has accused the West of building new lines of division in the world by failing to treat it as an equal.Lavrov said the conflict in Georgia had come as a long-cherished moment of truth, adding that today's clarity is better than any ambiguity.Europe's inability to produce a new collective security system, open for everyone and taking into account everyone's interests, was to blame for the Georgia crisis, he said.Something should be done because otherwise Euro-Atlantic affairs will keep returning to square one.Russia has proposed calling a security conference in Europe, to create new arrangements for neutralizing threats in the continent.It views NATO's eastward expansion and the deployment of parts of a U.S. missile defense system in Eastern Europe as a direct threat to its security. Plans to grant NATO membership to ex-Soviet Georgia and Ukraine are anathema for Moscow.
In the absence of a reasonable multilateral dialogue we will be forced to react unilaterally, Lavrov said. But we would indeed prefer joint work on European security issues.(Editing by Jon Boyle and Mark Trevelyan)
Russia says US may have sent weapons to Georgia SEPT 01,08
MOSCOW - Russia is suggesting U.S. ships that brought humanitarian aid to Georgia may have also carried weapons. Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said such suspicions are among the motives for Russia's call for an arms embargo against Georgia.Nesterenko told a news conference there are suppositions that the cargo of U.S. military ships that have brought aid for war-battered Georgia may also have included military components.Nesterenko also said that Russia would welcome an international police presence and more Western military observers in what is now a Russian-controlled zone around South Ossetia, the focus of the war earlier this month. But he indicated it will be a long time before Russia is ready to reduce its military presence.THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia warned the West on Monday against supporting Georgia's leadership and called for an arms embargo against the ex-Soviet republic nation until a different government is in place.Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks are likely to anger the United States and Europe and enrage Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. He made it clear Moscow wants Saakashvili out of power in Georgia.If instead of choosing their national interests and the interests of the Georgian people, the United States and its allies choose the Saakashvili regime, this will be a mistake of truly historic proportions, he said.For a start it would be right to impose an embargo on weapons to this regime, until different authorities turn Georgia a normal state, he said in an address at Russia's top foreign policy graduate school.Lavrov spoke as the European Union prepared for a summit Monday to discuss the Georgia crisis and further relations with Russia.Today's EU summit should clear up a great deal. We hope the choice they make will be based on Europe's fundamental interests, he said. He said Russia's relations with NATO are facing a moment of truth.Russia's ties to the West have been driven to their lowest point since the Soviet collapse of 1991 by the war last month in Georgia, where Saakashvili angered Moscow by courting the West and seeking NATO membership.
Russia repelled a Georgian offensive against the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia and sent troops, tanks and bombers deep into undisputed Georgian territory, where some still maintain positions. Moscow last week recognized South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia, as independent countries.The U.S. and Europe have accused Russia of using disproportionate force and of violating the terms of a cease-fire that called for the sides to withdraw their forces to pre-conflict positions. They have also denounced Russia's recognition of the separatist regions, saying Georgia's borders must remain intact.Russia says it was provoked. Russian peacekeeping forces were stationed in South Ossetia before the war and Moscow had given most of South Ossetia's residents Russian passports in recent years, enabling the Kremlin to argue that it was defending its citizens when it responded to Georgia's Aug. 7 offensive in the separatist province.With its reaction to the Georgian aggression, Russia has set a certain standard of responding that fully complies with international law, Lavrov said. Russian soldiers, he said, followed our deeply Christian tradition of dying for our friends.The reactions of some Western countries to the crisis illustrates a deficit of morality, he said. It's high time for Europe to get back to simple, non-politicized and non-geopolitical values, Lavrov said.Lavrov reserved particular criticism for the United States, which has trained Georgian troops, saying such aid had failed to give the U.S. sufficient leverage to restrain the Georgian government. Instead, he said, It encouraged the irresponsible and unpredictable regime in its gambles.While Western governments have expressed regret at the Georgian offensive targeting South Ossetia, the Russian call for an arms embargo on a nation still bristling with Russian forces is likely to irritate the U.S. and Europe.
Lavrov's remarks will likely deepen Georgian suspicions that Russia's aim throughout the crisis has been to remove the pro-Western Saakashvili from power. European Union leaders seeking to punish Russia for its war with Georgia and its recognition of independence for two breakaway Georgian provinces have few options and are likely to choose diplomatic pressure to isolate Moscow at their summit Monday. Lavrov's implication that continued support for Saakashvili would further undermine relations with Russia were the latest in a bitter back-and-forth between Moscow and the West, with each saying it is up to the other to avoid plunging the world into a new Cold War. It's up to Russia today to make a fundamental choice and to engage neighbors and partners in settling disputes peacefully, French President Nicolas Sarkozy wrote in a pre-summit letter to EU leaders. Russia's commitment to a relationship of understanding and cooperation with the rest of Europe is in doubt.Also on Monday, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said that member nations are preparing to send hundreds of civilian monitors to Georgia to verify whether Russian forces are complying with a cease-fire agreement. He said the observers would be deployed initially across areas controlled by Georgian forces. We would like to have the ... mission deployed soon, Solana said, adding he hoped EU nations approve the plan in the coming weeks. Associated Press reporter Constant Brand in Brussels contributed to this report.
Monday, September 01, 2008
Sunday, August 31, 2008
HANNA CHURNING UP AS WELL AS GUSTAV
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.
HERES HURRICANE NUMBER 2 CHURNING UP HANNA.
Storm Hanna, off Florida, keeps experts guessing By Michael Christie AUG 31,08
MIAMI (Reuters) - While powerful Hurricane Gustav bore down on the U.S. Gulf Coast on Sunday, Tropical Storm Hanna swirled east of Florida, embedded in a complicated climatic environment that made it impossible to forecast its destination and likely strength. The eighth tropical storm of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season could just as easily end up over Cuba, bring heavy rainfall to citrus country in central Florida or drift northward toward South Carolina. It was not possible to say if the storm might eventually end up in the U.S. oil patch in the Gulf of Mexico, hurricane experts said.Unfortunately there is still considerable uncertainty with the forecast, said Jamie Rhome, a hurricane specialist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. It's impossible to say that this system is going to do this or that.
The cyclone was tangled up in a middle to upper level low that was making it difficult for Hanna to develop, and was likely to slow down in two days when it came across conditions of weak steering current that could make it meander.Another trough would then swoop over the tropical storm, bringing with it considerable uncertainty as to the likely wind shear as Hanna drifted near the Bahamas. Wind shear -- the difference in wind speed at different levels of the atmosphere -- can tear storms apart.At the end of the forecast track the wind shear could let up a bit, Rhome said.
None of the computer models used to predict storm tracks actually took Hanna into the southeastern United States at this point, Rhome said.Some oil analysts reported on Friday that one of the myriad computer models available to forecasters had indicated that Hanna could eventually make landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast near New Orleans where Hurricane Gustav was expected to come ashore on Monday as a dangerous storm.Those reports triggered concerns in energy markets of a potential one-two punch by Gustav and Hanna on some of the 4,000 Gulf of Mexico offshore platforms that provide a quarter of U.S. crude oil and 15 percent of its natural gas.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed more than 100 oil rigs in 2005 when they roared through, causing oil prices to soar to then record highs. Katrina went on to swamp New Orleans, kill 1,500 people on the U.S. Gulf Coast and cause $80 billion in damages.Rhome said it was folly to highlight a single computer model, especially so far out. It's a mistake, and often a grave one, to focus on a single model, he said.
The accuracy of hurricane forecasting has come a long way since the days when entire fleets of Spanish galleons sank in unexpected storms as they carried South American gold and treasure back to Europe.But even with the start of hurricane hunter flights in 1944 and the advent of satellite imagery in the 1960s, long-range forecasts are prone to enormous margins of error.The National Hurricane Center estimates the average error in its track forecasts is near 260 miles by day four and 345 miles by day five. The hurricane center does not project a storm's track beyond day five.
Intensity forecasts are even more difficult. The hurricane center calculates that the error in its forecasts for a storm's top sustained winds averages 23 miles per hour (37 km per hour) per day.The last official forecast for Hanna takes it in five days to minimal Category 1 hurricane strength with 80-mile-per-hour (130 km per hour) winds by next Friday.It might then be somewhere off central Florida. But its potential position at that point also encompasses the southern Bahamas, eastern Cuba, south Florida and South Carolina.(Editing by Tom Brown)
WELL WE EVEN HERE THE WORDS THE BIBLES SAYS WOULD BE SAID ABOUT THESE LAST DAYS STORMS.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.
Gulf Coast braces, flees as deadly Gustav takes aim at US by Glenn Chapman AUG 31,08
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) - More than a million people fled Louisiana as killer Hurricane Gustav on Sunday churned toward New Orleans, a fragile US coastal city still healing from the devastating 2005 Katrina storm. Highways out of New Orleans have been crammed since before dawn as people scurried to escape a monster storm that could slam the Louisiana coast as early as midday Monday.The state's governor, Bobby Jindal, said that more than a million people are on the move because of Gustav.
Officials are carefully watching whether Gustav strengthens as it crosses the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico.A slightly weakened Gustav -- still a dangerous Category 3 storm with winds near 125 miles (205 kilometers) per hour -- battered Cuba Sunday after claiming at least 81 lives in its tear across the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, desperate to avoid a replay of the 2005 Katrina catastrophe, ordered the city emptied in the face of what he called the storm of the century and roads quickly filled with fleeing residents.Get out of town, Jefferson parish president Aaron Broussard said in a public announcement Sunday morning. Have the courage to disconnect yourself from your material things. You cannot protect yourself against what Mother Nature is going to throw at us.
Jefferson Parish includes the West Bank, where a storm surge of water pushed ashore by hurricane winds is expected to easily wash over levees guarding that area.Weather models indicate a surge could be more than 20 feet (almost three meters) high, double the height of levees on the West Bank.We are going to see storm surge on the West Bank like we have never seen before, said Jefferson parish councilman Chris Roberts. Now is the time to sound the alarm.In Cuba, Gustav tore off roofs, flattened buildings and plunged communities into darkness as it smashed through the Isle of Youth, then tore across mainland Cuba southwest of Havana, which has a population of more than two million. There were no immediate reported deaths in Cuba.
The storm lost some of its punch in the process, with US officials downgrading it from four to three.At 1200 GMT, the US National Hurricane Center said Gustav's eye was about 375 miles (605 km) southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, as the storm moved northwest about 16 mph (26 km/h) and was expected to strengthen.On this track Gustav will be moving across the central Gulf of Mexico today (Sunday) and make landfall on the northern Gulf coast on Monday, the NHC added, warning an extremely dangerous storm surge of 18 to 25 feet (more than six meters) above normal tidal levels is expected near and to the east of where the center of Gustav crosses the northern Gulf Coast.President George W. Bush is unlikely to travel to the Republican Convention Monday as Hurricane Gustav closes in on the US Gulf Coast, the White House said in Washington. The Katrina catastrophe was a major political disaster for his administration.Republican White House hopeful John McCain and his running-mate Sarah Palin also said they would suspend their normal election campaign and visit to Mississippi to inspect preparations for Gustav's arrival.Major oil producers BP, ConocoPhillips and Shell on Thursday evacuated workers from their facilities in the Gulf where nearly a quarter of US crude oil installations are located.If one major deep-water production platform is destroyed, you're talking about a billion dollar or more loss, said Rice University engineering professor Satish Nagarajaiah. If it's multiple rigs and platforms in a variety of water depths, then we're talking billions of dollars.Cuban national television reported that the scene on the Isle of Youth was one of devastation after the monster storm ground its way across the low-lying island of fishing villages, factories and citrus farms. Homes were under water, warehouses toppled, and roads washed away on the Isle, state television said, adding there were some injuries though no immediate reports of deaths. More than 250,000 were evacuated from western parts of mainland Cuba before the storm hit, the Cuban weather service said. Used to fairly frequent smaller tropical storms, Havana residents ran around town Saturday gathering candles and food, boiling water and taping up windows. Really, I just did not expect this -- it has been a long time since we have been hit by such a powerful hurricane, and this Gustav looks like it will be quite strong, retired actress Gliseria Farinas said in Havana. A key concern was for the crowded and charming colonial-era Old Havana, which UNESCO declared a World Heritage Site in 1982. Most of Cuba's housing stock is old and fragile. Cuban authorities have said that in Havana alone there are 1,000 buildings in critical condition. These include about 8,000 structures housing some 26,000 people, many of them in Old Havana. Earlier Gustav's path of destruction left 66 dead and 10 missing in Haiti. In neighboring Dominican Republic, the death toll stood at eight, while in Jamaica the toll stood at seven, with many thousands displaced. Gustav loomed just after the third anniversary of Katrina, the deadliest US natural disaster in almost eight decades. More than 1,800 people were killed by the hurricane and related flooding, authorities say.
