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"Why not?" said De Zerbi after Tottenham's 2-0 win over Chelsea. It was a "different Tottenham", he said.

"Not a different attitude. Different relationships with the players, different group."

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Tottenham have been threatening to improve. They should have won at Manchester United. They beat Coventry at home as expected. But this was a proper test albeit against a Chelsea side also finding their way under a new head coach. Spurs stood up to it.

"Before Man Utd, we spoke a lot in a big, big meeting, removing the mask and speaking honestly, clearly in front of ourselves," said De Zerbi. "And from that moment, I think we changed something in ourselves.

"We want to improve, improve, improve, to be better game by game, week by week. I think we have suffered enough."

From the moment Spurs changed ends at kick-off, a decision home fans groaned at, they had Chelsea where they wanted them despite the relentless wind and rain in their faces.

Omar Marmoush's first-half miss threatened the same old story, but perhaps their luck is changing now too. Mike Penders' error was a gift, but one that was deserved. Spurs will also argue a big decision went against them before the own goal, when Cole Palmer barged into Mateus Fernandes' head.

Fernandes also delivered the corner that Penders punched in. The midfielder was at the heart of everything. Playing at the base of Spurs' midfield three, he was outstanding. He had the most touches, passes, successful tackles and successful dribbles of any player on the pitch. His performance typified an evolving Tottenham side.

"We are working to change the last part of the club's history," said De Zerbi and they are heading in the right direction.
David Richardson

Arsenal 'unlock' their set-piece weapon

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Arsenal's perceived over reliance on set pieces was used as a stick to beat them with last season as they scored 25 goals from deadball scenarios, excluding penalties, en route to lifting the Premier League title.

It is an ominous sign for the rest of the league, then, that 'Set Piece FC' are level on points with leaders Manchester City having just scored their first set-piece goal, excluding penalties, in their eighth match.

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Mikel Arteta warns that Ezri Konsa's goal from a corner in the 2-0 win over Everton will "unlock" Arsenal from set-pieces moving forward.

What chance do the rest of the league have if this Arsenal side, that have found ways to win without set-pieces, have rediscovered their not so secret weapon? Brace yourself, you're going to be seeing a lot more of set-piece coach Nicolas Jover on your TV screens.
Zinny Boswell

Emery is working his magic on Jackson again

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Nicolas Jackson has always been a striker who gives you plenty to like and plenty to scream at. The running, the movement, the willingness to stretch defences and make life miserable for centre-backs have never really been in doubt. It is what happens when the ball reaches his feet in front of goal that has tended to leave manager's tearing their hair out.

But Unai Emery appears to be working his magic again.

Jackson's double in Aston Villa's 2-1 win over Manchester City took his tally to seven goals in eight starts for the club. It's not what we usually expect from Jackson.

Villa weren't buying a goalscorer. They have acquired a forward who brings so much to Emery's attacking structure. Jackson runs the channels relentlessly, occupies defenders and creates space for those arriving around him. Centre-backs do not get a quiet afternoon when he is leading the line. Man City, and especially Marc Guehi, found that out.

That industry has always been there. The difference now is the end product.

Villa have a striker who could take them to some special places this season. The hard yards were never the problem. Now the goals are following, too.
Lewis Jones

Donnarumma's aura of invincibility is beginning to fade

There was a time when Gianluigi Donnarumma felt like a goalkeeper that was unbeatable. He was being talked about as one of the best in the world before he had even reached adulthood, making his Italy debut aged just 17 years and 189 days. That was 10 years ago.

His mistake in Aston Villa's 2-1 win over Manchester City was another reminder that there are cracks in the armour. Since the start of last season, no goalkeeper has made more errors leading to shots in the Premier League than Donnarumma, with seven. Three of those mistakes have resulted in goals.

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That is a worrying trend for a goalkeeper operating at the very highest level. Errors happen, of course, but the frequency is becoming difficult to ignore.

There is an increasingly erratic element to his game with moments of uncertainty creeping into performances that once seemed defined by authority.

