Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain have said they will boycott next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, following the decision to allow Israel to compete.
The response on Thursday came immediately after the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which runs the competition, said there would not be a vote on whether to exclude Israel, despite calls from some countries to do so.
Opponents of Israel’s participation criticise it over its genocidal war on Palestinians in Gaza – which has so far killed at least 70,125 people – and over allegations that it unfairly intervened in the most recent competition to the benefit of its entrant.
In a statement which cleared Israel to take part, the EBU said on Thursday that its members had shown “clear support for reforms to reinforce trust and protect [the] neutrality” of the contest.
The changes, which include the reintroduction of an expanded professional jury at the semifinal stage, aim to discourage governments and third parties from disproportionately promoting songs to sway voters.
International Glance
Ukraine wants "real peace, not appeasement" with Russia, its foreign minister said on Thursday at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the security and rights body seeking a role for itself in a post-war Ukraine.
During the over two years of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, there has also been violence in the other Palestinian Territory— the West Bank, which has been under Israeli occupation for decades.
Israel said it launched an airstrike on a Hamas militant in southern Gaza late Wednesday in retaliation for an attack earlier in the day that wounded five Israeli soldiers.
Alexander Prokhanov — the aging ultranationalist novelist, editor, and chief ideologue of Russian imperial mysticism — has seen his latest book, Lemner, abruptly vanish from store shelves. It was printed, advertised, distributed across Russia, and then suddenly recalled. Bookstores received quiet instructions to return all copies. State television, which once glorified him, now pretends he doesn’t exist.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday called for a complete end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – not just a pause in the fighting that has raged since February 2022 – ahead of US-Russia talks in Moscow centering on a peace plan aimed at ending Europe’s deadliest war since World War II.





