Powerful Gustav rips across Cuba, 250,000 evacuate By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer AUG 31,08
HAVANA - Cubans returned from shelters to find flooded homes and washed-out roads Sunday, but no deaths were reported after a monstrous Hurricane Gustav roared across the island and into the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico. About 250,000 Cubans were evacuated before Gustav made landfall on Cuba's Isla de la Juventud, then again on the Cuban mainland in the region that produces much of the tobacco used to make the nation's famed cigars.It was just short of top-scale Category 5 hurricane with screaming 140 mph (220 kph) winds as it moved across the island, toppling telephone poles and fruit trees, shattering windows and tearing off the tin roofs of homes.A Cuban television reporter on the Isla de la Juventud said the storm had felt like the blast wave from a bomb.Buildings without windows, without doors, he said. Few trees remain standing.Cuban Civil defense chief Ana Isa Delgado said there were many people injured on the island of 87,000 people. Nearly all the island's roads were washed out and some regions were heavily flooded.It's been very difficult here, she said on state television.But there were no reports of deaths, there or on the mainland.Gustav earlier killed 81 people by triggering floods and landslides in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.The hurricane weakened slightly after crossing Cuba, slowing to Category 3 status before sunrise Sunday. But it still packed top winds near 120 mph (195 kph) and forecasters predicted it would increase to a Category 4 before making landfall Monday along the U.S. Gulf coast.
More than 1 million Americans made wary by Hurricane Katrina took buses, trains, planes and cars as they streamed out of New Orleans and other coastal cities, where Katrina killed about 1,600 people in 2005.Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans, which was devastated by Katrina, issued a mandatory evacuation order and warned that anyone found off their own property after it takes effect can be arrested. Police and National Guard troops were on the streets, preparing to patrol evacuated neighborhoods.Nagin called Gustav the mother of all storms and told residents to get out of town. This is not the one to play with.Cuba's top meteorologist, Jose Rubiera, said the storm brought hurricane-force winds to much of the western part of Havana, where power was knocked out as winds blasted sheets of rain sideways though the streets and whipped angry waves against the famed seaside Malecon boulevard.
But Sunday morning no flooding could be seen in central Havana, and state radio said the damage was minimal in the capital of 2 million people, although southeastern Havana remained without power and natural gas.Public transportation began running again Sunday morning, as did buses and trains from Havana to the provinces. State radio said schools would open Monday everywhere except Pinar del Rio.In the fishing town of Batabano, 31 miles (50 kilometers) south of Havana, evacuees returned to their pastel-colored homes to find many surrounded by knee-deep water.My house is full of water, said Aldo Tomas, 43, pulling palm branches from his living room. But we expected more. We expected worse.Tourist Lidia Morral of Barcelona, Spain, said Gustav forced officials to close beaches the couple wanted to visit earlier this week in Santiago, on the island's eastern tip. The storm also prevented them from catching a ferry from Havana to the Isla de la Juventud on Saturday. It's been following us all over Cuba, ruining our vacation, said Morral, who was in line at a travel agency, trying to make other plans. They have closed everything — hotels, restaurants, bars, museums. There's not much to do but wait.At 8 a.m. EDT Sunday, the U.S. hurricane center said Gustav was centered about 375 miles (605 kilometers) southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and moving northwest near 16 mph (26 kph). Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Hanna was projected to move north of the Turks and Caicos Islands by late Sunday, then curl through the Bahamas by early next week before possibly threatening Cuba. As it spun over open waters, Hanna strengthened slightly and had sustained winds near 60 mph (95 kph) early Sunday. The hurricane center warned that it could kick up dangerous rip currents along parts of the southeastern U.S. coast.
Russia warns it will respond to aggression
By Christian Lowe AUG 31,08
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia does not want confrontation with the West but will hit back if attacked, Kremlin leader Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday, a day before EU leaders meet to draft a response to Moscow's actions in Georgia.British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would press fellow European Union leaders to review ties with Russia in retaliation for Moscow's decision to send troops to Georgia and recognize two Georgian breakaway regions.But underlining the differences in approach inside the 27-member EU, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier took a softer line, saying isolating Russia would harm the interests of the bloc.A senior U.S. diplomat said Washington hoped the EU would express concrete support for Georgia's territorial integrity, and urged Europe to reduce its dependence on Russian energy.Medvedev faces growing condemnation from the West, which accuses Russia of occupying parts of Georgia, while the Kremlin said it acted to prevent what it called genocide against the separatist regions.Russia does not want confrontation with any country. Russia does not plan to isolate itself, Medvedev said in an interview with Russia's three main television stations.But he added: Everyone should understand that if someone launches an aggressive sortie, he will receive a response. He said Russian law allowed the Kremlin to impose sanctions on other states, though it preferred not to go down that path.
GEORGIAN CALL
Georgia urged the European Union to impose sanctions against those doing business with the two separatist regions, authorize a civilian mission to monitor buffer zones around them and give Tbilisi about $2 billion to help to help repair damage.
Europe can do a lot, starting with sending a mission of civilian monitors, which would lead to an international peacekeeping mechanism that would replace the presence of Russian troops, Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze told Reuters in Brussels.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Russia's intervention in Georgia was dangerous and unacceptable.In the light of Russian actions, the EU should review -- root and branch -- our relationship with Russia, Brown wrote in a comment published in Britain's Observer newspaper.The German foreign minister said Moscow deserved criticism but Europe needed cooperation with Russia.Europe would only be hurting itself if we were to get full of emotion and slam all the doors shut to the rooms that we will want to enter afterwards, Steinmeier said.Russia supplies more than a quarter of Europe's gas needs. Some observers say this makes tough EU sanctions unlikely.Thousands of Georgians are expected to join a human chain in Tbilisi on Monday, with people joining hands through the capital in a show of unity.Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, in an address to the nation, said he hoped the EU leaders would not give up faced with this dirty attempt at aggression.
TEST OF UNITY
The emergency summit is a test of unity for the EU, which struggles to reconcile differences between states which want punitive action and others, including European heavyweights France and Germany, which favor a more calibrated approach.It is likely to produce a stern words-soft action response from the EU, said Chris Weafer, Chief Strategist with Russia's Uralsib investment bank.The bloc is likely to stop well short of any action that might escalate into a damaging tit-for-tat sequence of economic and political sanctions, Weafer wrote in a research note.Russia sent in its troops after Georgia's military tried to retake South Ossetia, like Abkhazia a Moscow-backed region which rejects Tbilisi's rule.Moscow has pulled out most of its forces in line with a ceasefire deal but has kept soldiers and equipment in security zones, which include undisputed Georgian territory around South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Western governments have demanded that Moscow pull its troops back to pre-conflict positions. The Kremlin says the troops are peacekeepers needed to protect the separatist regions from new Georgian aggression.In a last-minute round of diplomacy before Monday's emergency EU summit, both Medvedev and U.S. President George W. Bush spoke to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is seen as sympathetic to the Kremlin.U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza said it was up to the EU to decide what measures it adopts against Russia, but the bloc should throw its weight behind Georgia and make itself less dependent on Russian energy.What happened in Georgia shows even more why it is crucial that Europe begins to move more quickly to diversify its supply of gas, Bryza told Reuters on the sidelines of an international energy conference in Bled, Slovenia.(Reporting by Giles Elgood in London, Thomas Grove in Istanbul, Erik Kirschbaum in Berlin, Guy Faulconbridge and Conor Sweeney in Moscow, Marja Novak and Zoran Radosvljevic in Bled, Slovenia, Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington and Mark John and Marcin Grajewski in Brussels; editing by Philippa Fletcher).
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.
HERES HURRICANE NUMBER 2 CHURNING UP HANNA.
Storm Hanna, off Florida, keeps experts guessing By Michael Christie AUG 31,08
MIAMI (Reuters) - While powerful Hurricane Gustav bore down on the U.S. Gulf Coast on Sunday, Tropical Storm Hanna swirled east of Florida, embedded in a complicated climatic environment that made it impossible to forecast its destination and likely strength. The eighth tropical storm of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season could just as easily end up over Cuba, bring heavy rainfall to citrus country in central Florida or drift northward toward South Carolina. It was not possible to say if the storm might eventually end up in the U.S. oil patch in the Gulf of Mexico, hurricane experts said.Unfortunately there is still considerable uncertainty with the forecast, said Jamie Rhome, a hurricane specialist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. It's impossible to say that this system is going to do this or that.
The cyclone was tangled up in a middle to upper level low that was making it difficult for Hanna to develop, and was likely to slow down in two days when it came across conditions of weak steering current that could make it meander.Another trough would then swoop over the tropical storm, bringing with it considerable uncertainty as to the likely wind shear as Hanna drifted near the Bahamas. Wind shear -- the difference in wind speed at different levels of the atmosphere -- can tear storms apart.At the end of the forecast track the wind shear could let up a bit, Rhome said.
None of the computer models used to predict storm tracks actually took Hanna into the southeastern United States at this point, Rhome said.Some oil analysts reported on Friday that one of the myriad computer models available to forecasters had indicated that Hanna could eventually make landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast near New Orleans where Hurricane Gustav was expected to come ashore on Monday as a dangerous storm.Those reports triggered concerns in energy markets of a potential one-two punch by Gustav and Hanna on some of the 4,000 Gulf of Mexico offshore platforms that provide a quarter of U.S. crude oil and 15 percent of its natural gas.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed more than 100 oil rigs in 2005 when they roared through, causing oil prices to soar to then record highs. Katrina went on to swamp New Orleans, kill 1,500 people on the U.S. Gulf Coast and cause $80 billion in damages.Rhome said it was folly to highlight a single computer model, especially so far out. It's a mistake, and often a grave one, to focus on a single model, he said.
The accuracy of hurricane forecasting has come a long way since the days when entire fleets of Spanish galleons sank in unexpected storms as they carried South American gold and treasure back to Europe.But even with the start of hurricane hunter flights in 1944 and the advent of satellite imagery in the 1960s, long-range forecasts are prone to enormous margins of error.The National Hurricane Center estimates the average error in its track forecasts is near 260 miles by day four and 345 miles by day five. The hurricane center does not project a storm's track beyond day five.
Intensity forecasts are even more difficult. The hurricane center calculates that the error in its forecasts for a storm's top sustained winds averages 23 miles per hour (37 km per hour) per day.The last official forecast for Hanna takes it in five days to minimal Category 1 hurricane strength with 80-mile-per-hour (130 km per hour) winds by next Friday.It might then be somewhere off central Florida. But its potential position at that point also encompasses the southern Bahamas, eastern Cuba, south Florida and South Carolina.(Editing by Tom Brown)
WELL WE EVEN HERE THE WORDS THE BIBLES SAYS WOULD BE SAID ABOUT THESE LAST DAYS STORMS.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.
