This country’s football fans have had much to celebrate recently, particularly with our national side’s third-place finish in the 2015 Asian Cup in Australia and the subsequent announcement that the UAE had won the right to host the 24-team tournament in four years time. Fifa, football’s world governing body, also revealed last week that the UAE will stage the Club World Cup in 2017 and 2018, beating competing bids from Brazil and Japan. Abu Dhabi previously hosted the eight-game, seven-team tournament in 2009 and 2010.
As anyone who went to either of those tournaments will recall, the Club World Cup has a special feel about it, bringing together the champions from six continents and the Arabian Gulf League’s top team. Maybe there is an opportunity this time around to broaden the staging arrangements and hold some of the games outside the capital. The striking and ultra-modern Hazza bin Zayed Stadium in Al Ain, for instance, is a ground fit for any of football’s elite.
The%20specs
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Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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SPECS
Mini John Cooper Works Clubman and Mini John Cooper Works Countryman
Engine: two-litre 4-cylinder turbo
Transmission: nine-speed automatic
Power: 306hp
Torque: 450Nm
Price: JCW Clubman, Dh220,500; JCW Countryman, Dh225,500