Perhaps the demands of English football are exposing weaknesses that were less obvious elsewhere. Perhaps it is simply a dip in form. Either way, City need their goalkeeper to be a source of security.
Lewis Jones

Forest's wastefulness is masking a very good team

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Nottingham Forest are becoming the Premier League's most frustrating watch. Not because they are playing badly, but because they are doing almost everything right apart from the bit that matters most.

Their 1-1 draw at Ipswich was another case of dominance without the reward. Forest racked up 2.31 expected goals, won the shot count 17-7 and had enough opportunities to put this game to bed. Instead, Neco Williams' first-half strike was all they had to show for their superiority, allowing Ipswich to snatch a point.

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This is becoming a worrying habit. No Premier League team has underperformed its expected goals tally more than Forest this season, scoring just six goals from chances worth 13.4 xG. That is a staggering shortfall and goes a long way towards explaining why they have managed just one win in eight games.

However, do not confuse poor finishing with poor football.

Forest rank sixth in the Premier League for expected goal difference, the measure of chances created minus those conceded. Opta's expected points model suggests they should have twice their current tally of six points. In other words, the underlying numbers paint the picture of a team performing considerably better than their results suggest.

Under an elite manager in Oliver Glasner, they are creating chances, controlling games and limiting opponents.

Forest are leaving points on the table. When their forwards finally start converting the opportunities their football deserves, they could be a very different proposition.
Lewis Jones %!s()

Mubarak’s successor, the Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi, was a sworn enemy of the United Arab Emirates, whose rulers feared the advance of Morsi’s Islamism.

The UAE, a key western ally, was concerned that David Cameron’s UK government was not strong enough on the Muslim Brotherhood and warned ministers it could pull billion-pound arms deals if Britain did not act.

A secret Whitehall unit was hastily established to keep the oil-rich emirates on side. Lucrative investment deals were offered in private meetings later revealed by the Guardian.

One of these would turn Abu Dhabi’s now crisis-stricken ownership of Manchester City football club into a much deeper stake in the city itself.

Fifteen years after the Egyptian revolution, a Guardian analysis can reveal a stark rise in the amount of land and property owned by the UAE government or Emirati developers in Manchester over the past decade – extending to the size of 260 football pitches at its peak in 2023.

Manchester City’s owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, has built an extensive portfolio outside the club, including the UK’s biggest indoor arena, an “upper-upscale hotel” that opened last month, a suite of apartment blocks and investment in world-leading university research through a firm run by Khaldoon al-Mubarak, the City chief executive.

The cheating scandal at Manchester City has put the spotlight on the wider influence of Abu Dhabi in the city, the growth of which helped power Andy Burnham to Downing Street.

Through interviews with key past and present local politicians and officials, new data analysis and an examination of public records spanning more than a decade, the Guardian can now tell the story of how the oil-rich state’s influence has grown, what it has meant for Manchester, and how it has fuelled concerns about the city becoming “a northern version of London”.

‘We were seeking a very significant investment’

Ten years ago, the sight of the murky-green Rochdale canal was a sign you had strayed too far out of Manchester’s lively Northern Quarter and should turn back. Now drinkers and diners gravitate to the area, pulled in by trendy waterside bars serving up £6.90 pints and an artisanal bakery where a single croissant costs £7.50.

That transformation began in summer 2013, when David Cameron’s government sought to defuse tensions with the UAE and asked Manchester city council to draw up three investment proposals for the super-rich emirates.

One of these resulted in a £1bn deal called Manchester Life, under which the council sold a prime slice of city centre land to Abu Dhabi for £5m to build 6,000 homes, along with a right of first refusal on other projects.

Richard Leese, the leader of Manchester city council at the time, told the Guardian: “That was a UK government-brokered deal and we were obviously seeking a very significant investment for what would in total have been a £1bn scheme.

“Housing development in and around the city centre and Ancoats in particular had stopped and been stopped for several years. At that time there were no [other] developers who were either willing or able to do it.”