Gulf Coast braces, flees as deadly Gustav takes aim at US by Glenn Chapman AUG 31,08
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) - More than a million people fled Louisiana as killer Hurricane Gustav on Sunday churned toward New Orleans, a fragile US coastal city still healing from the devastating 2005 Katrina storm. Highways out of New Orleans have been crammed since before dawn as people scurried to escape a monster storm that could slam the Louisiana coast as early as midday Monday.The state's governor, Bobby Jindal, said that more than a million people are on the move because of Gustav.
Officials are carefully watching whether Gustav strengthens as it crosses the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico.A slightly weakened Gustav -- still a dangerous Category 3 storm with winds near 125 miles (205 kilometers) per hour -- battered Cuba Sunday after claiming at least 81 lives in its tear across the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, desperate to avoid a replay of the 2005 Katrina catastrophe, ordered the city emptied in the face of what he called the storm of the century and roads quickly filled with fleeing residents.Get out of town, Jefferson parish president Aaron Broussard said in a public announcement Sunday morning. Have the courage to disconnect yourself from your material things. You cannot protect yourself against what Mother Nature is going to throw at us.
Jefferson Parish includes the West Bank, where a storm surge of water pushed ashore by hurricane winds is expected to easily wash over levees guarding that area.Weather models indicate a surge could be more than 20 feet (almost three meters) high, double the height of levees on the West Bank.We are going to see storm surge on the West Bank like we have never seen before, said Jefferson parish councilman Chris Roberts. Now is the time to sound the alarm.In Cuba, Gustav tore off roofs, flattened buildings and plunged communities into darkness as it smashed through the Isle of Youth, then tore across mainland Cuba southwest of Havana, which has a population of more than two million. There were no immediate reported deaths in Cuba.
The storm lost some of its punch in the process, with US officials downgrading it from four to three.At 1200 GMT, the US National Hurricane Center said Gustav's eye was about 375 miles (605 km) southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, as the storm moved northwest about 16 mph (26 km/h) and was expected to strengthen.On this track Gustav will be moving across the central Gulf of Mexico today (Sunday) and make landfall on the northern Gulf coast on Monday, the NHC added, warning an extremely dangerous storm surge of 18 to 25 feet (more than six meters) above normal tidal levels is expected near and to the east of where the center of Gustav crosses the northern Gulf Coast.President George W. Bush is unlikely to travel to the Republican Convention Monday as Hurricane Gustav closes in on the US Gulf Coast, the White House said in Washington. The Katrina catastrophe was a major political disaster for his administration.Republican White House hopeful John McCain and his running-mate Sarah Palin also said they would suspend their normal election campaign and visit to Mississippi to inspect preparations for Gustav's arrival.Major oil producers BP, ConocoPhillips and Shell on Thursday evacuated workers from their facilities in the Gulf where nearly a quarter of US crude oil installations are located.If one major deep-water production platform is destroyed, you're talking about a billion dollar or more loss, said Rice University engineering professor Satish Nagarajaiah. If it's multiple rigs and platforms in a variety of water depths, then we're talking billions of dollars.Cuban national television reported that the scene on the Isle of Youth was one of devastation after the monster storm ground its way across the low-lying island of fishing villages, factories and citrus farms. Homes were under water, warehouses toppled, and roads washed away on the Isle, state television said, adding there were some injuries though no immediate reports of deaths. More than 250,000 were evacuated from western parts of mainland Cuba before the storm hit, the Cuban weather service said. Used to fairly frequent smaller tropical storms, Havana residents ran around town Saturday gathering candles and food, boiling water and taping up windows. Really, I just did not expect this -- it has been a long time since we have been hit by such a powerful hurricane, and this Gustav looks like it will be quite strong, retired actress Gliseria Farinas said in Havana. A key concern was for the crowded and charming colonial-era Old Havana, which UNESCO declared a World Heritage Site in 1982. Most of Cuba's housing stock is old and fragile. Cuban authorities have said that in Havana alone there are 1,000 buildings in critical condition. These include about 8,000 structures housing some 26,000 people, many of them in Old Havana. Earlier Gustav's path of destruction left 66 dead and 10 missing in Haiti. In neighboring Dominican Republic, the death toll stood at eight, while in Jamaica the toll stood at seven, with many thousands displaced. Gustav loomed just after the third anniversary of Katrina, the deadliest US natural disaster in almost eight decades. More than 1,800 people were killed by the hurricane and related flooding, authorities say.
Powerful Gustav rips across Cuba, 250,000 evacuate By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer AUG 31,08
HAVANA - Cubans returned from shelters to find flooded homes and washed-out roads Sunday, but no deaths were reported after a monstrous Hurricane Gustav roared across the island and into the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico. About 250,000 Cubans were evacuated before Gustav made landfall on Cuba's Isla de la Juventud, then again on the Cuban mainland in the region that produces much of the tobacco used to make the nation's famed cigars.It was just short of top-scale Category 5 hurricane with screaming 140 mph (220 kph) winds as it moved across the island, toppling telephone poles and fruit trees, shattering windows and tearing off the tin roofs of homes.A Cuban television reporter on the Isla de la Juventud said the storm had felt like the blast wave from a bomb.Buildings without windows, without doors, he said. Few trees remain standing.Cuban Civil defense chief Ana Isa Delgado said there were many people injured on the island of 87,000 people. Nearly all the island's roads were washed out and some regions were heavily flooded.It's been very difficult here, she said on state television.But there were no reports of deaths, there or on the mainland.Gustav earlier killed 81 people by triggering floods and landslides in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.The hurricane weakened slightly after crossing Cuba, slowing to Category 3 status before sunrise Sunday. But it still packed top winds near 120 mph (195 kph) and forecasters predicted it would increase to a Category 4 before making landfall Monday along the U.S. Gulf coast.
More than 1 million Americans made wary by Hurricane Katrina took buses, trains, planes and cars as they streamed out of New Orleans and other coastal cities, where Katrina killed about 1,600 people in 2005.Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans, which was devastated by Katrina, issued a mandatory evacuation order and warned that anyone found off their own property after it takes effect can be arrested. Police and National Guard troops were on the streets, preparing to patrol evacuated neighborhoods.Nagin called Gustav the mother of all storms and told residents to get out of town. This is not the one to play with.Cuba's top meteorologist, Jose Rubiera, said the storm brought hurricane-force winds to much of the western part of Havana, where power was knocked out as winds blasted sheets of rain sideways though the streets and whipped angry waves against the famed seaside Malecon boulevard.
But Sunday morning no flooding could be seen in central Havana, and state radio said the damage was minimal in the capital of 2 million people, although southeastern Havana remained without power and natural gas.Public transportation began running again Sunday morning, as did buses and trains from Havana to the provinces. State radio said schools would open Monday everywhere except Pinar del Rio.In the fishing town of Batabano, 31 miles (50 kilometers) south of Havana, evacuees returned to their pastel-colored homes to find many surrounded by knee-deep water.My house is full of water, said Aldo Tomas, 43, pulling palm branches from his living room. But we expected more. We expected worse.Tourist Lidia Morral of Barcelona, Spain, said Gustav forced officials to close beaches the couple wanted to visit earlier this week in Santiago, on the island's eastern tip. The storm also prevented them from catching a ferry from Havana to the Isla de la Juventud on Saturday. It's been following us all over Cuba, ruining our vacation, said Morral, who was in line at a travel agency, trying to make other plans. They have closed everything — hotels, restaurants, bars, museums. There's not much to do but wait.At 8 a.m. EDT Sunday, the U.S. hurricane center said Gustav was centered about 375 miles (605 kilometers) southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and moving northwest near 16 mph (26 kph). Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Hanna was projected to move north of the Turks and Caicos Islands by late Sunday, then curl through the Bahamas by early next week before possibly threatening Cuba. As it spun over open waters, Hanna strengthened slightly and had sustained winds near 60 mph (95 kph) early Sunday. The hurricane center warned that it could kick up dangerous rip currents along parts of the southeastern U.S. coast.
Russia warns it will respond to aggression
By Christian Lowe AUG 31,08
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia does not want confrontation with the West but will hit back if attacked, Kremlin leader Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday, a day before EU leaders meet to draft a response to Moscow's actions in Georgia.British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would press fellow European Union leaders to review ties with Russia in retaliation for Moscow's decision to send troops to Georgia and recognize two Georgian breakaway regions.But underlining the differences in approach inside the 27-member EU, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier took a softer line, saying isolating Russia would harm the interests of the bloc.A senior U.S. diplomat said Washington hoped the EU would express concrete support for Georgia's territorial integrity, and urged Europe to reduce its dependence on Russian energy.Medvedev faces growing condemnation from the West, which accuses Russia of occupying parts of Georgia, while the Kremlin said it acted to prevent what it called genocide against the separatist regions.Russia does not want confrontation with any country. Russia does not plan to isolate itself, Medvedev said in an interview with Russia's three main television stations.But he added: Everyone should understand that if someone launches an aggressive sortie, he will receive a response. He said Russian law allowed the Kremlin to impose sanctions on other states, though it preferred not to go down that path.
GEORGIAN CALL
Georgia urged the European Union to impose sanctions against those doing business with the two separatist regions, authorize a civilian mission to monitor buffer zones around them and give Tbilisi about $2 billion to help to help repair damage.
Europe can do a lot, starting with sending a mission of civilian monitors, which would lead to an international peacekeeping mechanism that would replace the presence of Russian troops, Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze told Reuters in Brussels.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Russia's intervention in Georgia was dangerous and unacceptable.In the light of Russian actions, the EU should review -- root and branch -- our relationship with Russia, Brown wrote in a comment published in Britain's Observer newspaper.The German foreign minister said Moscow deserved criticism but Europe needed cooperation with Russia.Europe would only be hurting itself if we were to get full of emotion and slam all the doors shut to the rooms that we will want to enter afterwards, Steinmeier said.Russia supplies more than a quarter of Europe's gas needs. Some observers say this makes tough EU sanctions unlikely.Thousands of Georgians are expected to join a human chain in Tbilisi on Monday, with people joining hands through the capital in a show of unity.Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, in an address to the nation, said he hoped the EU leaders would not give up faced with this dirty attempt at aggression.
TEST OF UNITY
The emergency summit is a test of unity for the EU, which struggles to reconcile differences between states which want punitive action and others, including European heavyweights France and Germany, which favor a more calibrated approach.It is likely to produce a stern words-soft action response from the EU, said Chris Weafer, Chief Strategist with Russia's Uralsib investment bank.The bloc is likely to stop well short of any action that might escalate into a damaging tit-for-tat sequence of economic and political sanctions, Weafer wrote in a research note.Russia sent in its troops after Georgia's military tried to retake South Ossetia, like Abkhazia a Moscow-backed region which rejects Tbilisi's rule.Moscow has pulled out most of its forces in line with a ceasefire deal but has kept soldiers and equipment in security zones, which include undisputed Georgian territory around South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Western governments have demanded that Moscow pull its troops back to pre-conflict positions. The Kremlin says the troops are peacekeepers needed to protect the separatist regions from new Georgian aggression.In a last-minute round of diplomacy before Monday's emergency EU summit, both Medvedev and U.S. President George W. Bush spoke to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is seen as sympathetic to the Kremlin.U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza said it was up to the EU to decide what measures it adopts against Russia, but the bloc should throw its weight behind Georgia and make itself less dependent on Russian energy.What happened in Georgia shows even more why it is crucial that Europe begins to move more quickly to diversify its supply of gas, Bryza told Reuters on the sidelines of an international energy conference in Bled, Slovenia.(Reporting by Giles Elgood in London, Thomas Grove in Istanbul, Erik Kirschbaum in Berlin, Guy Faulconbridge and Conor Sweeney in Moscow, Marja Novak and Zoran Radosvljevic in Bled, Slovenia, Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington and Mark John and Marcin Grajewski in Brussels; editing by Philippa Fletcher).
