 SAN'A, Yemen—For 10 days this summer, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab took language classes in this ancient city on the Arabian Peninsula. He lived in student housing, appearing to his fellow students to be devout, friendly and generally content. Then, he was gone. New details in the case of Mr. Abdulmutallab, charged with attempting to bring down Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines Flight 253, have emerged suggesting that it was around this time that the young man met with the radical U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, according to a person familiar with intelligence shared among Arab states and a U.S. official.
The person familiar with Arab intelligence says Mr. Abdulmutallab met with a mysterious Saudi operative of al Qaeda. A few months later, on Christmas Day, he boarded the plane for Detroit, with 76 grams of explosives allegedly sewn into his underwear. Investigators in the U.S. and Yemen believe the meetings marked a critical turning point in Mr. Abdulmutallab's gradual transformation from pious Muslim to alleged terrorist. How and when his relationships were initially forged with al Qaeda and Mr. Awlaki, who has surfaced in multiple terror probes, is at the heart of the global scramble to trace Mr. Abdulmutallab's "radicalization"—and to determine how authorities could have missed the warning signs. Through most of his life, the Nigeria-born Mr. Abdulmutallab came off as a religious and inward young man, so opaque as to be virtually unknowable. He was intense and serious about Islam, but in a way that acquaintances judged to be within the mainstream. People familiar with the investigation say he began to quietly reach out to political extremists as a college student in London from 2005 to 2008, then apparently embedded more deeply with them as he hop-scotched around Africa and the Middle East. They say it was during his time in London that he was likely first exposed to Mr. Awlaki via the cleric's rabble-rousing anti-Western sermons on the Internet. He is believed to have reached out to the cleric at some point, but it couldn't be learned when that first contact was attempted or whether Mr. Awlaki responded. This account of Mr. Abdulmutallab's childhood and journey over the past few years is based on several dozen interviews with friends and associates, as well as government officials examining his movements in the U.S., Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Mr. Abdulmutallab, 23, is the son of Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, recently retired chairman of First Bank of Nigeria PLC and one of the country's most prominent businessmen. People who encountered Mr. Abdulmutallab at various stages of his life describe him as a young man who studied Islam, prayed frequently and radiated loneliness. As a boy in Kaduna, Nigera, Mr. Abdulmutallab earned the nickname "ustaz," or "scholarly man." He steered clear of the country-club parties and polo matches frequented by other wealthy kids. He was "a nice boy who had no friends," recalls Musa Umar Dumawa, director of the Islamic school Mr. Abdulmutallab attended in Kaduna. Yet in Internet postings attributed to him as a teenager, he also fretted about his isolation: "Either people do not want to get close to me as they go partying and stuff while I don't, or they are bad people who befriend me and influence me to do bad things." From childhood on, Mr. Abdulmutallab was exposed to circumstances that could have shaped his political views. Kaduna was home to growing anti-Western sentiment among Muslims, fueled in part by clashes with Christians that erupted in 2000, when the local governor considered imposing Sharia, or Islamic law. After a few years at boarding school in Togo, Mr. Abdulmutallab in 2004 ventured to Yemen, where a growing number of Islamic extremists have been relocating from Pakistan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. From fall 2004 to spring 2005, he studied at the San'a Institute for Arabic Language, according to Mohammed Al-Anisi, the institute's director. "He knew how to read and write in Arabic because he had learned to read the Quran being a Muslim, but his speaking abilities were very limited," recalls Mr. Anisi. Mr. Abdulmutallab began his year in San'a shortly after Mr. Awlaki, the radical cleric, returned to the city after 14 years in the U.S. and London. While Mr. Abdulmutallab was studying Arabic in San'a's Old City, Mr. Awlaki was making a name for himself as a vibrant newpreacher. He gave regular Friday sermons at the Yehya al-Ghader mosque on the city's Western periphery. He lectured at the Al Iman University, founded by Sheikh Abdel Majeed Zindani in 1995, who both the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the U.N. Security Council have named as an affiliate of al Qaeda. There is no evidence to suggest that Mr. Abdulmutallab ever attended Mr. Awlaki's sermons or lectures or met the cleric during this period. Mr. Abdulmutallab harbored dreams of studying engineering in the U.S. at Stanford University or the California Institute of Technology, but in the fall of 2005, he enrolled in the mechanical engineering program at University College London. Internet postings from early 2005 that appear to have been written by Mr. Abdulmutallab show a craving for the fellowship of a student Islamic society. At UCL, he quickly hooked up with the university's Islamic group. There, Mr. Abdulmutallab was often seen dressed in traditional white robe and skull cap. He arrived at class on his own, says Derek Wong, a fellow student. Others recall he was friendly but declined invitations to drink or socialize. Michael Kangawa, a student, says Mr. Abdulmutallab invited him to talks on Islam, none of which "sounded sinister in the slightest." Through the UCL Islamic Society, for which he served as president in 2006 and 2007, Mr. Abdulmutallab became involved in politics. One former student recalls that in the summer of 2006 Mr. Abdulmutallab solicited signatures for a petition against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and against Western support for Israel. "He was very passionate and very articulate," this person says. Qasim Fariq, Mr. Abdulmutallab's predecessor as the society's president, says he saw no signs of a budding militant. "If he'd had radical views, that would have raised a question mark about his suitability to be president," says Mr. Fariq. "He never expressed any extremist inclinations." U.K. intelligence agencies, now combing through his history, say that Mr. Abdulmutallab was flirting with a more radical form of Islam. While a