The first Englishwoman who performed the Hajj

Malaysian Post

PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA
by Lady Evelyn Cobbold and Introduction by William Facey & Miranda Taylor,
Hardbound, 351 pages
Published by Arabian Publishing Ltd.
(Available from major online bookstores)

During the 19th century, many women, particularly Englishwomen, were fascinated by the Arab world. Most of these female travelers, like Lucie Duff Gordon, Lady Ann Blunt, Gertrude Bell, Isabelle Eberhardt and Freya Stark, to name but a few, are known to us through their impassioned travelogues.

However, one name, Lady Evelyn Cobbold (1867 - 1963) failed inexplicably to achieve a proper recognition. William Facey finally does justice to this remarkable woman, the first British Muslim woman on record to have visited the Holy Cities of Madinah and Makkah and to have written about her pilgrimage.

In the excellent introduction, co-written with Miranda Taylor, Facey highlights for the first time the family link between Lady Evelyn and her great-aunt, the formidable Jane Digby (1807-1881) who was successively Lady Ellenborough, Baroness Venningen, and Countess Theotoky before she married her fourth and last husband, a Syrian Bedouin, Sheikh Abdul Medjuel El Mezrab. With him, she lived happily for 30 years until she died at the age of 74.

Watch Out China, 25% Of U.S. Hackers Are FBI Informer

Malaysian Post

Sony has just announced its Next Generation Portable (NGP) at E3, Los Angeles, and it’s called PlayStation Vita. One of the reasons was to divert attention from the hacking attack that left millions of PSN users’ data at risk in order to win back some trust.Obviously E3 was the platform to convince the Sony’s fans that PlayStation was still the gaming platform of preference. Sony also took the opportunity to apologise for the breach of security. Sure, blame it on the hackers.

Somehow hackers hijacked the front page news quite often recently. Google’s Security Team claimed that unidentified hacker attacks likely originated from the eastern Chinese city of Jinan, tried to collect user passwords of the Gmail accounts of hundreds of users, including senior U.S. government officials, Chinese “human rights activists” and journalists. Of course China officials denied the accusations as evil-intentioned.

Why special treatment for Aussie boatpeople?

Malaysian Post l Stephanie Sta Maria

 PETALING JAYA: Malaysia’s decision to grant the 800 boatpeople sent from Australia exemption from its immigration laws has been met with hostility from local activist groups.

The Australian media yesterday reported that the asylum seekers would not be treated as illegal immigrants, thus preventing them from ending up in detention centres and facing the threat of caning.

Julian Assange: The Secretive Whistleblower

To some, WikiLeaks is seen as a beacon of free speech that is to be praised. But to others, including outraged Pentagon and White House officials as well as a number of governments the world over sees it as irresponsible and want the website taken down for what they call irreparable damage to global security.

The elusive public face of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange has been described by his mother as "highly intelligent". Not a surprising credence – even for a mom – seeing as Assange is an award-winning journalist was nominated as ‘Person of the Year’ by Time magazine which described him as a “new kind of whistle-blower… for the digital age”.

Assange’s act of exposing official top secret documents had catapulted to celebrity status but his notoriety did not stop there. Shortly after he released the Afghan War Diary, he became the subject of a sex crime case in Sweden.

So who is this lean, lanky, leather jacket-clad man with pale skin mop white hair we’ve been seeing a lot on TV and the internet lately?

Young Julian

Assange was born in Townsville, in the Australian state of Queensland, and spent much of his youth living on Magnetic Island. The son of parents who ran a touring theatre company, he grew up constantly on the move. In 1979, his mother, Christine, remarried; her new husband was a musician who belonged to a controversial New Age band. The couple had a son, but broke up in 1982 and engaged in a custody struggle for Assange's half-brother. His mother then took both children into hiding for the next five years. Assange moved several dozen times during his childhood, attending many schools, sometimes being home schooled, and later attending several universities at various times in Australia.

Spore PM to follow-up on KTM land swap

KUALA LUMPUR: Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will be making a working visit to Malayia on Tuesday.

Wisma Putra said Lee would have a four-eye meeting with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak during his one-day visit.

"The meeting is expected to follow up on the valuation of lands and the proposal of the land swap discussed during the Leaders' Retreat in Singapore on May 24," it said in a statement here on Monday.

The meeting, it said, would also further strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries.

Both Prime Ministers will hold a joint press conference after the meeting.

Lee, who will be accompanied by his Foreign Affairs Minister, National Development Minister, Law Minister and the Second Minister for Home Affairs and other senior officials, would also attend a dinner hosted by Najib in his honour.