TORAH PORTION FROM AUG 31 - SEPT 6, 2008
SINCE WHAT ISRAEL READS WILL BE FULFILLED IN THAT WEEK I WILL BE PUTTING THE WEEKLY TORAH PORTION ON FOR ALL OF US TO KEEP TRACK OF ISRAEL HAPPENINGS.
TORAH PORTION FROM AUG 31, 2008 6PM TO SEPT 06,2008
Devarim
Book 5: Deuteronomy SHOFTIM
DEUTORONOMY 16:18 - 21:09
Chapter 16
Verse 18: Judges and police officers you shall appoint for yourself in all of your cities that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you for your tribes; who will judge the people righteous justice.
Verse 19: Do not pervert justice; do not display favoritism; and do not accept bribery, for bribery blinds the eyes of the wise and distorts words that are just.
Verse 20: Pursue absolute justice so that you may live and inherit the land that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you.
Verse 21: Do not plant an Asherah for yourself [or] any tree near the altar of Ad-noy, your G-d, that you will make for yourself.
Verse 22: And do not erect for yourself a monument that Ad-noy, your G-d, detests.
Chapter 17
Verse 1: Do not sacrifice to Ad-noy, your G-d, an ox or a lamb that has a blemish, any bad thing; for it is abominated by Ad-noy, your G-d.
Verse 2: If there is found among you, in one of your cities that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you, a man or a woman who does what is evil in the eyes of Ad-noy, your G-d, by violating His covenant.
Verse 3: He goes and serves other gods and bows to them--- whether to the sun or to the moon or to any of the host of heaven that I did not command.
Verse 4: When you are told and you understand, you are to inquire thoroughly. If in fact the report is authenticated and accurate--- this abomination was committed within Yisroel.
Verse 5: You are to take out that man or that woman who did this evil thing to your city--- the man or the woman--- and you are to stone them with stones so that they die.
Verse 6: By the speech of two witnesses or three witnesses is the guilty one to be executed; he is not to be executed by the oral testimonoy of one witness.
Verse 7: Let the hand of the witnesses be against him first to execute him, and the hand of the entire people afterward; and you will eliminate the evil from within you.
Verse 8: If a matter of law is too abstruse for you--- between blood and blood, between decision and decision, or between leprosy and leprosy matters under dispute in your city; you shall rise and ascend to the place that Ad-noy, your G-d, will have chosen.
Verse 9: You are to come before the kohanim-the Levites and the judge officiating during those days; you will inquire and they will tell you the legal decision.
Verse 10: You are to act according to the word that they tell you from that place that Ad-noy will have chosen; and you are to be careful to fulfill exactly as they instruct you.
Verse 11: In accord with the Torah that they instruct you and upon the law that they state to you, are you to act; do not deviate from the word they tell you, neither right or left.
Verse 12: But the man who acts deliberately to not heed the kohein who stands to serve there Ad-noy, your G-d, or the judge; that man is to be executed and you will eliminate the evil from Yisroel.
Verse 13: Let all the people hear and fear, and not sin deliberately again.
Sheini (Second Aliyah)
Verse 14: When you arrive in the land that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you and inherit it and live in it, and you say, Let me appoint over me a king like all the nations around me;
Verse 15: Appoint are you to appoint over yourself a king whom Ad-noy, your G-d, will choose. From among your brothers are you to appoint over yourself a king; you may not place over yourself a foreigner who is not your brother.
Verse 16: However, he must not aquire an abundance of horses for himself so that he will not return the people to Egypt in order to aquire an abundance of horses, because Ad-noy told you, You are not to proceed to return along this route again.
Verse 17: And he is not to aquire an abundance of wives for himself so that his heart will not veer; and silver and gold he may not accumulate for himself in great abundance.
Verse 18: It shall be, that when he occupies the throne of his kingdom, he must write for himself a duplicate of this Torah in a scroll form [the scroll] before the kohanim--- the Levites.
Verse 19: It is to accompany him and he is to read in it all the days of his life, in order that he learn to fear Ad-noy, his G-d, to guard every word of this Torah and these statutes to fulfill them;
Verse 20: That his pride not increase over his brothers and he does not stray from the commandment right or left; so that the days of his reign are lengthy over his kingdom, he and his sons within Yisroel.
Sh'lishi (Third Aliyah)
Chapter 18
Verse 1: They will not have--- the kohanim, the Levites, the entire tribe of Levi--- a portion or an inheritance with Yisroel; Ad-noy's fire-offerings and His inheritance will they eat.
Verse 2: But he will have no territory among his brothers; Ad-noy is his territory, as He said to him.
Verse 3: And this will be the stipend of the kohanim from the people from the slaughterers of [permitted] meat, whether an ox or a sheep; he will give the kohein the foreleg and the jaw and the [fourth] stomach.
Verse 4: The first portion of your grain, your wine, and your olive oil, and the first of the shearing of your sheep are you to give him.
Verse 5: For him did Ad-noy, your G-d, choose from all your tribes to stand and perform the service in the name of Ad-noy, he and his sons for all time.
Revi'i (Fourth Aliyah)
Verse 6: If a Levite should come from one of your cities throughout Yisroel where he sojourns, coming will all his soul's desire to the place that Ad-noy chooses.
Verse 7: He shall perform the service in the name of Ad-noy, his G-d, like all his brother Levites who stand there in Ad-noy's presence.
Verse 8: They shall eat equal portions, except for what the families sold [to one another.]
Verse 9: Because you are entering the land that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you; do not learn to perpetrate the abominations of those nations.
Verse 10: Let there not exist among you anyone who passes his son or daughter through fire, who practices the kosem-occult; who practices time-frame-occult or who divines portentuous events or a sorcerer.
Verse 11: Or a snake charmer, or one who invokes the spirit of Ov or yidoni, or communicates with the dead.
Verse 12: For Ad-noy's abomination is anyone perpetrating this and because of these abominations, Ad-noy, your G-d, is expelling them from before you.
Verse 13: Walk in perfect trust with Ad-noy, your G-d.
Chamishi (Fifth Aliyah)
Verse 14: Although these nations whom you are inheriting heed augurers and sorcerers, but as to you--- Ad-noy, your G-d, has not given you their status.
Verse 15: A prophet from your midst, of your brethren, like me, will Ad-noy, your G-d, establish for you; heed him.
Verse 16: Exactly as you requested from Ad-noy, your G-d, at Choreiv, on the day of assembly, saying, Let me not continue to hear the voice of Ad-noy, my G-d, and this great fire let me not see any more as that I will not die.
Verse 17: Ad-noy said to me, What they said is excellent.
Verse 18: A prophet will I establish for them from among their brethren like you, and I will place My words in his mouth and he will tell them everything that I command him.
Verse 19: Now, the man who does not heed My words that he speaks in My Name; I will demand from him.
Verse 20: But the prophet who will malevolently make a statement in My Name, something that I did not instruct him to say, or which he says in the name of foreign gods, that prophet must die.
Verse 21: If you should say to yourself, How can we know [which is] the statement that Ad-noy did not speak?
Verse 22: Should the prophet speak in Ad-noy's Name, and the matter does not happen and is not fulfilled, that is the statement that Ad-noy did not speak. The prophet spoke it malevolently; do not fear him.
Chapter 19
Verse 1: When Ad-noy, your G-d, annihilates the nations whose land Ad-noy, your G-d is giving you; and you inherit them and live in their cities and in their houses;
Verse 2: Separate three cities for yourself, within your land that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you to inherit.
Verse 3: Ready the route for yourself and divide the borders of your land into three sections that Ad-noy, your G-d, will allot you; this will serve for any murderer to flee there.
Verse 4: And this is the matter of the murderer who may flee there to survive: whoever smites his peer without intent, and he had not been his enemy yesterday [or] the day before;
Verse 5: And whoever comes with his peer into the woods to chop trees, and as his hand swung the axe downward to cut the wood the iron flew off the wooden handle and encounters his peer and he dies; he is to flee to one of these cities to survive.
Verse 6: Lest the blood-redeemer pursue the murderer when his heart grows heated, and he catches up with him over the length of the road and he smite him dead when he has no death sentence because he had not been his enemy yesterday [or] the day before.
Verse 7: Therefore am I commanding you the following: three cities shall you separate for yourself.
Verse 8: And when Ad-noy, your G-d, expands your boundary, in accordance with His oath to your forefathers, and He give you the entire land that He promised to give to your forefathers,
Verse 9: When you will be guarding this entire mitzvah to fulfill it, that I am commanding you today, to love Ad-noy, your G-d, and to go in His ways for all time; then you shall add three more cities to these three.
Verse 10: And let innocent blood not be shed within your land that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you as territory, [otherwise] you will bear liability for the blood.
Verse 11: If there is a man who hates his neighbor, and will ambush him, arising against him and smiting him dead, and he will flee to one of these cities;
Verse 12: The elders of his city will send for and take him from there, and will hand him over to the blood-redeemer, and he will be executed.
Verse 13: Do not view him with compassion. You are to eliminate the [shedding of] innocent blood from Yisroel, and you will have it good.
Shishi (Sixth Aliyah)
Verse 14: Do not move back the boundary of your neighbor that the first [settlers] determine in your territory that you will inherit in the land that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you to inherit.
Verse 15: One witness may not arise against a man about any sin or for any transgression or transgression that he transgresses; by the word of two witnesses or by the word of three witnesses let a matter be established.
Verse 16: If false witnesses arise against a man and bear fallacious testimony against him;
Verse 17: The two men shall stand, who are involved in the dispute, before Ad-noy, before the kohanim and the judges who are in those days.
Verse 18: When the judges shall investigate thoroughly and behold, the witness testified falsely, they testified falsely against their brother;
Verse 19: You are to do to [each of] them as he conspired to do to his brother, and eliminate the evil from among you;
Verse 20: And the remainder will hear and be fearful, and they will not repeat this evil thing among you.
Verse 21: You are not to have compassion: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
Chapter 20
Verse 1: When you go to war against your enemy, and you see horse and chariot, people who outnumber you; do not be afraid of them, for Ad-noy, your G-d, is with you, He Who brought you up from the land of Egypt.
Verse 2: Now, as you near the battle the kohein shall approach and speak to the people.
Verse 3: He will say to them, Hear, Yisroel! You are setting out today to battle against your enemies. Do not be faint hearted; or intimidated and do not panic, and do not be crushed before them;
Verse 4: Because Ad-noy, your G-d, marches with you to do battle for you with your enemies to save you.
Verse 5: The officers will address the people as follows, Whichever man has built a new house and did not inaugurate it as a dwelling, let him go and return home lest he die in battle and another man will inaugurate it.
Verse 6: And whichever man has planted a vineyard and did not redeem it[s fruit,] let him go and return home, lest he die in battle and another man redeem it.
Verse 7: And whichever man has betrothed a woman and not married her, let him go and return home, lest he die in battle and another man marry her.
Verse 8: The officers will further address the people and say. Whoever is afraid or faint hearted, let him go and return home, and let him not destroy the resolve of his brothers like his own resolve.
Verse 9: When the officers finish addressing the people; they will appoint army commanders at the head of the people.
Shevi'i (Seventh Aliyah)
Verse 10: When you near a city to do battle against it, you are to offer it peace.
Verse 11: Should it respond, Peace! and open for you, then all the people found in it will become your payers of tribute, and your servants.
