Dubai continues crackdown on businesses violating COVID-19 safety measures

Dubai continues crackdown on businesses violating COVID-19 safety measures

NICOSIA: Dissident Iranian singer Omid Tootian has for days been sleeping in a tent in the buffer zone of the world's last divided capital, after being refused entry by the Republic of Cyprus.

"I can't go to one side or the other,“ the performer, in his mid-40s, whose songs speak out against Iranian authorities, told AFP. "I'm stuck living in the street.“

His tent is pitched between two checkpoints in western Nicosia, among the weeds outside an abandoned house in the quasi-"no man's land“ that separates the northern and southern parts of Cyprus, which has been divided since 1974.

In early September, he traveled to the north of the Mediterranean island, controlled by the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), recognized only by Ankara.

Two weeks later, Tootian, who had been living in