student, people familiar with the matter say, he made contact with several extremists who were being monitored by the security services. Yet security agencies have so far found no evidence that he was contemplating violence while in the U.K. or posed a threat to national security. "It looks pretty aspirational, and it doesn't look as if he got particularly far," a British official says. While in the U.K., he gave the impression of "a young guy who's trying to start out on a journey.... We see many people who start out on that journey and very few of them reach the point where they are willing to blow up people on tube trains." Mr. Abdulmutallab's movements became harder to track after he graduated from UCL in June 2008. He appears to have cut himself off from college acquaintances. "In December, I sent him an instant message when I saw he was online, but he never replied," says Mr. Fariq. "I was surprised he'd cut off contact so abruptly." Mr. Abdulmutallab bounced around the world. His application to obtain a visa to travel to the U.S. raised no red flags, and he visited Houston—home to an estimated 100,000 Nigerian immigrants—in August 2008. He stayed for about two weeks, attending an Islamic seminar run by a nonprofit educational group called the Al Maghrib Institute and staying at a Sheraton hotel on the outskirts of downtown. In October, he turned up in Nigeria. There, he approached Abdulkareem Durosinlorun, the director of a small Islamic primary school in Kaduna, with a proposal to teach a course on Prophetic medicine, the ways of healing according to the Prophet Muhammad. "He spoke about combating demons of power, or money," says Bilquees Abdul Azees, who attended the two-day course. "His solution was that if you have faith in Allah, you will persevere." In January 2009, Mr. Abdulmutallab arrived in Dubai with his father, according to a person familiar with intelligence shared between Arab governments investigating the Nigerian's movements. He applied for a student visa and enrolled at University of Wollongong, the Dubai-based campus of the Australian institute, to pursue a degree in international business, which involves courses in finance, accounting and human resources. He lived in student housing, played basketball on the side, and struck fellow students and faculty as diligent and quiet. University President Robert J. Whelan says Mr. Abdulmutallab was a "hard-working" student who scored "above-average" grades. In April 2009, he applied for a visa to attend an eight-day course provided by Discovery Life Coaching based in east London. The U.K. Border Agency refused the application because Discovery Life didn't hold valid accreditation as an educational institution and wasn't eligible to sponsor international students in Britain. Attempts to find a company called Discovery Life in that area were unsuccessful. He completed only two semesters in Dubai, failing to pay his fees for what would have been his third and final semester before graduating. During his final days in Dubai in early August, he sent his father an SMS text saying he was headed to Yemen to study Arabic, according to the person familiar with Arab intelligence sharing. He left the country Aug. 4 "and never showed up again" in Dubai, this person said. Near the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began Aug. 22, Mr. Abdulmutallab returned to the language institute in Yemen where he had studied as a teenager. Mr. Anisi, the institute's director, says the young man appeared more serious, withdrawn and pious than the student who had left four years earlier. People who were there say he stayed no more than 10 days before leaving. "He said it was Ramadan and he wanted to focus on praying," said one student. Matthew Salmon, a 27-year-old Canadian student, lived next door to Mr. Abdulmutallab in this period. They talked about religion, with Mr. Abdulmutallab gently proselytizing and focusing on Quranic verses that spoke of tolerance for Christians and Jews. "More than anything else, he seemed like someone who had found some peace in the religion he subscribed to. ... He was honest, he was happy, and there was absolutely no malice in the guy that I could detect." In early September, Mr. Salmon had a final conversation with him. "I asked him how long he planned on staying in Yemen, and he said a month or two depending on how long the money held up and how his studying progressed. The next day he was gone, his room was empty and that was the end of it." Yemeni officials say Mr. Abdulmutallab left San'a and traveled to the rugged tribal-controlled southern province of Shabwa, where al Qaeda has a strong presence and where Mr. Awlaki has lived at least the past two years. There, Mr. Abdulmutallab met with al Qaeda leaders in Yemen and "likely" Mr. Awlaki, according to Yemen's government. The person familiar with intelligence sharing among Arab states and a U.S. official say Mr. Abdulmutallab met face-to-face with Mr. Awlaki, but it's unclear where or when. This person says Mr. Abdulmutallab befriended an al Qaeda operative while attending a mosque in downtownSan'a. A U.S. security official says the mosque has been frequented by al Qaeda members. "Slowly, slowly, he started liking them, and he got their trust," this person said of Mr. Abdulmutallab. His precise itinerary after leaving Yemen is in dispute. What is known is that he arrived in Ghana in early December, staying about two weeks and buying an airline ticket for travel later in the month, according to the Ghana government. On Dec. 24, he flew to Lagos and proceeded to Amsterdam after a brief stopover. On Dec. 25, he boarded Flight 253 in Amsterdam, headed for Detroit. WSJ 
 Of course, if Islamic countries really want to dispel "stereotypes" of Islam, they could move energetically against Islamic supremacist initiatives in all their forms, and triumphalist proclamations by Islamic clerics of how Islam will soon take over Europe and the West, and rein in those who commit violence and justify it with reference to Islamic texts and teachings. Naaah. Sports and entertainment projects are easier. "Islam: OneWorld 2011, Initiative To Defeat Stereotypes," from ANSAmed, January 13 DUBAI, JANUARY 13 - Today in Dubai, OneWorld 2011 was presented, an ambitious project that aims to defeat stereotypes and misunderstandings between Muslims and the West by creating and event-movement founded on sharing sports, art, entrepreneurship, and reciprocal understanding.
The initiative will be inaugurated in Seattle (USA) on the 10th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center in New York, and will involve at least 40 Muslim countries.