Verse 12: And if it does not settle for peace with you but engages in war against you, you shall lay siege to it.
Verse 13: Ad-noy, your G-d, will deliver it into your hand, and you will smite all its males by the sword.
Verse 14: However, the women and the children, and the animals, and everything that will be in the city--- all its booty---are you to plunder for yourself; you will eat the booty of your enemies that Ad-noy, your G-d, gave you.
Verse 15: So will you do to all the cities, that are very distant from you, that are not among the cities of these nations.
Verse 16: However, from the cities of these peoples that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you as inheritance, you are not to leave any person alive.
Verse 17: Rather annihilate are you to annihilate them: the Chittites and the Emorites, the Canaanites and the Perizites, the Chivites and the Yevusites; as Ad-noy, your G-d, commanded you.
Verse 18: In order that they do not teach you to do any of their abominations that they did for their gods, and you will sin to Ad-noy, your G-d.
Verse 19: If you besiege a city many days to wage war against it, to capture it, do not harm [any of] its trees by chopping it with an ax, because you eat from it you are not to cut it down; For, is the tree in the field a man to join the besieged to escape you?
Verse 20: Only a tree that you know that it is not a fruit tree may you harm or cut down; and you will build battlements against the city that is waging war against you until it is conquered.
Chapter 21
Verse 1: If a corpse is found in the land that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you to inherit, fallen in the field, it is not known who smote him.
Verse 2: Your elders shall go out--- and your judges--- and measure in the direction of the cities around the corpse.
Verse 3: Now, the city nearest the corpse--- the elders of that city are to take a calf-heifer that has not been worked, that has not drawn a yoke.
Verse 4: The elders of that city will take down the calf to a stony valley that is not to be tilled and not to be seeded, and they shall decapitate the calf in that valley.
Verse 5: The kohanim, descendants of Levi, will approach; because them did Ad-noy, your G-d, choose to serve Him and to bless in Ad-noy's Name; and they will decide every dispute and every nega.
Verse 6: And all the elders of that city, those near the corpse, will wash their hands over the calf beheaded in that valley.
Maftir
Verse 7: They will loudly declare, Our hands have not spilled this blood and our eyes did not see.
Verse 8: [The kohanim will say,] Forgive Your people Yisroel, whom You, Ad-noy, have redeemed; and do not allow innocent blood [liability] within Your people Yisroel. The blood shall thus be atoned for in their behalf.
Verse 9: Still, you must eradicate the [liability for] innocent blood from within you, when you do what is upright in Ad-noy's eyes.
PROPHET PORTION
ISAIAH 51:12 - 53:12
12 I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass;
13 And forgettest the LORD thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor?
14 The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail.
15 But I am the LORD thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared: The LORD of hosts is his name.
16 And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people.
17 Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.
18 There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath brought up.
19 These two things are come unto thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort thee?
20 Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of the LORD, the rebuke of thy God.
21 Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine:
22 Thus saith thy Lord the LORD, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again:
23 But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.
ISAIAH 52:1-15
1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
2 Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.
3 For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.
4 For thus saith the Lord GOD, My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there; and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause.
5 Now therefore, what have I here, saith the LORD, that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over them make them to howl, saith the LORD; and my name continually every day is blasphemed.
6 Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I.
7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!
8 Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the LORD shall bring again Zion.
9 Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the LORD hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem.
10 The LORD hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
11 Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the LORD.
12 For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight: for the LORD will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rereward.
13 Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.
14 As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men:
15 So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.
ISAIAH 53:1-12
1 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
NEW TESTAMENT PORTION
MATTHEW 5:38-42
38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.
41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
42 Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
MATTHEW 18:15-20
15 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
16 But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
17 And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.
18 Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
19 Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
ACTS 3:13-26
13 The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go.
14 But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you;
15 And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.
16 And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.
17 And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers.
18 But those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled.
19 Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;
20 And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you:
21 Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.
22 For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.
23 And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.
24 Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days.
25 Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed.
26 Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.
ACTS 7:35-53
35 This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush.
36 He brought them out, after that he had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years.
37 This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear.
38 This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:
39 To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt,
40 Saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us: for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.
41 And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.
42 Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness?
43 Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.
44 Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen.
45 Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David;
46 Who found favour before God, and desired to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.
47 But Solomon built him an house.
48 Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet,
49 Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest?
50 Hath not my hand made all these things?
51 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.
52 Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:
53 Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.
1 CORINTHIANS 5:9-13
9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
1 TIMOTHY 5:17-22
17 Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.
18 For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward.
19 Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses.
20 Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.
21 I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.
22 Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men’s sins: keep thyself pure.
HEBREWS 10:28-31
28 He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:
29 Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
30 For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
TORAH PORTION FROM AUG 31, 2008 6PM TO SEPT 06,2008
Devarim
Book 5: Deuteronomy SHOFTIM
DEUTORONOMY 16:18 - 21:09
Chapter 16
Verse 18: Judges and police officers you shall appoint for yourself in all of your cities that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you for your tribes; who will judge the people righteous justice.
Verse 19: Do not pervert justice; do not display favoritism; and do not accept bribery, for bribery blinds the eyes of the wise and distorts words that are just.
Verse 20: Pursue absolute justice so that you may live and inherit the land that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you.
Verse 21: Do not plant an Asherah for yourself [or] any tree near the altar of Ad-noy, your G-d, that you will make for yourself.
Verse 22: And do not erect for yourself a monument that Ad-noy, your G-d, detests.
Chapter 17
Verse 1: Do not sacrifice to Ad-noy, your G-d, an ox or a lamb that has a blemish, any bad thing; for it is abominated by Ad-noy, your G-d.
Verse 2: If there is found among you, in one of your cities that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you, a man or a woman who does what is evil in the eyes of Ad-noy, your G-d, by violating His covenant.
Verse 3: He goes and serves other gods and bows to them--- whether to the sun or to the moon or to any of the host of heaven that I did not command.
Verse 4: When you are told and you understand, you are to inquire thoroughly. If in fact the report is authenticated and accurate--- this abomination was committed within Yisroel.
Verse 5: You are to take out that man or that woman who did this evil thing to your city--- the man or the woman--- and you are to stone them with stones so that they die.
Verse 6: By the speech of two witnesses or three witnesses is the guilty one to be executed; he is not to be executed by the oral testimonoy of one witness.
Verse 7: Let the hand of the witnesses be against him first to execute him, and the hand of the entire people afterward; and you will eliminate the evil from within you.
Verse 8: If a matter of law is too abstruse for you--- between blood and blood, between decision and decision, or between leprosy and leprosy matters under dispute in your city; you shall rise and ascend to the place that Ad-noy, your G-d, will have chosen.
Verse 9: You are to come before the kohanim-the Levites and the judge officiating during those days; you will inquire and they will tell you the legal decision.
Verse 10: You are to act according to the word that they tell you from that place that Ad-noy will have chosen; and you are to be careful to fulfill exactly as they instruct you.
Verse 11: In accord with the Torah that they instruct you and upon the law that they state to you, are you to act; do not deviate from the word they tell you, neither right or left.
Verse 12: But the man who acts deliberately to not heed the kohein who stands to serve there Ad-noy, your G-d, or the judge; that man is to be executed and you will eliminate the evil from Yisroel.
Verse 13: Let all the people hear and fear, and not sin deliberately again.
Sheini (Second Aliyah)
Verse 14: When you arrive in the land that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you and inherit it and live in it, and you say, Let me appoint over me a king like all the nations around me;
Verse 15: Appoint are you to appoint over yourself a king whom Ad-noy, your G-d, will choose. From among your brothers are you to appoint over yourself a king; you may not place over yourself a foreigner who is not your brother.
Verse 16: However, he must not aquire an abundance of horses for himself so that he will not return the people to Egypt in order to aquire an abundance of horses, because Ad-noy told you, You are not to proceed to return along this route again.
Verse 17: And he is not to aquire an abundance of wives for himself so that his heart will not veer; and silver and gold he may not accumulate for himself in great abundance.
Verse 18: It shall be, that when he occupies the throne of his kingdom, he must write for himself a duplicate of this Torah in a scroll form [the scroll] before the kohanim--- the Levites.
Verse 19: It is to accompany him and he is to read in it all the days of his life, in order that he learn to fear Ad-noy, his G-d, to guard every word of this Torah and these statutes to fulfill them;
Verse 20: That his pride not increase over his brothers and he does not stray from the commandment right or left; so that the days of his reign are lengthy over his kingdom, he and his sons within Yisroel.
Sh'lishi (Third Aliyah)
Chapter 18
Verse 1: They will not have--- the kohanim, the Levites, the entire tribe of Levi--- a portion or an inheritance with Yisroel; Ad-noy's fire-offerings and His inheritance will they eat.
Verse 2: But he will have no territory among his brothers; Ad-noy is his territory, as He said to him.
Verse 3: And this will be the stipend of the kohanim from the people from the slaughterers of [permitted] meat, whether an ox or a sheep; he will give the kohein the foreleg and the jaw and the [fourth] stomach.
Verse 4: The first portion of your grain, your wine, and your olive oil, and the first of the shearing of your sheep are you to give him.
Verse 5: For him did Ad-noy, your G-d, choose from all your tribes to stand and perform the service in the name of Ad-noy, he and his sons for all time.
Revi'i (Fourth Aliyah)
Verse 6: If a Levite should come from one of your cities throughout Yisroel where he sojourns, coming will all his soul's desire to the place that Ad-noy chooses.
Verse 7: He shall perform the service in the name of Ad-noy, his G-d, like all his brother Levites who stand there in Ad-noy's presence.
Verse 8: They shall eat equal portions, except for what the families sold [to one another.]
Verse 9: Because you are entering the land that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you; do not learn to perpetrate the abominations of those nations.
Verse 10: Let there not exist among you anyone who passes his son or daughter through fire, who practices the kosem-occult; who practices time-frame-occult or who divines portentuous events or a sorcerer.
Verse 11: Or a snake charmer, or one who invokes the spirit of Ov or yidoni, or communicates with the dead.
Verse 12: For Ad-noy's abomination is anyone perpetrating this and because of these abominations, Ad-noy, your G-d, is expelling them from before you.
Verse 13: Walk in perfect trust with Ad-noy, your G-d.
Chamishi (Fifth Aliyah)
Verse 14: Although these nations whom you are inheriting heed augurers and sorcerers, but as to you--- Ad-noy, your G-d, has not given you their status.
Verse 15: A prophet from your midst, of your brethren, like me, will Ad-noy, your G-d, establish for you; heed him.
Verse 16: Exactly as you requested from Ad-noy, your G-d, at Choreiv, on the day of assembly, saying, Let me not continue to hear the voice of Ad-noy, my G-d, and this great fire let me not see any more as that I will not die.
Verse 17: Ad-noy said to me, What they said is excellent.
Verse 18: A prophet will I establish for them from among their brethren like you, and I will place My words in his mouth and he will tell them everything that I command him.
Verse 19: Now, the man who does not heed My words that he speaks in My Name; I will demand from him.
Verse 20: But the prophet who will malevolently make a statement in My Name, something that I did not instruct him to say, or which he says in the name of foreign gods, that prophet must die.
Verse 21: If you should say to yourself, How can we know [which is] the statement that Ad-noy did not speak?
Verse 22: Should the prophet speak in Ad-noy's Name, and the matter does not happen and is not fulfilled, that is the statement that Ad-noy did not speak. The prophet spoke it malevolently; do not fear him.
Chapter 19
Verse 1: When Ad-noy, your G-d, annihilates the nations whose land Ad-noy, your G-d is giving you; and you inherit them and live in their cities and in their houses;
Verse 2: Separate three cities for yourself, within your land that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you to inherit.
