Obama visits family roots in Ireland

DUBLIN - President Barack Obama declared solidarity between the United States and economically struggling Ireland with a symbolic gulp of beer and a rousing speech, telling a huge Dublin crowd on Monday: "Your best days are still ahead."

Manila Bulletin- Beginning a four-nation European tour with a celebration of his Irish roots, Obama came to Ireland as what one man called a long-lost cousin.                                                                  
                                                                                 
Crowds packed the streets for both a stirring speech in Dublin and a visit to the tiny village of Moneygall, where an ancestor of Obama's lived before moving to the United States.

Introduced by Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny as "the American dream come home," Obama told the throng in central Dublin: "My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas."

For Ireland, Obama's arrival, and the visit of Britain's Queen Elizabeth last week, are a welcome distraction from the global attention paid to its financial woes and the ensuing international bailout.

Obama was also due to visit Britain, France, and Poland on a week-long trip whose agenda includes talks on issues as Afghanistan and Pakistan after the killing of Osama bin Laden, the world economy and the "Arab spring" uprisings.




                                                                                

Our top fact of the day, Adolf Hitler

Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had only one testicle also called as Monorchism. 

Tornado kills at least 89 in Joplin, Missouri

JOPLIN, Mo. — At least 89 people have died in Joplin, Missouri, and the toll is expected to climb as one of the deadliest tornadoes in state history roared through the small Midwestern city on Sunday, local officials said on Monday.




Manila Buletin - Rescue crews from throughout the region worked through the night in the town of about 50,000 people in search of the dead and injured and to aid those left homeless.

Officials said they expected to find more bodies with first light on Monday as they dig through the rubble.

The tornado blew the roof off one hospital with about 180 patients and some 2,000 other buildings were destroyed. "It is a significant tragedy," said Missouri Governor Jay Nixon. "We're working on all cylinders. We've got to get an active and complete search ... to make sure if there is anyone still alive in the rubble that we get them out."

The path of the tornado through Joplin was estimated at six miles (9.5 kilometers) long and about 1/2 mile to 3/4 (1 kilometer) mile wide. "The loss of life is incredible," said Joplin Mayor Mike Woolston. "We're still trying to find people. The outlook is pretty bleak."

A temporary morgue was set up at the Missouri Southern State University, and a local concert hall served as a shelter for people whose homes and businesses had been wiped out. The devastation surpasses that seen last month when a twister struck Tuscaloosa, Alabama, killing more than 30 in that storm.

The governor declared a state of emergency and ordered Missouri National Guard troops deployed to help state troopers and other agencies respond to storms that he said "have caused extensive damage across Missouri." Joplin City Councilwoman Melodee Colbert-Kean, who serves as vice mayor, said the town was in a state of "chaos."

"It is just utter devastation anywhere you look to the south and the east —businesses, apartment complexes, houses, cars, trees, schools, you name it, it is leveled, leveled," she told Reuters by telephone early on Monday. Stammer estimated that about 10 percent of the city, encompassing about 2,000 structures, had borne the brunt of the storm, based on initial aerial surveillance.

President Barack Obama issued a statement expressing his "deepest condolences" to families of the victims. He said he had directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to support response and recovery efforts. A White House official said Obama was briefed multiple times about the tornadoes on the Air Force One flight to Ireland.

Entire neighborhoods destroyed

The storm flattened whole neighborhoods, splintering trees, flipped cars and trucks upside down and into each other.
                                                                                                                                       -Patis 

Our top fact of the day, Hawaii

If a native Hawaiian woman places the flower on her ear, she is available. (The bigger the flower, the more desperate!!!)

Our top fact of the day, Jedi

Jedi is an official religion, with over 70,000 followers, in Australia. 

Kim Jong-Il in China

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il reportedly arrived in the Chinese city of Changchun on Saturday on the second day of a secretive trip with his isolated state in desperate need of economic aid.

Manila Bulletin Publishing corporation - Experts said the visit, the third by Kim in 12 months, reflects the North's dire need for help from its main benefactor to ease economic difficulties and food shortages amid ongoing international sanctions over its nuclear ambitions.

They also say it shows he is firmly in charge despite health concerns. Kim, 69, suffered a stroke in August 2008 and has since been putting in place a succession plan involving his youngest son and heir apparent Kim Jong-Un.

Kim Jong-Il's special train, which left Mudanjiang City in Heilongjiang Province late Friday, was seen pulling into the railway station in Changchun, capital of northeastern Jilin Province, on Saturday morning, YTN TV said.

The frequent trips to China by the reclusive leader ''underscores the North's desperate need'' for aid from China, Professor Cho Young-Ki of Korea University told the Chosun daily.

The North's two-way trade with China rose 32 percent last year to $3.47 billion, after South Korea severed most trade ties in protest at border attacks blamed on its neighbor.

The communist regime in North Korea is desperate to improve living standards and revive the economy before the 100th anniversary next year of the birth of founding president Kim Il-Sung, the current leader's father.

UN agencies said six million people -- a quarter of the population -- need urgent aid in the North, where a famine in the 1990s killed hundreds of thousands.

Our top fact of the day, India

It's a common practice in southern India for a man to marry his sister's daughter.