Solo mission to kill Osama

Construction worker Gary Brooks Faulkner (pic) has been detained after local authorities found him on a solo mission to hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

DENVER - AN AMERICAN man has been detained in the mountains of Pakistan after local authorities found him carrying a sword, pistol and night-vision goggles on a Rambo-style solo mission to hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden.

Friends and family say construction worker Gary Brooks Faulkner is a devout, good-humoured Christian who often talked about building a porch or framing a house - not taking down the world's most-wanted terrorist. They had few clues to explain his 11,750km journey.

'I'm like, What? They got him where?' said Daren Paredes, a friend who met Faulkner in the northern Colorado town of Greeley.

'He's a joker, and he's real talkative. ... He never really talked about terror or anything like that.' The 51-year-old Faulkner, who has a lengthy arrest record and served time in a Colorado prison, arrived in the town of Bumburate on June 3 and stayed in a hotel there. He was assigned a police guard, as is common for foreigners visiting remote parts of Pakistan.

When he checked out without informing police, officers began looking for him, according to the top police officer in the Chitral region, Mumtaz Ahmad Khan. He said Faulkner was found late Sunday in a forest.

'We initially laughed when he told us that he wanted to kill Osama bin Laden,' Khan said. But when officers seized the weapons and night-vision equipment, 'our suspicion grew'. He said the American was trying to cross into the nearby Afghan region of Nuristan. -- AP

9/11 was staged: Dr M

The twin towers of the World Trade Center burning after two planes crashed into each building in New York, September 11, 2001. -- PHOTO: AFP

KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIA'S former premier Mahathir Mohamad claimed the Sept 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, which killed nearly 3,000 people, were staged as an excuse to 'mount attacks on the Muslim world'.

Speaking at the General Conference for the Support of Al-Quds (Jerusalem) here, Tun Dr Mahathir said killing as an excuse for war is not new to the US. He also argued that Israel was created to solve the 'Jewish problem' in Europe, saying the Holocaust had failed as a final solution against the community.

'In September 2001, the World Trade Center was attacked allegedly by terrorists. I am not sure now that Muslim terrorists carried out these attacks. There is strong evidence that the attacks were staged. If they can make Avatar, they can make anything,' The Malaysian Insider reported Dr Mahathir as saying. The former premier said Israel was created after the Europeans failed to massacre the Jewish community.

'The Jews had always been a problem in European countries. They had to be confined to ghettoes and periodically massacred. But still they remained, they thrived and they held whole governments to ransom... Even after their massacre by the Nazis of Germany, they survived to continue to be a source of even greater problems for the world,' said Dr Mahathir, who was noted for his anti-Western and anti-Zionist stand while in power for 22 years, until October 2003.

Dr Mahathir also expressed his disappointment in US President Barack Obama, who marked his first year in office on Wednesday. 'I am a bit disappointed because so far none of his promises has been kept. He promised to get out from Afghanistan but he ended up sending more troops there instead. He promised to close down Guantanamo but he has not closed down Guantanamo.

'It is quite easy to promise during election time but you know there are forces in the United States which prevent the president from doing some things. One of the forces is the Jewish lobby,' he said.

Doubts about Top's death

Noordin Top pictured in undated photos released by Indonesian Police, with his most recent picture on the right. --PHOTO: AP

JAKARTA - FINGERPRINT analysis has confirmed that a man killed by Indonesian police at the weekend was not fugitive terror suspect Noordin Mohammed Top, a counter-terror police officer said on Monday.

Officials were publicly sticking to their line that only DNA tests would confirm the identity of the body but a source involved in the investigation told AFP Noordin remained at large.

'It's not him. We know from his facial structure as well as his fingerprints,' the police source said, requesting anonymity. 'We're continuing to track his whereabouts.'

Noordin was reported by the local media to have been shot dead by police at the end of a 17-hour siege of a remote farmhouse in Central Java on Saturday.

Senior counter-terrorism official Ansyad Mbai refused to comment on the identity of the body retrieved from the farmhouse, saying DNA tests would confirm whether it was Noordin or not.

'It's better that we wait for the forensic identification,' he said.

Noordin, 40, is a Malaysian Islamist who is wanted for multiple suicide bombings against Western targets in Indonesia since 2003 which have killed around 50 people and injured hundreds.

He is one of the most wanted alleged terror masterminds in Asia, and has a US$100,000 (S$143,929) bounty on his head from the Indonesian government. The police source indicated that Noordin may have escaped from the farmhouse before police laid siege to it around 4.00 pm (5.00 pm Singapore time) on Friday.

'We were not as quick as him,' he said.

