Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Municipality workers remove debris from the streets after flooding in Sheikh Jalal district, Baghlan province, Afghanistan May 12, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Devastating floods, COVID reporter released, Catalonia votes, Swiss contestant wins Eurovision
315: At least 315 people in northern Afghanistan have died in severe floods that also injured over 1,600 others, wiped out thousands of homes, and devastated livestock herds that feed the region. Aid agencies expect chaos. It’s been a bad month for floods worldwide — similar inundations in southern Brazil and Kenya have killed hundreds in recent weeks.
4: Lawyer and journalist Zhang Zhan has been released from prison in China four years after being detained for her reporting on the government’s draconian response to the COVID-19 outbreak. In jail, Zhang’s health suffered severely, with her weight dropping to below 90 lbs at one point. Her former lawyer says Zhang will either be returned home or sent somewhere to do a few months of “soft prison” time while cloistered from the rest of the world.
9: Candidates from nine parties competed for seats in local elections in the wealthy, independence-leaning Spanish region of Catalonia on Sunday, and the Socialist candidate supported by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is expected to squeak out a win. If no party wins a majority outright, the Socialists will likely need to hammer together a coalition to maintain control.
2: Students walked out on two major commencement speakers this weekend. Dozens of Duke graduates turned their backs on comedian Jerry Seinfeld, and Virginia Commonwealth University grads gave the same treatment to Gov. Glenn Youngkin. In addition to the walkouts, several more campuses saw major demonstrations surrounding their commencement activities.
An Israeli delegation reacts to their advancing the ESC finale during the second semi-final of the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest, in Malmo, Sweden, May 9, 2024.
Politics take center stage at Eurovision
As musicians from around the world prepare to represent their country in the Eurovision Song Contest, thousands of demonstrators waving Palestinian flags are flooding the host city of Malmö, Sweden, to protest Israel’s participation.
Politics are always present alongside the kitschy revelry, over-the-top costumes, and sometimes unpleasant song choices at Eurovision. But this year, amid growing protests against the war in Gaza, politics are taking center stage.
Israel’s entry, “Hurricane,” performed by 20-year-old Eden Golan, received boos and shouts of “Free Palestine” from the audience. The song was initially titled “October Rain” in reference to the Oct. 7 attack, but that ran afoul of the contest’s rules against politicized lyrics and both the name and some of the lyrics had to be changed. Israel qualified for the final round after its performance in the semifinals on Thursday.
Golan has a connection to two global conflicts. Until the Ukraine War broke out, she was a pop singer in Russia. Her father served as chairman of the board of directors at Sovcombank, one of Russia’s 13 “systemically important” credit institutions that later became the subject of international sanctions. Israeli-born Eden received death threats ahead of her performance at the semifinals.
The opposition to Israel’s participation in Eurovision has extended beyond the protesters outside the event. Artists from Sweden, Finland, and Iceland have called for a boycott.
Beyond Israel, Croatia’s representative, Baby Lasagna, came armed with a song about the brain drain plaguing Croatia as its youth leave the country for wealthier ones in the EU. It is the current favorite to win, with Ukraine close behind.
Lots of foreign traveler are seen at Fushimi Inari-taisha Shrine in Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture on April 20, 2023. The number of tourists coming to Japan is increasing as the pandemic of new coronavirus COVID-19 has calmed down.
Hard Numbers: Foreign travel to Japan surges, Ethiopian diplomat expelled, Safari turns deadly, ABBA’s winning ‘Waterloo’
89: Japan’s weak yen is leading to a tourism surge, with foreign visitors jumping a whopping 89% in February — to 2.78 million people — compared to a year ago. Hotels, in turn, are fuller, and the day rates for stays are up roughly 25% since last year.
72: Ethiopia's ambassador has 72 hours to leave Somalia amid a spat over Ethiopian plans to build a naval base in the de facto autonomous region of Somaliland. Mogadishu is also closing two Ethiopian consulates and pulling its ambassador from Addis Ababa. Tensions between the two countries boiled over when Ethiopia offered possible recognition of Somaliland as part of the port deal, which Somalia sees as a move to annex part of Somalia to Ethiopia.
1: An 80-year-old American woman died while on a safari in Zambia this past weekend after a bull elephant charged at the vehicle she was in, flipping it. The tour company says the truck was blocked by the terrain and couldn’t get away from the agitated pachyderm. Last month, a similar attack took place in South Africa when a bull elephant lifted a 22-seat safari truck several times before letting it drop. There were no deaths reported in that incident.
50: It’s been 50 years to the day since ABBA won their first Eurovision song contest with “Waterloo.” Semifinal rounds for this year’s contest kick off next month, and, despite the competition's goal of staying apolitical, controversy over Israel's participation is already front and center.Noa Kirel from Israel performs during the grand final of the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool, Britain, May 13, 2023.
Could Israel be disqualified from Eurovision 2024?
The search is underway for representatives from each of the 37 countries participating in the 2024 Eurovision song contest. The competition’s slogan might be United by Music, but as always, politics are never far from the stage.