In a press release, Leese hailed the partnership as a “world-class exemplar of regeneration” and “a platform for the delivery of more than 6,000 new homes”.

However, only 2,039 homes have been delivered by Manchester Life – a third of the total promised – with a further 2,839 homes being built by other developers. The total of 4,878 new properties is nearly 20% short of the 6,000 envisaged.

Despite the council’s longstanding policy of at least 20% of new developments being for social and affordable housing, only 8% of these 4,878 properties fell into that category – and none were provided by Manchester Life.

Food banks and luxury flats

A five-minute walk from the new Abu Dhabi-funded apartments, which are home to the city’s first Michelin-starred restaurant, the nave of a former Methodist church is stacked high with emergency food for those living on surrounding streets.

The short walk to the Etihad Stadium includes some of the poorest areas in the second most deprived local authority in England. Within only half a mile, there are four charity food banks or distribution sites, one of which has a plaque marking its opening by Burnham in 2021.

“It’s bound to cause resentment,” said Mark Blake, the chief executive of Manchester Central Foodbank, of the sudden influx of shiny apartments, expensive eateries and well-paid tenants. “When it’s in your face and is during a cost of living crisis it potentially could lead to some unrest. I think it should be a real concern.”

Parking has become a flashpoint, with reports of cars being vandalised after being left on council estate streets by those living or dining at the Abu Dhabi-funded properties. Tenants of the swanky apartments are encouraged to leave food to local food banks in donation boxes in each of the luxury blocks.

“People are feeling all these cultural divides that are played out through the proxy of housing and everyday issues around parking,” said Alan Good, a Lib Dem councillor for Ancoats and Beswick. “Residents tell me they look at the shiny new towers and there’s a resentment – a feeling that they’re not benefiting from what Manchester is benefiting from.”

Good said he felt Manchester was becoming a “northern version of London” as an “insane” property crisis compounded the misery for the city’s 20,000 people on the social housing register.

Dr Matthew Stallard, a University College London researcher and chair of trustees at Manchester Central Foodbank, said there was an uncomfortable disconnect between the city’s reputation nationally – with “Manchesterism” becoming a byword for a thriving metropolis with an eye on broader social benefits – and the reality for many in the city.

“If you look at central Manchester and all the skyscrapers and you go out in every direction by a mile and a half or two miles, you’re then in some of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the country. In Ancoats, it’s a very clear line where the money is and where the money’s not.”

Awkward questions

In summer 2016, Burnham was keenly aware of Greater Manchester’s housing crisis. He told the Salford Star that if elected, he would stop large property firms benefiting from multimillion-pound taxpayer-funded loans from the mayoral authority.

There were concerns, he said, that the Greater Manchester combined authority (GMCA) fund had “been used to provide loans to large companies, which should have used their own finance instead, and that is too focused on city centre and luxury schemes”.

Barely a year later, Burnham signed off a £55m loan to Jersey-registered property firms owned by Sheikh Mansour, scion of one of the world’s wealthiest families with a reported fortune of about £300bn.

GMCA said its loans fund was available to all developers who met the lending criteria and that the loans had been repaid in full. But these decisions are now being investigated by councillors on GMCA’s scrutiny committee.

There are awkward questions for Burnham, too. Weeks before the loans were approved, he enjoyed hospitality from City’s owners in a meeting that came to light only last week after disappearing from public records. The prime minister initially said he had had only one “significant” meeting with the club’s bosses – in 2021 – but a further five have since emerged.

Burnham said last week he had asked GMCA to conduct a “manual trawl of everything, as I want everything possible to be out there”. He added: “There’s no question about that – full transparency.”

There appeared to be little transparency, however, when it came to the council’s long-term relationship with Manchester City’s owners.

In December 2015, it signed a 10-year “collaboration agreement” with Abu Dhabi giving the emirates first refusal on land near the city centre. A specific clause in effect gagged the council’s democratically elected politicians from announcing the deal without written approval from Sheikh Mansour’s firm.

