Sultan Jamalul Kiram III: Philippine Capital

Philippines Dept: "I'm the poorest sultan in the world," the ailing Kiram, 74, told The Associated Press in an interview in his residence in Maharlika village in the Philippine capital, according to Montreal Gazette. A stunned Malaysia, which runs the frontier resource-rich region of timberlands and palm oil plantations as its second-largest federal state, poured in elite police and army troops and called in airstrikes to quell what it saw as an armed intrusion and mANILA, Philippines - Unlike many other Muslim royalties basking in grand palaces and opulent lifestyles, Sultan Jamalul Kiram III's kingdom sits in a rundown two-story house in a poor Islamic community in Manila, the only hint of power and glory the title attached to his name. Although largely forgotten and dismissed as a vestige from a bygone era, Kiram's sultanate, once based in the southern province of Sulu, has sparked the biggest security crisis in Malaysia and the Philippines in decades -- early last month, he sent his younger brother with about 200 followers, dozens of them armed, by boat from southern Philippines to a village in Sabah state in neighbouring Malaysia to claim the land the sultanate insists belongs to them. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.