Verse 3: Ready the route for yourself and divide the borders of your land into three sections that Ad-noy, your G-d, will allot you; this will serve for any murderer to flee there.
Verse 4: And this is the matter of the murderer who may flee there to survive: whoever smites his peer without intent, and he had not been his enemy yesterday [or] the day before;
Verse 5: And whoever comes with his peer into the woods to chop trees, and as his hand swung the axe downward to cut the wood the iron flew off the wooden handle and encounters his peer and he dies; he is to flee to one of these cities to survive.
Verse 6: Lest the blood-redeemer pursue the murderer when his heart grows heated, and he catches up with him over the length of the road and he smite him dead when he has no death sentence because he had not been his enemy yesterday [or] the day before.
Verse 7: Therefore am I commanding you the following: three cities shall you separate for yourself.
Verse 8: And when Ad-noy, your G-d, expands your boundary, in accordance with His oath to your forefathers, and He give you the entire land that He promised to give to your forefathers,
Verse 9: When you will be guarding this entire mitzvah to fulfill it, that I am commanding you today, to love Ad-noy, your G-d, and to go in His ways for all time; then you shall add three more cities to these three.
Verse 10: And let innocent blood not be shed within your land that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you as territory, [otherwise] you will bear liability for the blood.
Verse 11: If there is a man who hates his neighbor, and will ambush him, arising against him and smiting him dead, and he will flee to one of these cities;
Verse 12: The elders of his city will send for and take him from there, and will hand him over to the blood-redeemer, and he will be executed.
Verse 13: Do not view him with compassion. You are to eliminate the [shedding of] innocent blood from Yisroel, and you will have it good.
Shishi (Sixth Aliyah)
Verse 14: Do not move back the boundary of your neighbor that the first [settlers] determine in your territory that you will inherit in the land that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you to inherit.
Verse 15: One witness may not arise against a man about any sin or for any transgression or transgression that he transgresses; by the word of two witnesses or by the word of three witnesses let a matter be established.
Verse 16: If false witnesses arise against a man and bear fallacious testimony against him;
Verse 17: The two men shall stand, who are involved in the dispute, before Ad-noy, before the kohanim and the judges who are in those days.
Verse 18: When the judges shall investigate thoroughly and behold, the witness testified falsely, they testified falsely against their brother;
Verse 19: You are to do to [each of] them as he conspired to do to his brother, and eliminate the evil from among you;
Verse 20: And the remainder will hear and be fearful, and they will not repeat this evil thing among you.
Verse 21: You are not to have compassion: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
Chapter 20
Verse 1: When you go to war against your enemy, and you see horse and chariot, people who outnumber you; do not be afraid of them, for Ad-noy, your G-d, is with you, He Who brought you up from the land of Egypt.
Verse 2: Now, as you near the battle the kohein shall approach and speak to the people.
Verse 3: He will say to them, Hear, Yisroel! You are setting out today to battle against your enemies. Do not be faint hearted; or intimidated and do not panic, and do not be crushed before them;
Verse 4: Because Ad-noy, your G-d, marches with you to do battle for you with your enemies to save you.
Verse 5: The officers will address the people as follows, Whichever man has built a new house and did not inaugurate it as a dwelling, let him go and return home lest he die in battle and another man will inaugurate it.
Verse 6: And whichever man has planted a vineyard and did not redeem it[s fruit,] let him go and return home, lest he die in battle and another man redeem it.
Verse 7: And whichever man has betrothed a woman and not married her, let him go and return home, lest he die in battle and another man marry her.
Verse 8: The officers will further address the people and say. Whoever is afraid or faint hearted, let him go and return home, and let him not destroy the resolve of his brothers like his own resolve.
Verse 9: When the officers finish addressing the people; they will appoint army commanders at the head of the people.
Shevi'i (Seventh Aliyah)
Verse 10: When you near a city to do battle against it, you are to offer it peace.
Verse 11: Should it respond, Peace! and open for you, then all the people found in it will become your payers of tribute, and your servants.
Verse 12: And if it does not settle for peace with you but engages in war against you, you shall lay siege to it.
Verse 13: Ad-noy, your G-d, will deliver it into your hand, and you will smite all its males by the sword.
Verse 14: However, the women and the children, and the animals, and everything that will be in the city--- all its booty---are you to plunder for yourself; you will eat the booty of your enemies that Ad-noy, your G-d, gave you.
Verse 15: So will you do to all the cities, that are very distant from you, that are not among the cities of these nations.
Verse 16: However, from the cities of these peoples that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you as inheritance, you are not to leave any person alive.
Verse 17: Rather annihilate are you to annihilate them: the Chittites and the Emorites, the Canaanites and the Perizites, the Chivites and the Yevusites; as Ad-noy, your G-d, commanded you.
Verse 18: In order that they do not teach you to do any of their abominations that they did for their gods, and you will sin to Ad-noy, your G-d.
Verse 19: If you besiege a city many days to wage war against it, to capture it, do not harm [any of] its trees by chopping it with an ax, because you eat from it you are not to cut it down; For, is the tree in the field a man to join the besieged to escape you?
Verse 20: Only a tree that you know that it is not a fruit tree may you harm or cut down; and you will build battlements against the city that is waging war against you until it is conquered.
Chapter 21
Verse 1: If a corpse is found in the land that Ad-noy, your G-d, is giving you to inherit, fallen in the field, it is not known who smote him.
Verse 2: Your elders shall go out--- and your judges--- and measure in the direction of the cities around the corpse.
Verse 3: Now, the city nearest the corpse--- the elders of that city are to take a calf-heifer that has not been worked, that has not drawn a yoke.
Verse 4: The elders of that city will take down the calf to a stony valley that is not to be tilled and not to be seeded, and they shall decapitate the calf in that valley.
Verse 5: The kohanim, descendants of Levi, will approach; because them did Ad-noy, your G-d, choose to serve Him and to bless in Ad-noy's Name; and they will decide every dispute and every nega.
Verse 6: And all the elders of that city, those near the corpse, will wash their hands over the calf beheaded in that valley.
Maftir
Verse 7: They will loudly declare, Our hands have not spilled this blood and our eyes did not see.
Verse 8: [The kohanim will say,] Forgive Your people Yisroel, whom You, Ad-noy, have redeemed; and do not allow innocent blood [liability] within Your people Yisroel. The blood shall thus be atoned for in their behalf.
Verse 9: Still, you must eradicate the [liability for] innocent blood from within you, when you do what is upright in Ad-noy's eyes.
PROPHET PORTION
ISAIAH 51:12 - 53:12
12 I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass;
13 And forgettest the LORD thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor?
14 The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail.
15 But I am the LORD thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared: The LORD of hosts is his name.
16 And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people.
17 Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.
18 There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath brought up.
19 These two things are come unto thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort thee?
20 Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of the LORD, the rebuke of thy God.
21 Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine:
22 Thus saith thy Lord the LORD, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again:
23 But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.
ISAIAH 52:1-15
1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
2 Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.
3 For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.
4 For thus saith the Lord GOD, My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there; and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause.
5 Now therefore, what have I here, saith the LORD, that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over them make them to howl, saith the LORD; and my name continually every day is blasphemed.
6 Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I.
7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!
8 Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the LORD shall bring again Zion.
9 Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the LORD hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem.
10 The LORD hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
11 Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the LORD.
12 For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight: for the LORD will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rereward.
13 Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.
14 As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men:
15 So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.
ISAIAH 53:1-12
1 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
NEW TESTAMENT PORTION
MATTHEW 5:38-42
38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.
41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
42 Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
MATTHEW 18:15-20
15 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
16 But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
17 And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.
18 Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
19 Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
ACTS 3:13-26
13 The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go.
14 But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you;
15 And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.
16 And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.
17 And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers.
18 But those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled.
19 Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;
20 And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you:
21 Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.
22 For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.
23 And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.
24 Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days.
25 Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed.
26 Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.
ACTS 7:35-53
35 This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush.
36 He brought them out, after that he had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years.
37 This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear.
38 This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:
39 To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt,
40 Saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us: for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.
41 And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.
42 Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness?
43 Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.
44 Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen.
45 Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David;
46 Who found favour before God, and desired to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.
47 But Solomon built him an house.
48 Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet,
49 Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest?
50 Hath not my hand made all these things?
51 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.
52 Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:
53 Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.
1 CORINTHIANS 5:9-13
9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
1 TIMOTHY 5:17-22
17 Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.
18 For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward.
19 Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses.
20 Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.
21 I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.
22 Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men’s sins: keep thyself pure.
HEBREWS 10:28-31
28 He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:
29 Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
30 For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
GUSTAV CATAGORY 4 HURRICANE
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EARTH DESTROYED WITH THE EARTH
GENESIS 6:11-13
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.(WORLD TERRORISM,MURDERS)
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence (TERRORISM) through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
EARTHQUAKES
MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
Death toll in China quake rises to 22 Indo-Asian News Service Saturday, August 30, 2008, (Panzhihua (China
The death toll in the earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale that hit southwest China's Sichuan province on Saturday rose to 22, officials said.At least 17people were killed and more than 100 injured in Sichuan province, while five people were reportedly killed and 26 injured in neighbouring Yunnan province, according to provincial authorities. Huge damage to properties in both the provinces has also been reported.The quake struck at 4.30 p.m. with its epicentre some 50 km southeast of Panzhihua city, at a depth of 10 km, the National Seismograph Network Center said. The tremor was felt in Yunan's capital, Kunming, about 300 km from the epicentre, and Sichuan's capital of Chengdu.Sichuan province had been hit by a magnitude 8.0 earthquake May 12, killing up to 70,000 people and devastating an area of 40,000 sq km. More than 42 million people have been affected by the quake.
Meanwhile, another earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale hit northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur region Saturday evening, but there is no immediate reports of any casualty. The quake struck northwest of Hejing county at 8.45 p.m. with its epicentre at a depth of 10 km, the National Seismograph Network Centre said.
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.
WHY CAN'T AMERICA LISTEN TO GOD AND NOT THEMSELVES ABOUT DIVIDING JERUSALEM. NOW AS I WRITE THIS AT 2:45 PM GUSTAV IS A CATAGORY 4 HURRICANE BARELLING DOWN TO NEW ORLEANS.
Hurricane Gustav strengthens to Category 4 storm AUG 30,08
MIAMI (Reuters) - Hurricane Gustav strengthened into a dangerous Category 4 storm on Saturday with winds of 145 miles per hour (230 km per hour) as it surged toward western Cuba, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. (Reporting by Jane Sutton; Editing by Chris Wilson)
Killer hurricane Gustav strengthens ahead of striking Cuba AUG 30,08
HAVANA (AFP) - Deadly hurricane Gustav bore down on Cuba headed to the Gulf of Mexico Saturday, threatening to intensify into a category-four storm after leaving a trail of death and destruction across the Caribbean.Even before strengthening to a dangerous category three storm early Saturday, Gustav killed up to 85 people in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica and causing major damage in the Cayman islands, according to officials.Evacuations were underway in coastal areas from northwest Cuba to Louisiana in the United States, where Gustav was predicted make landfall Monday or early Tuesday, three years after superstorm Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans.Civil defense authorities in Cuba's Pinar del Rio province and most of northern Cuba said they were moving 190,000 people to safety, mainly from coastal towns vulnerable to flooding before Gustav hits shore.The eye of the hurricane was expected to pass over the Isla de la Juventud, or Isle of Youth, to the south of the mainland early afternoon Saturday, before directly striking Pinar del Rio and battering the capital Havana to the east.Early Saturday a Caymans official reported heavy damage from Gustav on Cayman Brac, the large eastern island of the Caymans group, with power and water supplies down.We're hoping that it's going to settle down enough that we can do some damage assessment, said Ernie Scott, District Commissioner of the Sister Islands.I'm expecting the HMS Iron Duke early and they're going to be providing significant assistance in our damage assessment operations, he said, referring to the British Royal Navy frigate in the area.