Other Manchester developers only discovered this years later. “It’s blatant partiality on a massive scale. It stinks,” said one property consultant. A council spokesperson defended the clause as “a standard agreement between two parties that ensures announcements or information releases are agreed by all parties”.

All of the property, now worth an estimated £350m, is ultimately owned by Sheikh Mansour via Jersey-domiciled subsidiaries, with the super-rich Emirati receiving the rent paid by the hundreds of mostly young professionals who live there.

The council said it had received nearly £3m as part of an undisclosed profit-sharing agreement and a further £17.6m in council tax. However, the precise return to the taxpayer – and the terms under which the deals were struck – remain unknown.

Leese, 75, stepped down as council leader after 25 years in December 2021, becoming honorary president at Manchester City two years later. When approached by the Guardian, he denied the Abu Dhabi deal was shielded from scrutiny and defended his appointment at Manchester City.

“This was something that happened after I retired from the council. Whether it would have been appropriate when I was on the council, I would have questioned that,” Leese said.

One senior former council officer, who worked in the property and development team, described the culture in this period as “Kremlin-like” or akin to “a medieval court” where officials could show “no dissent” towards the decisions of the Labour leadership.

“When you’ve got a council that’s 99% one party, there wasn’t really room for discussion,” they said, adding that they felt some senior leaders got “blinded by schmoozing around” with Abu Dhabi executives and others.

Leese denied he got too close to Manchester City, the team he supports, or gave them favourable treatment as council leader. “There are a lot of players in Manchester that the city council is close to,” he said.

“That’s the way the city works – in partnership.”

Manchester city council has strongly denied claims of a “sweetheart deal” with Abu Dhabi after researchers at the University of Sheffield concluded it had “sold the family silver too cheaply” by giving the land to Abu Dhabi at a cheaper rate than comparable developments.

The future No 10 North

In 2017, three years after the first Abu Dhabi deal and the year Burnham became Greater Manchester mayor, council leaders made another huge bet. They paid £42m for a hollowed out retail park next to the £1bn Manchester Life development, described at the time as the biggest ever land purchase in Manchester city centre.

Its price was at least six times higher per acre than the adjacent land sold for £5m to Sheikh Mansour – and it would later be identified as the permanent future home of Burnham’s No 10 North.

This former retail park was also a partnership with Abu Dhabi. Again, the terms were shielded from scrutiny as members of the public were excluded from council hearings – but inside the town hall, the fallout was significant.

A senior council property officer, Dominic Hayes, resigned abruptly in March 2018 over concerns about the deals the council was doing with Mansour’s group. He listed a series of complaints in an email to the council chief executive, Joanne Roney, who the previous year had succeeded the all-powerful Howard Bernstein when he retired after 29 years in charge.

In a tense meeting days after the resignation, a senior council figure, Eddie Smith, is said to have told colleagues that Hayes had thrown them “under a bus” and that the leadership was furious. According to contemporaneous notes by a colleague, seen by the Guardian, Smith said Hayes had made “not acceptable [and] possibly dangerous” criticisms of a Manchester City board member who was a key figure in the Manchester Life deal.

Smith is then said to have commented: “You don’t criticise the council’s relationship with the football club in this organisation and hope to survive.” Smith, who left the council in 2020, denies making the comment.

Yet Hayes’ concerns were serious enough to warrant an internal investigation into governance at the council. It found that anxieties about the council’s deal-making were not limited to just one officer.

A second senior employee told auditors they were concerned that the council had “overpaid” for the rundown retail park, according to an official record of the meeting. That officer raised concerns that the Abu Dhabi-led project was “driving the master planning for a site they didn’t own”.

When Burnham became prime minister in July, the site was tipped as the permanent home for No 10 North. As scrutiny of the Abu Dhabi link grew in October, these plans were quietly shelved.

