Happenings here and there...

MANILA
Tropical storm Ketsana pounded Manila with rain, the heaviest in more than 40 years. Phillippine rescue workers struggled through debris in an effort to provide help to more than half a million people displaced by devastating flood. As of now the death toll hit 140 with 32 still missing.

Nine hour of heavy rain left some areas of Metro Manila under 20 feet of water. Overall 80% of Manila was submerged where some people remained stranded on the second floor of their homes.

Adding to the chaos, telephone land power services in some area of the remained cut, while survivors in makeshift camps were desperately short of food, water and clothes.

Meanwhile, there were fears that the number of dead could soar past the officla tally.

In any catastrophic events, there’s always be a hero and here in Manila, a youth sacrifice his life to help others.

MUELMAR MAGALLANES, braved rampaging floods to save more than 30 people. He lost his life on his last trip, to save a baby girl swept in a styrofoam box. Tired and shivering, he jumped into the cold water for the last time to save a mother and her baby daughter. With his last ounce of strength, he managed to placed both flood victim on a safe place before he was simply washed away by the strong current, too exhausted to swim.



VIENNA
The world’ws tallet living person, Turk Sultan Kosen was on a visit to Vienna and while greeting well-wishers, talked about the problem of being too tall.

The towering farmer, whose status was certified by Guiness World Records, don’t consider himself as star but a champion because him being the tallest living person in the world.

He said that the advantages of being tall are balanced by the incoveniences he’s facing such as finding clothes that fit and the acrobatic effort involved in getting inside a taxi.

His condition is due to a tumour that caused too much growth hormone to be released from his pituitary gland.



PARIS
Screen legend Brigitte Bardot turns 75 this week and she marked it with a call to her ‘twin’ Sophia Loren who herself turns 75 this week to give up fur once a dn for all.



LONDON
Madonna secured her 11th number one album equalling Elvis Presley’s record. Her album “Celebration”, shot to the top of the charts on Sunday. She is however 4 behind The Beatles who hold the record of 15 top selling albums.



MADRID
Hundreds of thousands of people formed a “human mosaic” in Madrid on Sunday to show support fot the city’s bid to host the 2016 Olypics.

The OIC is set to announce in Copenhagen on Friday whether Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Chicago or Tokyo will host the 2016 Games.

Aroudn 400,000 people attended the gathering at the Plaza Cibeles. The crowd formed the human mosaic by holding up cards of different colours of Madrid candidature – red, green, blue and yellow.

Also on Sunday, 2,016 golfers set a Guinness World Record by hitting golfballs at exactly the same moment in an event near Madrid.



COPEHNAGEN
US President Barack Obama, will fly to Copenhagen this Friday to lent support for Chicago’s bid to stage the 2016 Summer Olympic. A personal appearance by the President, the first by a US President at an Olympic session, could play a crucial role in swaying votes by International Olympic Committee members.

Securing the right to host the Olympic Summer Games will not only bring enormous prestige, but a public relation boost and potential economic and development benefits.




WASHINGTON
World Bank President, Robert Zoellick, warned that the United States should not take for granted the role of US dollars as pre-eminent global reserve currency. This is because in the future there will increasingly be other options than the dollar.