This year, the controversy concerns Israel. Calls are growing for the country to be kicked out over its assault on the Gaza Strip, which has drawn accusations of war crimes and genocide. Many are citing as a precedent the 2022 expulsion of Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
Israel’s entry: 20 year oldEden Golan was selected after performing Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” to a hall of empty chairs, meant as a tribute to the Gaza hostages. Israel has been in Eurovision since the 1970s and has won four times — most recently in 2018.
Could Israel be expelled? Entries can be fined or disqualified for bringing politics onto the stage. But Israel’s expulsion is unlikely at this point. The final say rests with Eurovision officials, and so far they’re singing an evasive tune, saying, “Comparisons between wars and conflicts are complex and difficult and, as a nonpolitical media organization, not ours to make.”
What Eurovision means to Ukrainians at war
Where else will you find banana-inspired wolves, dubstep rapping astronauts, or earworms about vampires? It’s Eurovision, of course: the 70-year-old song contest that pits nations against each other in an annual spectacle of camp, kitsch, and catchy melodies.
But for Ukrainians – who have won the contest three times in the past 20 years – the contest is about something much more.
On GZERO Reports, we visit a secret Eurovision watch party outside of Kyiv, a drag party in New York City, and look at how Eurovision is more political than you – or those wolves, astronauts, and vampires – could imagine.
For the uninitiated, the colorful annual Eurovision Song Contest pits countries against each other in a spectacle of camp, kitsch, and catchy pop music. It’s like the Olympics meets American Idol meets Burning Man. Each country submits an original song, and the winner is chosen through a combination of audience and professional jury votes.
The European Broadcasting Union, which organizes Eurovision, says the contest isn’t political (they turned down Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's request to speak at the finale), but in its almost 70-year history, politics have always found a way of creeping in.
Last Saturday’s Grand Finale was no exception. This year’s contest, held in Liverpool, England, was full of messages of unity and support for Ukraine, who could not host Eurovision after winning in 2022 because of the Russian invasion. GZERO traveled to two very different Eurovision watch parties—one in the heart of New York City and one in an undisclosed location on the outskirts of Kyiv—to see how politics and pop music come together for fans around the world.
"Just to see so much solidarity and so much diversity of thought and backgrounds embracing Ukraine through the power of music is very encouraging,” said Maxim Ibadov, the National Coordinator of RUSA LGBTQ+ and organizer of the NYC event, “Because Ukraine has beautiful culture and I’m so happy it’s being celebrated.”
Watch the upcoming episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on US public television, airing nationwide. Check local listings.
- Hard Numbers: German arms for Ukraine, Serbia rejects ‘thoughts and prayers,' deadly storm hits Myanmar and Bangladesh, Sweden sweeps Eurovision ›
- The Graphic Truth: Eurovision – beating swords into microphones, sort of ›
- Hard Numbers: Ukraine wins Eurovision, Somalia’s new prez, Venezuela woos investors, CDU victory ›
Eurovision winners
The Graphic Truth: Eurovision – beating swords into microphones, sort of
Eurovision – you either love it or you hate it. And if you love to do either, then this is your moment. Saturday marks the Grand Final of the 2023 edition of the song contest, which pits the nations of “Europe” against each other in an annual battle of song, spectacle, and kitsch. The event began with just seven countries in the 1950s as a way to bolster Western European unity and channel the continent’s nationalistic urges into a more cheerful kind of competition.
In the decades since, it’s expanded to nearly 40 nations – including some that aren’t geographically in Europe – and while it reliably produces dreadful earworms, it’s also turned up some real stars: Olivia Newton-John, ABBA, and Céline Dion, for example, all came up through Eurovision.
It’s also produced plenty of political intrigue: Moscow and Kyiv, for example, have traded darts over each other’s acts since 2014 (Ukraine has won Eurovision twice since Putin first invaded Ukraine that year), and while this year’s contest should’ve (by tradition) gone off in Ukraine, home of last year’s winners, it’s being held in Liverpool, England, instead because of the Russian invasion. Russia, of course, has been banned.
Here’s a look at which countries have won the most Eurovision finals over the years. Of these, only the Netherlands and France were part of the first competition, and Ukraine is the only country to have won three times in the 21st century.
Kalush Orchestra from Ukraine appear on stage after winning the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest in Turin, Italy.
Hard Numbers: Ukraine wins Eurovision, Somalia’s new prez, Venezuela woos investors, CDU victory
439: Ukraine won the popular Eurovision Song Contest in Italy thanks to a late surge of 439 fan votes from across the continent early Sunday. President Volodymyr Zelensky congratulated the winner, vowing to hold next year's edition in the besieged city of Mariupol.
3: Somali lawmakers (finally!) elected Sunday a new president after three rounds of indirect voting, conducted in a Mogadishu airport hangar. Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, a former president who lost re-election in 2017, will get his old job back.
10: Venezuela plans to offer private investors stakes of up to 10% in multiple state-run companies that Caracas nationalized years ago in the name of socialism. With its economy still a shambles and under crippling US sanctions, the Maduro regime is desperate to attract foreign investment.
35.7: In a major upset for the ruling SPD party, the opposition CDU won 35.7% of the vote in Sunday's election in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state. Good news for the CDU, which governed the country for 16 years under former Chancellor Angela Merkel until it lost the 2021 federal election.