‘The fragility of the Manchester model’

Council sources noticed a change of approach under Leese’s successor, Bev Craig, when she became council leader in December 2021.

Craig ordered a review of the Manchester Life deal to make sure it was “all legal, all above board”, she told BBC Radio Manchester this month, adding: “The answer was yes.”

One of the reviews commissioned by Craig, who succeeded Burnham this year as Greater Manchester mayor, was published in July. It found that while the deals with developers such as Abu Dhabi had delivered “significant benefits”, there were “weaknesses in documentation, monitoring and assurance”, particularly around the profit-sharing nature of these deals.

Prof Jonathan Silver, a University of Sheffield researcher who has analysed the Manchester Life deal, said the growing buy-up of land and property by Emiratis raised “major concerns about the fragility of the ‘Manchester model’ and its reliance on attracting flows of international finance, whatever the cost”.

Silver said there were “urgent questions” about what would happen to the hundreds of homes in the Manchester Life developments if Sheikh Mansour was forced or decided to sell Manchester City in light of the cheating scandal.

Leese remains confident the Abu Dhabi deals were a huge success for the city. Asked whether he would have handled the partnership any differently given the concerns raised by academics and others, he said: “No. Nothing that I can think of. It is a phenomenally good deal for Manchester.”

Additional reporting: Carmen Aguilar García and Michael Goodier %!s()

The poster of Eisenkot, believed to be the first time a foreign politician had campaigned on billboards in Cyprus, signalled the growing number of Israelis living on and visiting the island, TV presenter and pro-Palestine activist Melanie Steliou told Al Jazeera.

“Israel is only 40 minutes away by plane; they can pop over, vote, and come back within the day,” she said.

Israel does not allow most citizens living abroad to vote outside the country, so campaigns court those who can fly home on polling day.

The poster demonstrates how Israeli politicians see Cyprus as “just another district of Israel”, Steliou said.

Israeli political influence is also being felt in Cyprus’s parliament. On October 20, six Cypriot lawmakers formed a pro-Israel caucus, launched by the advocacy group Israel Allies Foundation, The Jerusalem Post reported.

Cyprus has absorbed waves of foreign buyers before. Limassol was once nicknamed “Limassolgrad” for its Russian community.

Theodosis Pipis, a Cypriot historian and analyst with the think tank KEDISA, said that with Russian investment in the early 2010s, “you saw big buildings pop up” as companies moved over but “you never really saw a huge influx of buying houses, building schools, creating communities.”

Waves of foreign money before had not shaped the island’s political climate or brought foreign election campaigns with it, he said. Israeli investment, by contrast, is creating “a sense of community for the future”, he explained.

Israelis made nearly 600,000 trips to Cyprus last year, more than double the 2022 figure, according to the Cyprus Statistical Service (CYSTAT). In August, nearly one in four tourists arriving on the island was Israeli, a 28.4 percent increase from 2025, according to CYSTAT, with some buying homes. 

In the 12 months to September 2025, Israelis made 850 property purchases in Larnaca district, more than any other foreign nationality, according to Ministry of Interior data. Israel’s embassy in Nicosia estimates that 15,000 to 20,000 consider the island home, Cypriot news outlet Philenews reported in August. According to the last census in 2021, slightly more than 1,000 Israelis lived in or were registered in Cyprus.

Venetians, Ottomans and the British all held the island before independence in 1960. It has been divided since Turkiye’s 1974 invasion, which followed a coup backed by the military government in Athens.

More recently, British retirees, Russian capital and golden-passport buyers have poured money into its property market.

But the speed, scale and nature of new Israeli investments, to an island where walls are covered in pro-Palestine murals and graffiti amid the genocide in Gaza, have caught the attention of many.

Investment from Israel rose more than sixfold between 2017 and 2024, to 5.1 billion euros ($5.9bn), according to the Central Bank of Cyprus, even as total foreign investment in the country fell by a quarter between 2022 and 2024 and Russian holdings, much of it money simply routed through Cypriot holding companies, shrank by more than a third.

