ABU DHABI // A series of paintings capturing the speed and movement of football played on the streets of Baghdad is being shown at Footie Middle East, a three-day sport-related exhibition that began at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Company yesterday.
"The first word I ever said was football. It wasn't Mum or Dad," said the Iraqi artist Huthyfa Abdul Zahra, whose exhibit is entitled Football Passion.
His pop art-style paintings, which retail for around Dh7,000 (US$1,900), give the viewer a glimpse of life on the pitch rather than focusing on the portrait-style details that are usually seen in photographs.
He and his five brothers formed a team of their own and whether it was in their front room with a ping-pong ball or on the streets, football was always a strong part of the artist's life.
So much so, much of his work is drawn from memory.
"So much of the movement is already in my mind," he said. "I played for so long for two to three hours a day that it's inside me."
His first exhibition was in 1998 at the French Cultural Centre in Baghdad, where he sold his first piece, called Red Card, to the French ambassador.
"At the time it was something new. It had never been done regionally so people were quite excited about it, uniting art and football. It meant that you didn't have to understand art to understand my work. It reaches out to everyone."
Since moving to Abu Dhabi five years ago, Mr Zahra has exhibited in locations such as the Alliance Française to coincide with the 2006 World Cup.
Some of his subjects have included the likes of England's David Beckham and France's Zinedine Zidane but his favourite is the Argentine, Diego Maradona the man he calls his all time hero.
"He is a legend."
The Fifa Club World Cup tournament, which began on Wednesday, is his next event to paint. He and his son will watch the action this weekend, and he hopes to draw inspiration for his new work.
mswan@thenational.ae
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Rating: 4/5
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Motori Profile
Date started: March 2020
Co-founder/CEO: Ahmed Eissa
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Sector: Insurance Sector
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While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
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A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
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Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
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