Hundreds of people fled into shelters on Grand and Little Cayman islands as some areas were affected by flooding.The US National Hurricane Center in Miami warned that Gustav, already blowing 205 kilometer (125 miles) per hour maximum sustained winds could further intensify before striking mainland Cuba.The center said tides could surge as much as 5.8 meters (19 feet) above normal in areas under the eye of the storm as it passes the Isle of Youth and mainland western Cuba.The center was giving the storm a nearly 40 percent chance of intensifying into a category-four hurricane, with sustained winds topping 210 kilometers (131 miles) per hour as it enters the Gulf of Mexico.At 11:00 am (1500 GMT) the center of the hurricane was located about 85 kilometers (55 miles) east-southeast of the Isle of Youth and moving toward the northwest at 22 kilometers (14 miles) per hour.Earlier this week Gustav left a path of destruction through Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.In Haiti, it left 66 dead plus 10 missing. In the neighboring Dominican Republic, the death toll stood at eight.Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding told reporters Friday that the storm had killed up to 11 and displaced between 3,500 and 4,000 people in his Caribbean island nation. The death toll remained unconfirmed on Saturday.I am concerned that there are still a number of persons who are still unaccounted for, Golding said.Although the heaviest of the rains had subsided, many Jamaicans worried about returning home. It is all wet and I am afraid to sleep inside there, said Kingston housewife Charlene Markland.Anxiety meanwhile grew on the US Gulf Coast over Gustav's trajectory, with New Orleans beginning mandatory evacuations of low-lying areas Saturday.Roads out of New Orleans were jammed with people fleeing a potentially disastrous strike on the city just three years after Katrina left some 1,800 dead along the coast.Major oil producers BP, ConocoPhillips and Shell on Thursday evacuated workers from their facilities in the gulf where nearly a quarter of US crude oil installations are located.Meanwhile another tropical storm in the Atlantic well north of Puerto Rico was forecast to head to the west and strike the central Bahamas by Tuesday and then travel directly toward central Cuba.
New Orleans begins evacuations ahead of Gustav by Glenn Chapman
Sat Aug 30, 11:35 AM ET
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) - Desperate to avoid a repeat of the Katrina catastrophe in 2005, New Orleans prepared to begin mandatory evacuations Saturday as another deadly hurricane, Gustav, bore down on the city. Bumper-to-bumper traffic clogged roads leading north and east out of New Orleans, as the dangerous category three hurricane barreled toward the Gulf of Mexico after leaving 85 people dead in Caribbean nations.The National Hurricane Center said Gustav could strengthen to a category four storm before hitting the US coast late Monday or early Tuesday.
Coastal parishes in New Orleans were due to begin the first mandatory evacuations at noon (1600 GMT), as residents boarded up windows and piled sandbags to build temporary levees, three years after Hurricane Katrina breached levees protecting the low-lying city, killing some 1,500 people.We can take about five-and-a-half feet (1.67 meters) of water above sea level, but we can't take the nine to 12 feet (2.7 to 3.7 meters) they're talking about, Tim Kerner, mayor of Jean Lafitte in lower Jefferson Parish, told the New Orleans Time Picayune.The overall population of greater New Orleans is estimated at more than one million people. It was not immediately clear how many people would be affected by Saturday's mandatory evacuation orders.The New Orleans airport said it would shut down Sunday evening, and area hotels advised customers to leave town.Voluntary and assisted evacuations began Friday, but not all residents were eager to pack up and leave.I'm supposed to be leaving but I keep waiting just a little longer to see what the storm is going to do. I know it's a risk, New Orleans resident Sheile Robertson told AFP.
She said she escaped a day before Katrina struck, destroying her home, and now lives in an apartment with a half dozen people.Another city resident, Maggie Hawkins, brought her tiny dog, Bubbles, with her as she prepared to board a bus leaving the city.I'm a native who was born here. My parents were born here. If I can I will return and will rebuild and it will be stressful and it will be a challenge but this is my home and I love it, she said on CNN television.She added that she thought the government was doing a better job than three years ago, and was very happy that she could bring her pet.US President George W. Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana and Texas, empowering federal authorities to lead disaster relief efforts in the two states.Saturday Bush called the governors of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas to discuss preparations for Gustav, which could make landfall anywhere from western Florida to eastern Texas, said spokesman Scott Stanzel.
President Bush called to make sure the states were receiving all the assistance they needed from the federal government, Stanzel said.The president pledged the full support of the federal government.Bush's approval ratings in 2005 plummeted amid widespread criticism that he paid too little attention to Katrina, whose floodwaters rose as high as 15 feet (4.5 meters) and swallowed around 80 percent of New Orleans.
In the aftermath of that storm, tens of thousands of people spent days stranded without food or sanitation on rooftops, highways overpasses and temporary shelters which became scenes of chaos and fear as federal, state and local officials failed to adequately coordinate rescue plans. Some 20,000 people were forced to shelter in the city's Superdome sports arena amid scenes of rape, child molestation and shootings. Elsewhere in the city a number of patients were left to die in hospitals because of inadequate measures to evacuate them.
High waters, heavy rain hamper Indian flood relief Sat Aug 30, 9:10 AM ET
PATNA, India (Reuters) - Indian authorities, hampered by heavy rain and damaged roads, were struggling on Saturday to get aid to millions of displaced villagers in the eastern state of Bihar, hit by the worst flooding in 50 years. The Kosi river burst a dam in neighboring Nepal earlier this month, deluging Bihar and drowning village after village in its path as authorities failed to evacuate millions in time.
About 85 people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced by floodwaters that have smashed houses and destroyed 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of farmland.
Rains are killing our rescue and relief efforts, Bihar disaster management department minister Nitish Mishra told Reuters.Our helicopters were barely able to fly for most of the day yesterday as it continued raining heavily till 4 p.m., he said.On Friday, an overcrowded army boat carrying dozens of flood victims overturned in the swollen river, drowning at least 20 people and leaving 10 unaccounted for.
Some 350,000 people have been evacuated over the past 10 days and thousands are marooned, said Pratyay Amrit, a Bihar disaster management official.Army officers were putting up sandbags and wire mesh along roads in an attempt to fix embankments and prevent the swift flowing river from inundating new areas, said a Reuters witness in the flood-hit district of Saharsa.The witness also saw more than 1,000 people from nearby villages walking to the city, where they hoped to find food and shelter. Some villagers who chose to stay, built temporary bamboo shelters on high ground, eating uncooked rice and flour mixed with polluted water.We keep sitting here the whole night and wondering what to do. How will life go on? Will we survive or not? said Virender Kumar Saga.Floods have killed more than 1,000 people in South Asia since the monsoon began in June, mainly in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where 785 people died, and deaths were also reported in Nepal and Bangladesh.These are some of the worst floods in generations and they present a huge challenge for governments and humanitarian organizations, said Daniel Toole, UNICEF's regional director for South Asia on Friday.
EXTENSIVE DAMAGE
UNICEF said more than 1,000 villages in 13 districts had been affected by the surging waters, which have caused extensive damage to roads and water and electricity supplies.Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling Congress party, flew over devastated areas by helicopter on Thursday and announced $228 million in aid.The London-based humanitarian organization Oxfam said it was providing those affected with temporary shelter, water purification tablets, buckets and oral rehydration sachets.The rapid changes in the river's course have forced many harried villagers to move shelters many times and to sell their precious livestock to buy food.I sold my goat for just 50 rupees which on any other day could have brought me 2,000 rupees, said Sabia Devi. UNICEF believes it will be months before the displaced families can return to their homes and expressed concerned over the hygiene conditions of the government-run relief camps. Cases of diarrhea were reported from many relief camps in the state. (Additional reporting by Sunil Kataria in Saharsa; writing by Melanie Lee, editing by Tim Pearce)
1/3RD OF SHIPS DESTROYED
REVELATION 8:8-9
8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
9 And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
Boat sinks in flooded northern India, killing 20 By GAVIN RABINOWITZ, Associated Press Writer Sat Aug 30, 2:40 AM ET
PATNA, India - A rescue boat filled with panicked flood victims capsized and killed 20 people in northern India, where monsoon flooding grew worse because of heavy rain and water flowing from neighboring Nepal, officials said Saturday. The boat accident happened on Friday night in Madhepura district, 95 miles northeast of Patna, the capital of impoverished Bihar state, said O.N. Bhaskar, the superintendent of police. Those killed included one army rescue worker. Eight people swam to safety and 32 were rescued by troops, he said.The boat was overcrowded because people panicked to be rescued and clambered on board, Bhaskar told The Associated Press.
The death toll from this year's monsoon season across India has surpassed 800. Some 1.2 million people have been marooned and about 2 million more affected in Bihar state, where the Kosi river has burst its banks and submerged all roads leading to the region.India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the flooding as a national calamity.Rising waters have swept away and drowned at least 75 people in Bihar state since June, the start of the monsoon season, said Prataya Amrit, secretary of the state's disaster management department.Authorities have rescued nearly 140,000 people and put most of them in state-run relief camps, Amrit said.
The situation was getting worse because of heavy rain in the region and a Kosi river breach on the Nepalese side, Amrit said Saturday.We can't assess the extent of the damage. It is colossal, he said. But we will only be able to tell the extent after the water recedes.The Indian government has made more than $200 million available to combat monsoon flooding. Nearly 1,500 soldiers have boosted rescue efforts in Bihar state and air force helicopters were dropping food to hundreds of thousand of people stranded by the rampaging river.India's monsoon season, which lasts from June to September, brings rain vital for the country's farmers but often also causes massive destruction.Despite the rescue operations under way, officials in Bihar have warned that the real danger is still ahead.When the swollen Kosi river burst its banks in Nepal just north of the Indian border, it changed course, flowing through a fresh channel 75 miles to the east that has no protective embankments.The river traditionally swells to a flood peak in October.In 2007, monsoon floods killed more than 2,200 people across South Asia and left 31 million others homeless, short of food or with other problems. The United Nations called last year's floods the worst in living memory.
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EARTH DESTROYED WITH THE EARTH
GENESIS 6:11-13
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.(WORLD TERRORISM,MURDERS)
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence (TERRORISM) through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
EARTHQUAKES
MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
Death toll in China quake rises to 22 Indo-Asian News Service Saturday, August 30, 2008, (Panzhihua (China
The death toll in the earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale that hit southwest China's Sichuan province on Saturday rose to 22, officials said.At least 17people were killed and more than 100 injured in Sichuan province, while five people were reportedly killed and 26 injured in neighbouring Yunnan province, according to provincial authorities. Huge damage to properties in both the provinces has also been reported.The quake struck at 4.30 p.m. with its epicentre some 50 km southeast of Panzhihua city, at a depth of 10 km, the National Seismograph Network Center said. The tremor was felt in Yunan's capital, Kunming, about 300 km from the epicentre, and Sichuan's capital of Chengdu.Sichuan province had been hit by a magnitude 8.0 earthquake May 12, killing up to 70,000 people and devastating an area of 40,000 sq km. More than 42 million people have been affected by the quake.
Meanwhile, another earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale hit northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur region Saturday evening, but there is no immediate reports of any casualty. The quake struck northwest of Hejing county at 8.45 p.m. with its epicentre at a depth of 10 km, the National Seismograph Network Centre said.
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.
WHY CAN'T AMERICA LISTEN TO GOD AND NOT THEMSELVES ABOUT DIVIDING JERUSALEM. NOW AS I WRITE THIS AT 2:45 PM GUSTAV IS A CATAGORY 4 HURRICANE BARELLING DOWN TO NEW ORLEANS.