Nasia Hadjigeorgiou, an associate professor in transitional justice and human rights at the University of Central Lancashire in Cyprus, told Al Jazeera that British and Lebanese buying “wasn’t something that made waves” and “came almost naturally”. The Israeli push, by contrast, “was a more sudden development”.

That timing matters, Hadjigeorgiou said. Israel’s government keeps receiving “a lot of cover and a lot of support” from Nicosia at a time when Israel “is doing unspeakable things” in the Palestinian enclave, “and that makes at least a portion of the population uncomfortable.”

Island tensions

Steliou pulled out her phone and showed one video – footage of a person who had been dining at an Israeli-owned restaurant attempting to attack protesters at a pro-Palestine march in Cyprus. Then another – an Israeli man writing expletives, drawing a sexual organ and spitting on a mural honouring Gaza’s children.

Such events occur often, she said.

Amid Israel’s wars on Gaza and Lebanon, locals interviewed by Al Jazeera said the presence of Israelis who had served in the military was hard to bear.

“I feel my heart sink when I hear and see large groups of Israeli men here, knowing that they have served in the military and can commit genocide and then buy property,” Giorgos Kyrou, a 32-year-old artist from Limassol, said.

Others blamed the government.

“Our politicians are compromised,” said Ioannis Nestoras, a potter who lives in Limassol. “They are willing to hug, to embrace, to treat as friends the Israeli government … I don’t think it’s representative of the Cypriot mentality.”

Outside the NYX Hotel Limassol, owned by Fattal, Israel’s largest hotel group, Steliou said Israeli investment appears centred on residential zones, including so-called “gated communities”.

Politicians, estate agents, academics and residents in Cyprus use the phrase to describe clusters of Israeli-owned properties they see as closed off from the wider community.

No official count exists, and owners’ nationalities are not recorded for purchases through Cypriot companies.

But patterns are visible. Israeli companies have bought most of the coastline between Livadia and Pyla, near Larnaca, to build homes and hotels, the Cypriot financial news site Stockwatch reported last year.

Stockwatch also reported that Israeli investors are promoting the largest organised residential development in Cyprus in Dromolaxia-Meneou, near Larnaca, with its own kindergarten, swimming pools, and private park.

Other Cypriots share Steliou’s concerns.

Kyrou said Israeli investments can focus on a particular area and that “sometimes it feels like the locals are being pushed out of those villages or urban centres”.

As a historian, Pipis said he understood fears that Israel’s occupation of Palestine could be repeated, though he did not expect that in Cyprus. Instead, he believes a foothold in a friendly EU member state “offers a certain safety if things escalate more in the Middle East”.

“You don’t buy these amounts of land preparing to create communities with schools … if you’re not planning to stay there for the long term,” he said.

In Polemidia, on the edge of Limassol, the Yael Foundation is funding a “flagship Jewish school” for up to 1,500 pupils, due to open in 2027. Cyprus has many private and international schools serving foreign communities.

Rabbi Yehoshua Smukler, who leads the project, has described this one as a “Zionist school”.

Critics also point to a pattern of building first and seeking permission later.

In February 2025, Cyprus’s Ministry of Education said that no application had been submitted for the school, and as late as October that year, the Ministry of Finance said the application was still being finalised, the Cypriot daily Kathimerini reported. Polemidia’s municipality, which complained it was not consulted, had itself been refused permission to build a sport centre on the same plot, the newspaper said.

The ministry did not respond to Al Jazeera’s questions.

In addition to schools, other infrastructure catering to Israelis has popped up.

Hadassah, one of the biggest hospital groups in Israel, owned by the US group “Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America”, opened its first European medical centre in Limassol in July.

“Specific areas are being bought en masse”, Stefanos Stefanou, leader of the left-wing Cypriot AKEL Party, said in June 2025. Purchases in Larnaca and Limassol were creating gated communities “almost inaccessible to anyone other than Israeli nationals”, he said, adding that Israel is preparing a “backyard” in Cyprus.

