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Episode details

Radio 4,04 Dec 2025,45 mins

Four countries boycott Eurovision over Israel

The World Tonight

Available for over a year

Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and the Netherlands have all said they won’t send acts to the Eurovision Song Contest next May in protest at Israel’s participation. There have been calls for Israel to be excluded because of the war in Gaza, but members of the European Broadcasting Union, which organises the contest, rejected a push for a vote on the issue. Also on the programme: an Inquiry finds the Russian President Vladimir Putin "morally responsible" for the death by poisoning of Dawn Sturgess in Salisbury; and we remember Steve Cropper, the legendary guitarist who's died at the age of 84.

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