Hurricane Gustav strengthens to Category 4 storm AUG 30,08
MIAMI (Reuters) - Hurricane Gustav strengthened into a dangerous Category 4 storm on Saturday with winds of 145 miles per hour (230 km per hour) as it surged toward western Cuba, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. (Reporting by Jane Sutton; Editing by Chris Wilson)
Killer hurricane Gustav strengthens ahead of striking Cuba AUG 30,08
HAVANA (AFP) - Deadly hurricane Gustav bore down on Cuba headed to the Gulf of Mexico Saturday, threatening to intensify into a category-four storm after leaving a trail of death and destruction across the Caribbean.Even before strengthening to a dangerous category three storm early Saturday, Gustav killed up to 85 people in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica and causing major damage in the Cayman islands, according to officials.Evacuations were underway in coastal areas from northwest Cuba to Louisiana in the United States, where Gustav was predicted make landfall Monday or early Tuesday, three years after superstorm Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans.Civil defense authorities in Cuba's Pinar del Rio province and most of northern Cuba said they were moving 190,000 people to safety, mainly from coastal towns vulnerable to flooding before Gustav hits shore.The eye of the hurricane was expected to pass over the Isla de la Juventud, or Isle of Youth, to the south of the mainland early afternoon Saturday, before directly striking Pinar del Rio and battering the capital Havana to the east.Early Saturday a Caymans official reported heavy damage from Gustav on Cayman Brac, the large eastern island of the Caymans group, with power and water supplies down.We're hoping that it's going to settle down enough that we can do some damage assessment, said Ernie Scott, District Commissioner of the Sister Islands.I'm expecting the HMS Iron Duke early and they're going to be providing significant assistance in our damage assessment operations, he said, referring to the British Royal Navy frigate in the area.
Hundreds of people fled into shelters on Grand and Little Cayman islands as some areas were affected by flooding.The US National Hurricane Center in Miami warned that Gustav, already blowing 205 kilometer (125 miles) per hour maximum sustained winds could further intensify before striking mainland Cuba.The center said tides could surge as much as 5.8 meters (19 feet) above normal in areas under the eye of the storm as it passes the Isle of Youth and mainland western Cuba.The center was giving the storm a nearly 40 percent chance of intensifying into a category-four hurricane, with sustained winds topping 210 kilometers (131 miles) per hour as it enters the Gulf of Mexico.At 11:00 am (1500 GMT) the center of the hurricane was located about 85 kilometers (55 miles) east-southeast of the Isle of Youth and moving toward the northwest at 22 kilometers (14 miles) per hour.Earlier this week Gustav left a path of destruction through Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.In Haiti, it left 66 dead plus 10 missing. In the neighboring Dominican Republic, the death toll stood at eight.Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding told reporters Friday that the storm had killed up to 11 and displaced between 3,500 and 4,000 people in his Caribbean island nation. The death toll remained unconfirmed on Saturday.I am concerned that there are still a number of persons who are still unaccounted for, Golding said.Although the heaviest of the rains had subsided, many Jamaicans worried about returning home. It is all wet and I am afraid to sleep inside there, said Kingston housewife Charlene Markland.Anxiety meanwhile grew on the US Gulf Coast over Gustav's trajectory, with New Orleans beginning mandatory evacuations of low-lying areas Saturday.Roads out of New Orleans were jammed with people fleeing a potentially disastrous strike on the city just three years after Katrina left some 1,800 dead along the coast.Major oil producers BP, ConocoPhillips and Shell on Thursday evacuated workers from their facilities in the gulf where nearly a quarter of US crude oil installations are located.Meanwhile another tropical storm in the Atlantic well north of Puerto Rico was forecast to head to the west and strike the central Bahamas by Tuesday and then travel directly toward central Cuba.
New Orleans begins evacuations ahead of Gustav by Glenn Chapman
Sat Aug 30, 11:35 AM ET
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) - Desperate to avoid a repeat of the Katrina catastrophe in 2005, New Orleans prepared to begin mandatory evacuations Saturday as another deadly hurricane, Gustav, bore down on the city. Bumper-to-bumper traffic clogged roads leading north and east out of New Orleans, as the dangerous category three hurricane barreled toward the Gulf of Mexico after leaving 85 people dead in Caribbean nations.The National Hurricane Center said Gustav could strengthen to a category four storm before hitting the US coast late Monday or early Tuesday.
Coastal parishes in New Orleans were due to begin the first mandatory evacuations at noon (1600 GMT), as residents boarded up windows and piled sandbags to build temporary levees, three years after Hurricane Katrina breached levees protecting the low-lying city, killing some 1,500 people.We can take about five-and-a-half feet (1.67 meters) of water above sea level, but we can't take the nine to 12 feet (2.7 to 3.7 meters) they're talking about, Tim Kerner, mayor of Jean Lafitte in lower Jefferson Parish, told the New Orleans Time Picayune.The overall population of greater New Orleans is estimated at more than one million people. It was not immediately clear how many people would be affected by Saturday's mandatory evacuation orders.The New Orleans airport said it would shut down Sunday evening, and area hotels advised customers to leave town.Voluntary and assisted evacuations began Friday, but not all residents were eager to pack up and leave.I'm supposed to be leaving but I keep waiting just a little longer to see what the storm is going to do. I know it's a risk, New Orleans resident Sheile Robertson told AFP.
She said she escaped a day before Katrina struck, destroying her home, and now lives in an apartment with a half dozen people.Another city resident, Maggie Hawkins, brought her tiny dog, Bubbles, with her as she prepared to board a bus leaving the city.I'm a native who was born here. My parents were born here. If I can I will return and will rebuild and it will be stressful and it will be a challenge but this is my home and I love it, she said on CNN television.She added that she thought the government was doing a better job than three years ago, and was very happy that she could bring her pet.US President George W. Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana and Texas, empowering federal authorities to lead disaster relief efforts in the two states.Saturday Bush called the governors of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas to discuss preparations for Gustav, which could make landfall anywhere from western Florida to eastern Texas, said spokesman Scott Stanzel.
President Bush called to make sure the states were receiving all the assistance they needed from the federal government, Stanzel said.The president pledged the full support of the federal government.Bush's approval ratings in 2005 plummeted amid widespread criticism that he paid too little attention to Katrina, whose floodwaters rose as high as 15 feet (4.5 meters) and swallowed around 80 percent of New Orleans.
In the aftermath of that storm, tens of thousands of people spent days stranded without food or sanitation on rooftops, highways overpasses and temporary shelters which became scenes of chaos and fear as federal, state and local officials failed to adequately coordinate rescue plans. Some 20,000 people were forced to shelter in the city's Superdome sports arena amid scenes of rape, child molestation and shootings. Elsewhere in the city a number of patients were left to die in hospitals because of inadequate measures to evacuate them.
High waters, heavy rain hamper Indian flood relief Sat Aug 30, 9:10 AM ET
PATNA, India (Reuters) - Indian authorities, hampered by heavy rain and damaged roads, were struggling on Saturday to get aid to millions of displaced villagers in the eastern state of Bihar, hit by the worst flooding in 50 years. The Kosi river burst a dam in neighboring Nepal earlier this month, deluging Bihar and drowning village after village in its path as authorities failed to evacuate millions in time.
About 85 people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced by floodwaters that have smashed houses and destroyed 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of farmland.
Rains are killing our rescue and relief efforts, Bihar disaster management department minister Nitish Mishra told Reuters.Our helicopters were barely able to fly for most of the day yesterday as it continued raining heavily till 4 p.m., he said.On Friday, an overcrowded army boat carrying dozens of flood victims overturned in the swollen river, drowning at least 20 people and leaving 10 unaccounted for.
Some 350,000 people have been evacuated over the past 10 days and thousands are marooned, said Pratyay Amrit, a Bihar disaster management official.Army officers were putting up sandbags and wire mesh along roads in an attempt to fix embankments and prevent the swift flowing river from inundating new areas, said a Reuters witness in the flood-hit district of Saharsa.The witness also saw more than 1,000 people from nearby villages walking to the city, where they hoped to find food and shelter. Some villagers who chose to stay, built temporary bamboo shelters on high ground, eating uncooked rice and flour mixed with polluted water.We keep sitting here the whole night and wondering what to do. How will life go on? Will we survive or not? said Virender Kumar Saga.Floods have killed more than 1,000 people in South Asia since the monsoon began in June, mainly in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where 785 people died, and deaths were also reported in Nepal and Bangladesh.These are some of the worst floods in generations and they present a huge challenge for governments and humanitarian organizations, said Daniel Toole, UNICEF's regional director for South Asia on Friday.
EXTENSIVE DAMAGE
UNICEF said more than 1,000 villages in 13 districts had been affected by the surging waters, which have caused extensive damage to roads and water and electricity supplies.Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling Congress party, flew over devastated areas by helicopter on Thursday and announced $228 million in aid.The London-based humanitarian organization Oxfam said it was providing those affected with temporary shelter, water purification tablets, buckets and oral rehydration sachets.The rapid changes in the river's course have forced many harried villagers to move shelters many times and to sell their precious livestock to buy food.I sold my goat for just 50 rupees which on any other day could have brought me 2,000 rupees, said Sabia Devi. UNICEF believes it will be months before the displaced families can return to their homes and expressed concerned over the hygiene conditions of the government-run relief camps. Cases of diarrhea were reported from many relief camps in the state. (Additional reporting by Sunil Kataria in Saharsa; writing by Melanie Lee, editing by Tim Pearce)
1/3RD OF SHIPS DESTROYED
REVELATION 8:8-9
8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
9 And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
Boat sinks in flooded northern India, killing 20 By GAVIN RABINOWITZ, Associated Press Writer Sat Aug 30, 2:40 AM ET
PATNA, India - A rescue boat filled with panicked flood victims capsized and killed 20 people in northern India, where monsoon flooding grew worse because of heavy rain and water flowing from neighboring Nepal, officials said Saturday. The boat accident happened on Friday night in Madhepura district, 95 miles northeast of Patna, the capital of impoverished Bihar state, said O.N. Bhaskar, the superintendent of police. Those killed included one army rescue worker. Eight people swam to safety and 32 were rescued by troops, he said.The boat was overcrowded because people panicked to be rescued and clambered on board, Bhaskar told The Associated Press.
The death toll from this year's monsoon season across India has surpassed 800. Some 1.2 million people have been marooned and about 2 million more affected in Bihar state, where the Kosi river has burst its banks and submerged all roads leading to the region.India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the flooding as a national calamity.Rising waters have swept away and drowned at least 75 people in Bihar state since June, the start of the monsoon season, said Prataya Amrit, secretary of the state's disaster management department.Authorities have rescued nearly 140,000 people and put most of them in state-run relief camps, Amrit said.
The situation was getting worse because of heavy rain in the region and a Kosi river breach on the Nepalese side, Amrit said Saturday.We can't assess the extent of the damage. It is colossal, he said. But we will only be able to tell the extent after the water recedes.The Indian government has made more than $200 million available to combat monsoon flooding. Nearly 1,500 soldiers have boosted rescue efforts in Bihar state and air force helicopters were dropping food to hundreds of thousand of people stranded by the rampaging river.India's monsoon season, which lasts from June to September, brings rain vital for the country's farmers but often also causes massive destruction.Despite the rescue operations under way, officials in Bihar have warned that the real danger is still ahead.When the swollen Kosi river burst its banks in Nepal just north of the Indian border, it changed course, flowing through a fresh channel 75 miles to the east that has no protective embankments.The river traditionally swells to a flood peak in October.In 2007, monsoon floods killed more than 2,200 people across South Asia and left 31 million others homeless, short of food or with other problems. The United Nations called last year's floods the worst in living memory.
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