“We do not say this because of xenophobia or anti-Semitism,” he later said.

Israel’s former Ambassador to Cyprus Oren Anolik hit back, saying Stefanou’s comments sought to “single out the Jewish community in Cyprus”.

Hadjigeorgiou said there was likely “some exaggeration in relation to some of the examples” of closed-off areas, but that some were “very clearly gated communities”.

Speaking as a lawyer, she said Cyprus’s constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights prohibit discrimination on grounds including ethnicity, nationality and religion and that a development where only Israelis can buy “is unconstitutional”.

In western Cyprus, Uriel Kertesz, a businessman with Hungarian and Israeli citizenship, bought an estimated 70 to 80 percent of the abandoned village of Trozena and its surrounding farmland, which lies in a protected area. Yiannis Pazouros, a journalist at the Cypriot daily Politis who investigated the purchases and met Kertesz, said buying as an EU citizen freed him from limits on non-EU buyers.

Kertesz paid double or triple the market value and pushed ahead without the permits needed in a protected area, Pazouros said. Al Jazeera cannot independently confirm this.

Despite public fears that the village could be closed off, Kertesz has stayed tight-lipped about his plans, he added.

Criticism of Israel is far from uncommon in Cyprus, particularly in light of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Recently, on an October evening, Mike Kroll, an Israeli-American comedian based in Tel Aviv, played at a comedy festival in Limassol.

It initially caused “apprehension” because of Israel’s image, he said.

He felt “fine” with people criticising Israel because he was treated with respect and had engaged in “deep discussions”.

However, his reaction has not been not universal.

Across Cyprus, pro-Palestinian slogans turn public spaces into expressions of solidarity. Some are more direct in their meaning: “Zionists not welcome” reads graffiti in Larnaca.

In August 2025, after Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli complained to Cypriot ministers, the Interior Ministry ordered municipalities to remove what it called hate-inciting graffiti.

In Limassol, crews removed it with uncharacteristic efficiency, sometimes before 6am, Nestoras said. The mayor initially tried to protect it as political expression but was overruled, fuelling suspicion the order came from “higher-ups”.

The Interior Ministry did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

For Cypriots, Hadjigeorgiou said, the changes carry particular weight.

“We are a population that has been displaced from our homes in what the government loudly and clearly describes as ethnic cleansing. And at the same time, we are allowing another group to do the same thing in the areas that the Republic of Cyprus controls.” %!s()

The snap elections, called by Vucic in September, follow almost two years of student-led demonstrations against perceived corruption ⁠and creeping authoritarianism, triggered by the deaths of 16 people when a train station canopy collapsed in the city of Novi Sad in 2024.

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The students have since gained widespread support.

A loss for Vucic ⁠would mark a profound political shift in the Balkan country of some 6 million people, reminiscent of the defeat of Hungary’s Viktor Orban in April.

But Vucic, who resigned as president in September to run again for prime minister, is a strong incumbent. Many voters thank him for pulling Serbia out of economic obscurity and ‌orchestrating a period of sustained modernisation.

“The Serbian election ⁠is shaping up to be a watershed moment for the country as the Student List mounts the biggest challenge against Vucic yet,” Mario Bikarski, senior Europe analyst at risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, told the Reuters news agency.

During the campaign, Vucic has promised higher pensions and public sector salaries, investment in state healthcare, and subsidies for young couples. He has balanced closer ties with China, a major investor, and Russia, Serbia’s traditional ally and principal supplier of natural gas, while leaving the door open to joining the European Union.

But relations with the EU have frayed under his leadership, with the bloc growing increasingly frustrated over a lack of reforms addressing the judiciary, the rule of law and corruption.

The Student List movement’s agenda focuses on rooting out corruption and improving schooling, while saying little about their international ambitions.

Their roster of 250 largely unfamiliar candidates, including university professors, actors and farmers, is led by cardiologist Ilija Srdanovic.