The initiative is founded on seven essential elements: youth exchange programmes, with both sides hosting youngsters for at least a month; sports, with football tournaments - mainly women's - between young Americans and Muslims; an art and cultural festival; a trade bazaar that will gather hundreds of entrepreneurs from both sides; a medical conference; a conference dedicated to women; and an inter-religious conference that has already received the full support of U.S. President Barack Obama.
"The idea was born seven years ago, due to the climate created after the 9/11 attacks, but the conditions for the start of a real project, which will begin as an event that will last for just a few months, but intends constantly evolve, were set in place only after the election of President Obama," explained Bob Walsh, the creator and founder of OneWorld 2011, while speaking to ANSAmed. Walsh is not new to these kinds of initiatives; in 1990, together with Ted turner [sic] he organised the Goodwill Game to bring down the iron curtain between the Russians and Americans.
After the inaugural event in Seattle, OneWorld will be repeated every two years in a different Muslim capital city.
 THREE people have been arrested at London's Heathrow airport after a security scare on a Dubai-bound Emirates flight, police say, amid reports officers stormed the plane and took the suspects off. "Three people have been arrested at Heathrow this evening. They are currently in police custody. The airport remains open,'' a statement from London's Metropolitan Police Service said. Friday evening's alert came amid heightened security at airports around the world following an alleged attempt by a young Nigerian to bomb a plane landing in Detroit on Christmas Day by concealing explosives in his underwear. Sky News television said police intervened after verbal threats were made and that the men arrested were English and appeared to be drunk. The broadcaster showed a photograph purportedly of officers in black overalls inside the aircraft, taken by a passenger on the flight. "Some special police just came on the plane and arrested these two guys a few rows in front of me,'' Mr McLean said. "The police just swarmed the guy and then rushed him out. I think he was a white male. There was another one as well, I didn't see him,'' he said. One of the men was taken off in handcuffs, Mr McLean said. The passenger added there were about five armed officers who were wearing helmets, body armour and carrying what appeared to be automatic weapons. A spokesman for airport operator BAA confirmed a "security incident'' on the plane but said it only affected the Dubai-bound Emirates plane. The alert came after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, allegedly tried to detonate a device stitched into his underwear on a flight from Amsterdam as it landed in Detroit on Christmas Day. In a court in Detroit on Friday, he pleaded not guilty to six charges related to the incident, which has led to security being stepped at airports worldwide. Full-body scanners are to be introduced at Britain's airports and Heathrow - one of the world's busiest air hubs - will be the first to receive the devices before the end of the month, Home Secretary Alan Johnson has said. The Australian
 The distorted priorities of Sharia law in action. "British woman 'arrested in Dubai after being raped'," by Chris Irvine for the Telegraph, January 8 The woman, a Muslim of Pakistani descent, was celebrating her engagement to her 44-year-old boyfriend, and was allegedly attacked when she passed out in a hotel lavatory. Despite approaching police about the attack, she was arrested after admitting to "illegal drinking" outside licensed premises as well as having sexual intercourse outside marriage. Her fiancé was also charged with the same offences. The couple from London are now reportedly on bail and understood to be awaiting trial after having their passports confiscated. Should they be found guilty, they could face up to six years in jail. The woman, who is said to have accepted her boyfriend's marriage proposal during a three-day break, admitted drinking too much alcohol as they celebrated at Dubai Marina's Address Hotel. The waiter, believed to be Syrian, is then said to have followed her into the toilets and raped her while she was in a state of semi-consciousness. After her fiancé found out about the attack, they contacted police, but they were questioned about breaking the country's strict rules, which contain elements of Sharia law. She was then made to give a blood test to prove she had been drinking, and only was given access to proper medical checks following an appeal from the British embassy, it is claimed. A cellmate of the woman told The Sun: "She's a British girl but a Muslim, so I think they were tougher on her because of that. "She was trying to report the rape but soon realised the policemen were more interested in how often she has sex with her boyfriend." Her attacker is believed to have denied rape, claiming she consented, but he has also been charged with "illegal sex". A spokesman for the Foreign Office told The Daily Telegraph: "We can confirm two British nationals were arrested in Dubai on 1 January. Our embassy in Dubai is providing consular assistance and we cannot confirm or release further details about the case"
 A JOURNALIST sacked from a leading Arab news channel says she was dumped for following up Australian media reports stemming from a near miss involving an Emirates Airlines jet at Melbourne airport last year. American journalist Courtney Radsch wrote a report that mentioned the incident -- in which an Emirates jet almost failed to take off due to incorrect payload data -- and subsequent safety concerns for Al Arabiya's English site. Her article drew on a Sunday Herald Sun story revealing that Emirates pilots complained about fatigue to air safety authorities months before the near disaster. Radsch, who was the associate editor of the site, said she immediately came under internal pressure from management at the Dubai-based channel to withdraw the article. "One of the heads of the channel came over and said that this article was causing problems and it needed to be taken down," she said. "I said to them: `There is supposed to be a separation between editorial and business' and they kind of laughed it off," she said. "In the end my colleagues were urging me to take the story off. It wasn't worth going to jail for or being fined thousands of dollars for, so I decided that if Al Arabiya wasn't going to stand up for the story then I wasn't either." She said new media laws in Dubai meant journalists could be imprisoned or fined for writing stories that had on impact on Dubai's economy.
