A former prominent Kurdish-Iranian figure is in a critical condition after being stabbed in the neck, stomach and chest in Holland, local media reported.
Sadegh Zarza, 64, is a former member of the leadership of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, an armed exiled opposition group now based in northern Iraq. The attack took place on Saturday in the Dutch city of Leeuwarden.
His brother, Taher Zarza, told Leeuwarden Courant newspaper that Sadegh Zarza had been stabbed multiple times in an attempted assassination. Taher said that he suspects the operation was carried out by Iran and told the paper that the Dutch intelligence agency had previously foiled plots to kill his brother.
A 38-year-old man was arrested at the scene of the incident.
The Leeuwarden Courant reported that the incident happened after Sadegh received a call from an old acquaintance who asked him to help his son who was studying in Rotterdam. Sadegh agreed to meet the student at Leeuwarden train station where the suspect was waiting for him, holding a bouquet of flowers.
The paper quoted a whiteness saying, "When the victim arrived, he walked over to the car. They did not exchange any words; nothing. He immediately stabbed [him] through the passenger seat window."
Although he is in a critical condition, officials said that he is expected to recover.
News site Kurdistan24 reported that Sadegh Zarza was a KDPI commander for years, but fled to the Netherlands from Iran as a political refugee in 1986 after sustaining severe and permanently disabling injuries in a mortar attack.
The site also reported that Sadegh Zarza is the nephew of Abdulrahman Ghassemlou, another prominent Iranian Kurdish leader who was murdered in 1989 in Vienna by suspected Iranian assassins.
Iran has been accused of other attempted and successful extrajudicial killings overseas.
In January 2019, the European Union ordered sanctions against Iran after France, Denmark and the Netherlands said Tehran had plotted attacks in Europe, including political killings of Iranians living in the Netherlands in 2015 and 2017.
Tehran denied any involvement in the alleged attacks.
The latest incident comes a day after an Iranian judge who fled Tehran after being accused of corruption fell to his death from a hotel room in Bucharest.
Romanian police said an investigation was underway after a foreign national aged 52, who they identified as Gholamreza Mansouri, was found in the early afternoon.
The circumstances of his death are not yet clear, but the investigators' first lead is suicide, according to police sources.
Mansouri had been arrested last week in the Romanian capital on an Iranian extradition request but afterwards placed under judicial control, meaning he was banned from leaving the country and should regularly report to police. Mansouri was due to appear before a Romanian court on 10 July.
Mansouri was wanted in his homeland over alleged corruption within the country's judicial system amid reports he accepted more than Dh2 million in bribes.
Reporters Without Borders has accused him of torture and crimes against humanity following the 2013 detention of 20 journalists in Iran.
The pressure group filed a complaint with the public prosecutor general's office in Karlsruhe, Germany, on June 12.
The group had said at the time it believed Mansouri was "probably currently in Germany for medical treatment" and demanded his "immediate arrest."
Exiled hard-line opposition group People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (MEK) reacted by saying that Mansouri's death "is certainly suspicious".
"The regime was extremely concerned that in the event of a trial, Mansouri would reveal matters adversely affecting the mullahs", spokesman Shahin Gobadi told AFP.
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The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
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If you had all the money in the world, what’s the one sneaker you would buy or create?
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
FIXTURES
December 28
Stan Wawrinka v Pablo Carreno Busta, 5pm
Milos Raonic v Dominic Thiem, no earlier then 7pm
December 29 - semi-finals
Rafael Nadal v Stan Wawrinka / Pablo Carreno Busta, 5pm
Novak Djokovic v Milos Raonic / Dominic Thiem, no earlier then 7pm
December 30
3rd/4th place play-off, 5pm
Final, 7pm
Sheikh Zayed's poem
When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.
Your love is ruling over my heart
Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it
Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home
You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness
Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins
You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge
You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm
Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you
You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it
Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The rules on fostering in the UAE
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
Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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United States
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China
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UAE
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Japan
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Norway
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Canada
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Singapore
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Australia
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Saudi Arabia
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South Korea
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