Opinion polls are predicting a tight race.

An Ipsos poll published on Thursday gives Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party 47 percent ⁠of the vote to the students’ 40 percent, though other polls have put the students ahead.

Rights groups and activists say repression has worsened since the deadly train station canopy collapse, which was widely blamed on government corruption and sparked the student demonstrations.

About 150,000 supporters of the student movement rallied in central Belgrade on Thursday.

Vucic and his party have repeatedly denied accusations of repression, corruption and spying on their opponents.

The former president claims the students are funded by foreign agents in Croatia and Montenegro, a charge the students deny. %!s()

Balsamo’s first feature as director centers on Bima, an 11-year-old from Bali who hopes a career as a pro footballer will give his family a better life. A chance bond with a former AC Milan player in the last stretch of his career changes the outlook for both of them.

Newcomer Ghazi Alhabsyi heads the cast. Balsamo also appears on screen, alongside Tara Sibel Demren, AC Milan icon Alessandro Costacurta and Atiqah Hasiholan, Oka Antara and Tio Pakusadewo, all three winners at the Indonesian Film Festival (FFI).

Balsamo wrote the script and produced with Demren. Riva Studios originated the project, and its producers include Ario Sagantoro of “The Raid” franchise. Adhya Pictures has the film’s Indonesian theatrical release, set for 2027.

Interest at home is strong. Both rounds of online tickets for the Jakarta screening, at CGV Grand Indonesia, sold out inside five minutes.

“‘Forza’ follows a boy from Bali and a former pro footballer who open new doors for each other, and it bridges Indonesia and Italy the way only football can,” said Sophie Shi, head of studios at EST N8. “It’s a film for audiences around the world, with a story of family and hope that transcends language and culture. Our mission is to take bold Asian stories to audiences worldwide, and a family film told through the world’s most popular sport is built to travel. We’re proud to launch ‘Forza’ to buyers at TIFFCOM.”

Shi and Jan Paul Villanueva negotiated the deal for EST N8, with Balsamo and Demren representing Riva Studios. Villanueva, EVP of acquisitions and global distribution, will lead sales with Cathy Ni, head of sales and U.S. distribution, and Shams Pasha, global sales and marketing executive.

“We’ve spent years bringing ‘Forza’ to the screen, and Indonesia has been at the heart of it from the beginning,” Balsamo said. “This film is a labor of love and a testament to the perseverance and collaboration behind independent filmmaking. Sharing the film at Jakarta Film Week is especially meaningful. It’s a moment we’ve been looking forward to for a long time.”

Demren, who co-founded Riva Studios, said the film was designed for families to watch side by side and discuss afterward. “We hope Bima’s journey reminds audiences how much it matters to have someone believe in you, especially when your dreams feel out of reach,” she said. “Seeing both ticket releases fill so quickly is an encouraging start. We’re looking forward to hearing audiences’ reactions.”

Demren and Balsamo set up Riva Studios in 2022 as an independent outfit working in live action, animation and music. In 2024 it bought French animation house TeamTO. “Forza” is its first live-action feature.

Also on EST N8’s TIFFCOM lineup are “Tame,” a Thai horror title from B-EST Pictures; Dean Colin Marcial’s crime thriller “Jaguar,” set in Manila; “Master,” Rezwan Shahriar Sumit’s winner of IFFR’s Big Screen Award; “Pilgrims,” a Korean sci-fi animation from Heo Pyoungkang that was selected for Annecy; and “The Invisible Half,” a J-horror from Nishiyama Masaki.

The company, which brought together EST Studios and N8, has offices in Los Angeles and Bangkok and has sold and distributed more than 60 titles across over 100 territories. Its catalog includes “Hidden Letters,” which was shortlisted for the Oscars and nominated for an Emmy; “The Monk and the Gun,” Bhutan’s Oscar entry; “A Useful Ghost,” which won the Grand Prize at Cannes Critics’ Week; and “Blood Brothers,” which topped Netflix’s global chart. %!s()