Despite taking the article down, Radsch was then told she had lost her position due to a "restructure". She believes it was actually as a result of pressure from Emirates over the story. An Emirates spokesman denied the claim, saying: "Emirates does not interfere with the operations of Al Arabiya." The airline's Australian-based public relations firm -- PPR -- also supplied a statement the airline released following Radsch's report, claiming inaccuracies. Al Arabiya did not respond to requests for comment. The Australian
 Dubai is set to open the world's tallest skyscraper Monday amid the Gulf emirate’s financial woes. The Burj Dubai tower contains 57 elevators, 1,044 apartments, 49 floors of office space and a hotel. It can be seen from as far as 59 miles away and is estimated to have cost one billion dollars. While the exact height of the building is under wraps, Emaar, the firm that developed the property, says it exceeds 2,640 feet, putting it far higher than Taiwan's Taipei 101 tower. "We thought that it would be slightly taller than the existing tallest tower of Taipei 101. (Emaar) kept on asking us to go higher but we didn't know how high we could go," Bill Baker, a partner in Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), which designed the tower, told the AFP. "We were able to tune the building like we tune a music instrument. As we went higher and higher and higher, we discovered that by doing that process... we were able to reach heights much higher than we ever thought we could.” With a new title holder, the tallest building in the United States would drop to fifth place in the world. That would be the Willis Tower, formerly the Sears Tower, in Chicago at 1,389 feet. The Freedom Tower, planned for the former site of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers in New York City, is expected to rise 1,776 feet. It is due to be completed in 2013. Property prices in Dubai have dived over 50 percent over the past year and some believe the skyscrpaer will be the last of the giant projects that have brought global fame to Dubai. FoxNews
 David Yerushalmi charts one aspect of "the baneful work of...Western imams and their infidel advisers in business suits." "Shariah finance: The deadly Jihadist weapon with a dollar sign," by David Yerushalmi in the Washington Examiner, December 30: News of the recent financial meltdown of Dubai World -- a quasi-sovereign global concern that owns 77 percent of the international port manager DP World and the single largest real estate developer in Dubai known for its palm-tree shaped luxury residential developments -- raced from the business pages to the headlines of the front pages in a matter of days. Since the first reports on Thanksgiving, the Wall Street Journal and just about every other major media outlet reported extensively on the worldwide implications of this latest financial shock wave. What makes this story more than simply one of a massive real estate investment company gone bad is the double-edged sword so prevalent in the chase for oil-based Middle East wealth: Sovereign wealth funds and Shariah-compliant finance. Beginning in the 1970s with the Carter-era oil embargo and accelerating during the post-9/11 $100+ oil price spikes, Persian Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates' wealthiest city-state of Abu Dhabi have been awash in liquidity. And, these trillion-dollar cash reserves are controlled in every case by the respective royal families, typically in sovereign or quasi-sovereign wealth funds. Another phenomenon that followed the great oil rush of the post-9/11 era was the promotion and aggressive exportation of the Muslim Brotherhood doctrine of SCF. The concept of SCF was articulated by men like Sayyid Qutb of Egypt and Abul Ala Maududi of Pakistan in the mid-20th century, both of whom argued for a Jihad against Westernization, and the creation of Islamic polities that would ultimately join in a hegemonic worldwide caliphate.
The goal was that of establishing Shariah not merely as the supreme law of the land, but as the supreme law of the world. In the post-9/11 era, Western imams and their infidel advisers in business suits speaking the queen's English have understood that given the global Jihad's reliance on the dictates of Shariah to murder apostates and to terrorize the infidels into submission, SCF must be attired in a kind of progressive Western garb to attract the attention of the financial centers in London, Hong Kong and New York. So it was that SCF became known as "ethical investing" and Western and Muslim financiers began lecturing the world that the fraud and abuse of the financial markets, such as the Enron debacle and more recently the subprime securitization meltdown, were all driven by the desire for forbidden gain through interest and gambling. They told us that SCF was based not on forbidden interest and speculative paper assets, but profits through equity participation and sound investing in real assets. Dubai World, a company wholly owned by the Dubai sovereign has funded itself through debt to the tune of $60 billion. The Dubai debt now in default just happens to be SCF bonds, or "sukuk." These bonds pay interest just like their forbidden cousins in the Western markets, but the interest is put into a black box of Shariah-created fictions and "special purpose vehicles" to keep the forbidden interest off the books. What we now see as a real estate bubble collapse in Dubai is no different and no more or less ethical than any other financial failure. But, what makes this collapse so problematic is precisely what makes SCF and sovereign wealth funds so dangerous.... Read it all. With thanks to JihadWatch
 A man tried to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu last month carrying powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that could have caused an explosion in a case bearing chilling similarities to the terrorist plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The Somali man — whose name has not yet been released — was arrested by African Union peacekeeping troops before the Nov. 13 Daallo Airlines flight took off. It had been scheduled to travel from Mogadishu to the northern Somali city of Hargeisa, then to Djibouti and Dubai. A Somali police spokesman, Abdulahi Hassan Barise, said the suspect is in Somali custody. "We don't know whether he's linked with al-Qaida or other foreign organizations, but his actions were the acts of a terrorist. We caught him red-handed," said Barise. A Nairobi-based diplomat said the incident in Somalia is similar to the attempted attack on the Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day in that the Somali man had a syringe, a bag of powdered chemicals and liquid — tools similar to those used in the Detroit attack. The diplomat spoke on condition he not be identified because he isn't authorized to release the information. Barigye Bahoku, the spokesman for the African Union military force in Mogadishu, said the chemicals from the Somali suspect could have caused an explosion that would have caused air decompression inside the plane.