Police have come close to arresting the Malaysian, who leads a breakaway faction of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror network, several times and have captured or killed some of his closest associates. They have intensified the hunt since the July 17 twin suicide bombings on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in the capital, which killed seven people including six foreigners plus the two bombers. -- AFP

'Cop spent exes in sex shop'

AN anti-terror cop used his Scotland Yard credit card to buy items from a SEX SHOP, a court heard today.

Detective Constable Matthew Washington, 37, wasted thousands of pounds of taxpayers' cash by abusing his expenses for more than a year.

He also bought clothes and holidays on an American Express card issued to him by the Met and "completely disregarded" police rules, it was alleged.

Washington began abusing his corporate Amex almost as soon as he was given it in July 2006, Southwark Crown Court in South London was told.

Prosecutor Stephen Winberg said Washington had used it to "fund holidays, for example to Euro Disney, travel, food shopping and personal expenses".

But officers were only meant to use the card for "travel and subsistence purposes".

Split

Mr Winberg told jurors: "Particularly indicative of this, I am afraid, is the purchase of five items... from a sex shop in Soho.

"The question I pose to you on the Crown's behalf is what part of his job description did Mr Washington at the time - DC Washington as he then was - think he was fulfilling by using the Metropolitan Police Service card in a sex shop in Soho?

"The Crown are not saying there is anything wrong going to a sex shop, but you do not use a card given by your employers for travel and subsistence purposes."

The court heard Washington spent more than £19,200 between July 2006 and September 2007, of which more than £12,500 was unauthorised.

Of that, £7,000 had been withdrawn in cash, while £350 was spent on clothes bought at Next, T M Lewin and Marks & Spencer.

When Washington was first quizzed about his spending, he read out a prepared statement claiming he had been working "very long hours" with little "personal time".

He also said he had been "through an upsetting divorce and his son had had cancer which had weighed heavily on his mind and this had caused him to lose track of his expenses".

Washington, whose address and photo cannot be published for legal reasons, denies misconduct in public office.

China vice premier says world economy to worsen

LONDON (Reuters) - China's vice premier Wang Qishan said the global financial crisis is spreading and the economy will get worse before it gets better, in a written article in the Financial Times on Friday.

He said financial stability would be aided by keeping exchange rates of major currencies stable through exchange rate policy coordination.

He also rejected protectionism, saying "it is vital unequivocally to reject protectionism of all kinds."

"The global financial crisis is still spreading," he wrote.

"The world economy is going to get worse before it gets better, and the situation remains serious."

In an article that drew on the significance of British-China relations, he called for both countries -- as important members of the G20 group of leading nations -- to work together to implement the consensus reached at the Washington and London summits.

Wang also said it was imperative that countries which had worked closely since the crisis began coordinated their macroeconomic policies and that they adopted stimulus, fiscal and monetary policies.

Wang said China will continue with its "proactive fiscal policy and moderately easy monetary policy to ensure sound and steady growth of our economy, and in so doing contribute to the recovery of the global economy."

"China's huge stimulus package has now produced initial results," he wrote.

"There has occurred positive change in our economy and things are better than previously expected."

He called for a strengthening of global regulation, on the basis of sovereign rules, cooperation in regulating private capital flows, financial institutions and markets, products and intermediaries, and said it was important to improve the basic financial system.

He wrote that a global financial risk early-warning system should be established as soon as possible, and it was important to increase emergency assistance for those developing countries that had been hard-hit by the crisis.

Wang said reform of international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the Financial Stability Board to provide more representation for developing nations and to make sure that the decision-making process is "transparent, fair and just."

(Reporting by Avril Ormsby; Editing by Bernard Orr & Kim Coghill)

Singapore's most-wanted militant arrested after escape

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The suspected leader of a radical Islamist group linked to the 2002 Bali bombings has been arrested 15 months after he escaped from a high security prison in Singapore, the government said on Friday.

Mas Selamat Kastari was the alleged mastermind of a plot to hijack a plane and crash it into Singapore's Changi Airport.

Singapore authorities have also accused him of planning several truck bomb attacks across the island state.

A Singapore government spokeswoman confirmed the arrest but gave no other details on where or when.

Officials said Mas Selamat was a leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a pan-Asian radical Islamic group linked to al-Qaeda responsible for several bomb attacks across Southeast Asia, including the Bali bombings.

His escape from the Whitley Road Detention Center in February 2008 prompted a manhunt in Singapore and led to the sacking of several Singapore officials.

Oil prices jump to high for the year

SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota (AP) - Oil prices surged to a 2009 high Wednesday after a government report showed that unused crude being placed in storage slowed a bit last week.