However, Bahoku said he doesn't believe an explosion would have brought the plane down. A second international official familiar with the incident, also speaking on condition of anonymity because he isn't authorized to discuss the case, confirmed that the substances carried by the Somali passenger could have been used as an explosive device. In the Detroit case, alleged attacker Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab hid explosive PETN in a condom or condom-like bag just below his torso when he traveled from Amsterdam to Detroit.
Like the captured Somali, Abdulmutallab also had a syringe filled with liquid. The substances seized from the Somali passenger are being tested. The November incident garnered little attention before the Dec. 25 attack aboard a flight on final approach to Detroit. U.S. officials have now learned of the Somali case and are hastening to investigate any possible links between it and the Detroit attack, though no officials would speak on the record about the probe. U.S. investigators said Abdulmutallab told them he received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen — which lies across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia. Similarly, large swaths of Somalia are controlled by an insurgent group, al-Shabab, which has ties to al-Qaida. Western officials say many of the hundreds of foreign jihadi fighters in Somalia come in small boats across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen. The officials also say that examination of equipment used in some Somali suicide attacks leads them to believe it was originally assembled in Yemen. Law enforcement officials believe the suspect in the Detroit incident tried to ignite a two-part concoction of the high explosive PETN and possibly a glycol-based liquid explosive, setting off popping, smoke and some fire but no deadly detonation.
Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian national, is charged with trying to destroy an aircraft. A Somali security official involved in the capture of the suspect in Mogadishu said he had a 1-kilogram (2.2-pound) package of chemical powder and a container of liquid chemicals. The security official said the suspect was the last passenger to try to board. Once security officials detected the powder chemicals and syringe, the suspect tried to bribe the security team that detained him, the Somali security official said. The security official said the suspect had a white shampoo bottle with a black acid-like substance in it. He also had a clear plastic bag with a light green chalky substance and a syringe containing a green liquid. The security official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information. The powdered material had the strong scent of ammonia, Bahoku said, and samples have been sent to London for testing. The Somali security officials said the Daallo Airlines flight was scheduled to go from Mogadishu to Hargeisa, to Djibouti and then to Dubai. A spokeswoman for Daallo Airlines said that company officials weren't aware of the incident and would have to seek more information before commenting. Daallo Airlines is based in Dubai and has offices in Djibouti and France. YahooNews
 UMAR Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of attempting to detonate an explosive aboard a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day, spent about 2½ months in Dubai on a student visa, starting in May 2009, according to an official here familiar with the situation. Mr Abdulmutallab enrolled in a master's degree program at the Dubai campus of the University of Wollongong, said the official, who is familiar with the man's immigration status. His enrollment at the school was previously reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The school is one of many foreign universities that have set up branch campuses in Persian Gulf states to attract foreign students to their programs.
During his brief stay, Mr Abdulmutallab didn't exhibit any signs of radicalism, according to this official.
The school, like all universities based here, offers visa support to foreign students. The website for the Dubai campus of Wollongong says master's degree courses range in cost from about $18,000 to $25,000 for a degree.
 The man charged with attempting to destroy a U.S. airliner on Friday is the son of prominent Nigerian banker and had been a college student in Britain before moving to Dubai, according to family and official sources. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, received a college degree at the University College of London, according to a source who lives at the family home in Kaduna, Nigeria. Dave Weston, a spokesman for the university, said a man named Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was enrolled in the mechanical engineering department between September 2005 and June 2008. His father, Alhaji Umar Mutallab, recently retired as chairman of First Bank PLC, one of the Nigeria's premier banks, said the source, who lives at the family home in Kaduna, Nigeria. Abdulmutallab went to Dubai to study for a second degree, the family source told CNN, but contacted his family to so say he was moving to Yemen, implying that he was leaving "for the course of Islam." It was after this communication that his father contacted security services and the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, to warn that he feared his son might intend to participate in "some kind of jihad," the family source said. The family member said Abdulmutallab "had no family consent or support" and that he "absconded to Yemen." Abdulmutallab's last known London address was a basement apartment in a wealthy neighborhood. On Saturday, counterterrorism police officers police went in and out of an ornate building on Mansfield Street where Abdulmutallab apparently lived. Abdulmutallab was granted a multiple-year, multiple-entry tourist visa at the U.S. Embassy in London in June 2008, a senior U.S. administration official familiar with the case told CNN on Saturday. At the time, there was "no derogatory information that would have prevented him from getting a visa," said the official. When Abdulmuttalab returned to Nigeria from London, he told his family he wanted to get a second college degree in Cairo or Saudi Arabia, the family source said. The family refused, because they were worried that he may have developed ties to some dubious people. He went to Dubai instead, the source said. CNN
 DUBAI (Reuters) – Abu Dhabi stepped in to help fellow United Arab Emirates member Dubai with a $10 billion injection, of which $4.1 billion was allocated to troubled state-owned conglomerate Dubai World to pay immediate obligations, Dubai said on Monday. The move was the least expected of all options Dubai had on the table after requesting a standstill on $26 billion in Dubai World debt on November 25, alarming markets and shaking the image of the emirate as a regional business hub. "The government of Abu Dhabi has agreed to fund $10 billion to the Dubai Financial Support Fund that will be used to satisfy a series of upcoming obligations on Dubai World," the chairman of the Dubai Supreme Fiscal Committee said in a statement. "As a first action for the new fund, the government of Dubai has authorized $4.1 billion to be used to pay the sukuk obligations that are due today." The yen fell sharply against other currencies on the news, while the dollar shot up to 88.90 yen and the euro also jumped to 130.43 yen. S&P futures jumped to be up 0.7 percent, reversing early losses and pushing Treasury futures to session lows. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index shot up 300 points in the last minutes of morning trade to finish in positive territory, while other markets across Asia also pushed higher. Abu Dhabi is the largest member of the United Arab Emirates federation and a big oil exporter. "We are here today to reassure investors, financial and trade creditors, employees, and our citizens that our government will act at all times in accordance with market principles and internationally accepted business practices," Sheikh Ahmed bin Saaed al-Maktoum said in the statement. "Dubai is, and will continue to be, a strong and vibrant global financial center. Our best days are yet to come." Excess funds would be used to cater to Dubai Worlds needs up until the end of April 2010, the statement said. Dubai has announced a bankruptcy law that it said could be used in case Dubai World and creditors failed to reach an agreement on debt maturing in the future. "Dubai will announce a comprehensive reorganization law, a framework that is based upon internationally accepted standards for transparency and creditor protection," Sheikh Ahmed said. "This law will be available should Dubai World and its subsidiaries be unable to achieve an acceptable restructuring of its remaining obligations." Yahoo News
 The emirate of Dubai has in the past few decades been more than a shiny example of glitzy capitalism and the insulation from the repercussions (and responsibilities) of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It has represented the type of political model which has been promoted to the Arabs, by their rulers and by the West. When George W Bush, the former US president, visited the United Arab Emirates during his last year in office, he praised Dubai and its models of economic and political prosperity; he promoted the UAE's mantra and ethos as glimmers of hope to the new generation of Arabs. It took the former president little more than a few hours during his stop-over to assess the conditions in the region, and to reach his conclusions: resistance to Israel clashes with the type of prosperity that was prevalent in Dubai. Dubai hit a dramatic rise in the 1990s and became a success story that was carefully calibrated, promoted and disseminated in the Arab media and collective psyche. Daniel Pipes, who has a reputation for hostility towards Arabs and Muslims, was interviewed two years ago in the Jerusalem Post praising Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, after the release of his memoirs. There was not one word about Palestine in that book which nevertheless offered a recipe of unregulated and unrestricted capitalism. Dubai was supposed to be the antithesis of Palestine. It was designed to create a concrete Utopia that would encourage all young Arabs to forget about their political aspirations and dreams. In Lebanon, the March 14 opposition movement has been posing this question to the Lebanese people for three years: Hanoi or Dubai? But Hanoi is today a far more promising model than Dubai. Not only has Hanoi been liberated from foreign occupation and a corrupt puppet regime, but it has also become part of a sovereign country with a record of fast economic growth. Much has been written about Dubai and even more will be written about the emirate which was positioned as the success story that all Arabs were to emulate. However, its success is not based on sound economic or classical political theories. It was in fact a projection of what the West wanted to see in the Middle East. This projection represented the fruits of US co-operation with Middle Eastern governments, especially in the realm of defence and national security. Dubai was more important for the US due to military intelligence co-operation than for its lavish seven-star hotels. Dubai was supposed to be a vision but one not rooted in the productive sectors of the economy. There were early warnings of the debacle that struck Dubai World - too much glitz and ostentation and little attention to a careful building of culture and economy that reflect the region. There was a rush to build multi-billion dollar artificial ski slopes and playgrounds for the very rich of the world. But Dubai did not want to be part of the region, politically speaking. Instead it modelled itself as a copy of Las Vegas in the heart of the Arab Middle East. Dubai carefully steered away from all the issues that alarmed and agitated Arab public opinion. More at Al Jazeera
 The cost of insuring Dubai sovereign debt against default rose on the news.
Indeed, the country's credit-default swap spreads -- a key measure of credit risk -- stood at around 540 basis points late in northern hemisphere trading, which is nearly 40 basis points wider on the day. Moody's downgraded its issuer ratings for DP World, Dubai Electricity & Water Authority, Jebel Ali Free Zone, Dubai Holding Commercial Operations Group, Emaar Properties and DIFC Investments. All remain on review for further downgrade, the agency said in an emailed statement. "This rating action follows recent comments and statements from government officials, which cause us to believe that no meaningful government support should be assumed for any entity that is not directly part of or formally guaranteed by the government," said Philipp Lotter, senior vice-president for Gulf corporates at Moody's in Dubai. The downgrades come after the Dubai government announced last week that it will seek a six-month payment freeze on debts of one of its biggest conglomerates Dubai World, which owns real-estate developer Nakheel.
The company is estimated to have liabilities close to $US60 billion ($66bn), of which $US26bn is debt.
The Dubai government has since said it wouldn't guarantee the debts of Dubai World. Moody's said it also downgraded various baseline credit assessments to reflect "increased liquidity challenges in a tougher financing environment that we expect will continue for a protracted period", and "the longer term implications thereof on Dubai's economy". It also reduced the government support assumptions for all six issuers, Moody's said. "All ratings now reflect the respective company's stand-alone credit profile with the exception of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority and DIFC Investments," Moody's said. These ratings include one notch uplift for government support recognizing their stronger strategic linkage to Dubai's core economic development policies, it said. The Australian
 Therein lies the assumption that all acts of jihadist terrorism must be a response to some kind of provocation (real or imagined) from non-Muslims: after all, the apologists keep telling us "defensive" jihad is quite alright, caliph or no caliph. The Fraggle-haired dictator also quips "I don't think anyone in the Muslim world will from now on authorise the construction of a church."