Benchmark crude for June delivery rose 4.6 percent, or $2.50, to settle at $56.34 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

It was the highest close since mid-November. Demand for energy during the recession has been decimated, leaving storage facilities more bloated than in any year since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Prices for crude and gasoline have plunged as a result, providing a break for everyone from industrial companies to consumers, though that must be taken in the context of shuttered factories and layoffs.

In that same context, however, government data that in a normal year might send energy prices falling, actually sent them up across the board Wednesday.

Prices for oil, natural gas, heating oil and gasoline all rose on data showing levels of crude in storage continues to rise. What sent prices sharply higher, however, is that levels did not rise more than they did.

Crude levels for the week ended May 1 rose by 600,000 barrels to 375.3 million barrels, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report. Analysts surveyed by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos., had expected a build up of 2.2 million barrels.

An overnight report from the American Petroleum Institute even showed a 1-million-barrel slip in crude oil stocks and a 2.9-million-barrel drop in gas supplies.

In a market environment where everyone is looking for scraps of good news, it provided a shot of optimism that the economy may be on the mend.

"A sign that demand is improving perhaps? Or maybe those refiners are still indifferent to increasing supply," Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp., wrote in a morning note. "It was probably a little of both."

The EIA in its report said gasoline in storage slipped by 200,000 barrels, even though demand continues to fall. That is partly because refineries have pulled back on production as they try to match falling demand, but there is also evidence that the refineries that make gasoline are beginning to ramp up.

While demand for gas fell 1 percent over the four weeks ending May 1 with U.S. consumers still rattled, refineries increased capacity by more than 3 percent.

There is little to suggest demand for energy is picking up, but Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates, said there is more optimism about the general economy.

"We could see a little more vacation driving than we anticipated," Ritterbusch said. "That's being offset by the fact that refinery runs are coming back to meet any unexpected needs."

There have been other hints in recent days that recession may be loosening its grip.

The ADP National Employment Report, an unofficial gauge of the labor market, said Wednesday that private sector employment fell by 491,000 last month. In the context of today's economy, that was taken as good news. It was much better than the 708,000 jobs lost in March.

On Tuesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke gave his most optimistic prediction yet about the end of the U.S. recession, saying he expects the economy to start growing again this year.

U.S. bank stress test results set for release on Thursday and April unemployment figures due out Friday should provide more insight into the state of the economy and the odds that energy prices will rise.

Oil has traded near $50 a barrel for more than a month after dropping from a record $147 last July and rising from below $35 in February.

In other Nymex trading, gasoline for June delivery rose 5.58 cents to settle at $1.628 a gallon and heating oil gained about 4.5 cents to settle at $1.4713 a gallon. Natural gas for June delivery jumped 27.2 cents to settle at $3.887 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, Brent prices rose $2.03 to settle at $56.15 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.-AP

Obamas rock and rule

Americans find the Obamas' image of the family next door endearing and inspirational. -- PHOTO: AP

WASHINGTON - FANS swooning over the First Family's every move, wall-to-wall media coverage and one pampered pooch: the Obamas are the planet's hottest rock stars busy revamping the image of the US presidency.

In the 100 days since President Barack Obama and his family arrived in the White House there has been no sign of any let-up in the Obamania which swept the globe during the 2008 campaign.

Rather it has moved to the next level.

Magazine editors fight for the coolest image of the new president and his wife, Michelle, whether digging in the new organic garden, showing off their honed muscles, or romping with the First dog, Bo.

A new swing set adorns the White House lawn for the girls, rock stars have given intimate invitation-only concerts, and the White House has been dragged into the Internet age after Obama was allowed to keep his beloved Blackberry.

And even though the United States is in the grip of its worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s, it seems the Obamas can do no wrong.

'This is Camelot the Sequel,' said Robert Watson, director of American studies at Lynn University, Florida, referring to the name given to the brief White House reign of John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie, seen as a golden era for the US presidency.

And unlike the Kennedys, the Obamas come from ordinary, middle-class families, born without the advantages of privilege and wealth. It is exactly this image of the family next door, which so many Americans as well as people around the world, find both endearing and inspirational, analysts argue.

'They represent more than just the president and first lady, more than just partisan Democrats, more than just African-Americans,' said Carl Sferrazza Anthony, historian to the Ohio-based National First Ladies' Library.

He highlighted Michelle Obama's authenticity and her down-to-earth nature, seen in the way she mixes chain store clothes with designer outfits. The First Lady, who only last year was criticized as an 'angry black woman,' has reinvented her image as mom-in-chief, focusing on family issues and often seen hugging and laughing with children.

Last week she joked with visiting kids that she didn't miss having to cook the dinner, and revealed she and her staff sometimes 'sneak out, without telling anybody, and we go and test out all the fun places to eat in DC'. -- AFP