This is ironic, of course, since 1.) it's not like the Muslim world has welcomed churches or freedom of worship with open arms up to now, and 2.) restrictions on building non-Muslim houses of worship are enshrined in the Pact of Umar, which has provided a far-reaching precedent for oppressing non-Muslims in a variety of ways. For that matter, the minaret ban does not restrict worship or the construction of mosques. "Swiss inviting Qaeda hits," from Agence France-Presse, December 6: TRIPOLI - LIBYAN leader Moamer Kadhafi said the Swiss referendum banning the building of new minarets was an invitation for Al-Qaeda to launch attacks in Europe, the official news agency JANA reported on Sunday. 'They pretend they are 'fighting Al-Qaeda and terrorism' whereas in fact they have just rendered it the greatest service,' he said, referring to Switzerland with disdain as 'the mafia of the world.' 'On November 29, more than 57 per cent of Swiss voters approved a rightwing motion to ban minarets on mosques, a decision that has sparked an international backlash and charges of intolerance. ''Al-Qaeda militants are now saying: 'We warned you that they were our enemies... Look at what they are doing in Europe. Come and join us for a jihad (holy war) against Europe,'' Kadhafi said. 'The Libyan leader, speaking at an academic ceremony on Saturday in Zliten, 160 kilometres (100 miles) east of Tripoli, said Muslim countries now had an argument not to allow the building of new churches. 'I don't think anyone in the Muslim world will from now on authorise the construction of a church,' Kadhafi said. 'He warned Switzerland of an economic fallout of a rift with the Muslim world. 'You must think of your interests. You need gas, ports, the sea, solar energy, investments,' Kadhafi said. Investments: After all, things are going so swimmingly in Dubai. With thanks to JihadWatch
 FEARS are growing among Western banks that Dubai Holding, the personal investment vehicle of the emirate's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, will be the next state-owned Dubai company to default. The conglomerate went on a debt-fuelled spending spree in the past decade, borrowing $US12 billion ($13bn) to fund ambitious projects in Dubai and to create a private equity arm that bought stakes in Tussauds and budget hotel chain Travelodge. Together, Dubai World and Dubai Holding are thought to account for 60 to 70 per cent of Dubai's total debt. Research from Bank of America Merrill Lynch indicates that Dubai Holding has $US1.8bn due for repayment next year. Analysts at Barclays Capital said in a note last week that Dubai Holding was most at risk of defaulting on its debts after Dubai World because it had extensive property assets, was highly leveraged and had already faced problems in the past year. Insiders say the immediate focus is the $US3.5bn loan due for repayment by Nakheel, Dubai World's property arm, on December 14, which triggered Dubai's debt crisis. Details of the main lenders to Dubai Holding are not public, but bankers in Dubai say the group borrowed from international banks, including Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC, as well as local lenders. One official close to the company conceded the firm was "a bloody mess" and its boss, Mohammed Gergawi, a close confidant of Sheikh Mohammed, had been "in denial" about the problems it faced. "It's true that we were a very large holding company with very few checks and balances on what we did and how we operated," he said. However, he insisted the company had recently begun "restructuring and deleveraging in a sensible fashion". The once-sprawling conglomerate has been split into four divisions: property, leisure and hotels, investments and free zones -- tax-free business parks in Dubai. Thousands of staff have been laid off, notably in Dubai Properties, the firm's indebted real estate arm. He insisted there "is money available to meet our debt obligations", but conceded that the firm would have to work hard to reassure markets that was the case. There is growing mistrust of senior Dubai officials because last week's announcement of a standstill on debt repayments by Dubai World, which has $US60bn of debt, was made three weeks after Sheikh Mohammed categorically assured investors Dubai would pay its debts on time. Dubai Holding yesterday denied the firm faced any problems repaying its debts. The Australian
 The crisis in Dubai has gone beyond debt and become one surrounding the credibility of its leadership. Dubai World’s failure to honour its obligations has shaken faith among the international investment community in Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Emirate’s normally ebullient leader. The price of restoring it is likely to be much more than just more prudent borrowing and greater transparency. It is likely to be a demand for a restructuring at the top: this means a much clearer distinction between the Royal Family, the Dubai Government and the businesses of the glittering Emirate. “It has absolutely destroyed confidence. Who will do business with Dubai now?” said Christopher Davidson, an expert on Gulf economics at the University of Durham. “Sheikh Mohammed was hinting for years about a full sovereign guarantee behind these developers. “The international financial community, and I know this to be the case in London, won’t do business with Dubai again,” he said. It’s a really devastating scenario.” Experienced analysts no longer trust the Government’s statistics, claiming they do not fully reflect the amount Dubai owes its foreign creditors. EFG Hermes, a regional investment bank, thinks Dubai could owe as much as $150 billion (£91 billion), twice the size of the economy and two and half times its officially declared debt. Dubai World alone owes British banks $5 billion. The extent of Sheikh Mohammed’s personal holdings in the big state-owned companies is often unclear. “We are probably talking many many years before we see a resolution,” said Fahd Iqbal, Gulf strategist at EFG. Sheikh Mohammed, 60, who took over in 2006, has presided over Dubai’s final growth spurt. His image appears in every marble hotel lobby and public building. He is, in effect, a benign dictator, a man not to be crossed but who wants to be liked. His grand vision for Dubai, however, is over. Even if its richer neighbour Abu Dhabi helps it out again financially, it will not be with the blank cheque Sheikh Mohammed had hoped for. He may have surrounded himself with “yes men” who sugar-coated worsening news, but Sheikh Mohammed cast himself as Dubai’s chief executive and if this were a company he would be on his way. Such an outcome may not displease Abu Dhabi nor the United States. Dubai and Iran are trading partners, and arms shipments have been intercepted sailing from Dubai’s ports bound for the Islamic Republic. Sheikh Mohammed’s anointed successor is Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, 27, but he recently made a gaffe by telling the World Economic Forum that the economy was “humming again” just days before the Dubai World crisis. Sheikh Mohammed’s older brother and official deputy, Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, is largely unassociated with the boom and a more experienced possibility. Times Online
 Abu Dhabi is moving to bail out on a selective basis the state-owned Dubai World, whose debt default led to a sharp drop in global markets, a senior official has said.
The unnamed official told news agencies on Saturday that the United Arab Emirates' wealthy capital would "pick and choose" how to assist its debt-laden neighbour.
"We will look at Dubai's commitments and approach them on a case-by-case basis," the official told the Reuters news agency by telephone, adding: "It does not mean that Abu Dhabi will underwrite all of their debts." Dubai's crisis exploded on Wednesday when the emirate, known for opulent lifestyles and the world's tallest building, said it would delay payment on debt issued by Dubai World, triggering panic among investors and driving global markets down. Abu Dhabi's selective assistance for companies in "Dubai Inc", a network of quasi-sovereign industries, instead of blanket assistance, is likely to disappoint many investors who assumed the city would provide a safety net for its neighbour.
The official, who declined to be identified because he is not authorised to speak to the media, said: "Some of Dubai's entities are commercial, semi-government ones. Abu Dhabi will pick and choose when and where to assist."
At stake is the $59bn in debt held by Dubai World, the holding company, and Nakheel, its property arm, known for building palm-shaped islands for wealthy celebrities.
On Friday, stocks from Tokyo to Mumbai reacted badly to news of lenders' exposure in the firms that built artificial island housing developments in the Gulf emirate.
Banks in Asia and Europe were quick to distance themselves from Dubai, and shares on the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong plunged 3.45 per cent after the morning session, down 765.28 points to 21,445.13 as a result of the panic.
European stocks fell to lows not seen since May and bonds jumped after the restructuring was announced. Dubai, part of the oil-exporting UAE, said on Wednesday it would ask Dubai World creditors and Nakheel to agree to a standstill on billions of dollars of debt as a first step towards restructuring. Alia Moubayed, a senior economist at Barclays Capital in London and author of the Dubai Debt Problem report, said the "challenges Dubai is facing are considerable".
"The sources of financing, however, at this stage are ... the extent of the Abu Dhabi support that's likely to come through," she told Al Jazeera. More at Al Jazeera
 Iran has released five British sailors detained in the Gulf after their yacht reportedly strayed into Iranian waters. The official IRNA news agency said on Wednesday that the yachtsmen were released after an interrogation by Iranian authorities found "that their illegal entry was a mistake". Iran had warned on Tuesday the sailors would be prosecuted if it was proven they had "bad intentions". However, Britain said it was an innocent case of a vessel accidentally going astray into the Arabian Gulf. The detentions, announced by Britain on Monday, came after The Kingdom of Bahrain yacht veered into Iranian waters while travelling from Bahrain to Dubai. Britain had earlier called in Iran's ambassador to London on Tuesday to voice "increasing concern" over the detention of the five yachtsmen, as the sailors' boss said a mechanical problem had likely led to their seizure. Andrew Pindar, chairman of the Sail Bahrain team which owns the sailors' yacht, said it may have drifted into Iranian waters due to a damaged propeller. "We received a call from the crew stating that they had been stopped by an Iranian navy vessel," he said in a statement. "We understood that the crew believed they were in UAE waters, but due to a fault with the propeller, they may have inadvertently drifted into Iranian waters." They were believed to have been intercepted near the Iranian-controlled island of Abu Musa, whose ownership is disputed by Iran and the United Arab Emirates. The crew have been named as Oliver Smith, Oliver Young, Sam Usher, Luke Porter and David Bloomer, according to informed sources in London. Al Jazeera
 DUBAI World says it is in talks with banks to restructure about $US26 billion ($28bn) in debt, easing concerns that the government-owned investment arm will default on all of its $US60 billion in total liabilities. The restructuring will comprise several phases, and Dubai World says it is considering alternatives to its debt obligations. About $US6bn of the restructuring is related to its property unit, Nakheel World. Dubai World, a conglomerate spanning real estate, ports and leisure interests, was seeking a debt standstill, a move that weighed heavily on investor confidence worldwide. "Following a detailed review of the group's liquidity and capital structure, Dubai World has concluded that it should immediately consider alternatives in respect of the debt obligations of certain entities within the group," it said. "The proposed restructuring process will only relate to Dubai World and certain of its subsidiaries, including Nakheel World and Limitless World." Global jitters about a potential default caused stocks to plunge late last week on concerns about a potential new phase of the financial crisis. The announcement that banks are in talks about restructuring triggered a rally in US markets just ahead of the close. Investors were rattled earlier in the session after the Dubai government said it would not automatically rescue the investment vehicle. Moelis & Co has been appointed to advise on the restructuring, and Rothschild will remain a financial adviser. Dubai World says the restructuring will relate to only some of its subsidiaries, including Nakheel and Limitless World. The process will not include Infinity World Holding, Istithmar World, and Ports & Free Zone World, all of which are on "a stable financial footing," according to Dubai World. Separately, law firm Ashurst says it is representing a group of creditors, who account for about a quarter of the nominal value of a $US3.5bn Islamic bond due next month, issued by Dubai World's Nakheel property unit. The Australian
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SAN'A, Yemen—For 10 days this summer, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab took language classes in this ancient city on the Arabian Peninsula. He lived in student housing, appearing to his fellow students to be devout, friendly and generally content.
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