Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands and Slovenia will boycott next year's Eurovision Song Contest, after Israel was allowed to compete.

They were among a number of countries who had called for Israel to be excluded over the humanitarian toll of the war in Gaza, and accusations of unfair voting practices.

Despite calls for a vote on Israel's participation, members instead approved a new set of rules intended to protect the integrity of the contest.

Ireland's national broadcaster RTE said it felt that its "participation remains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk."

In a statement, Dutch broadcaster Avrotros said that "participation under the current circumstances is incompatible with the public values ​​that are essential to us".

Spanish broadcaster RTVE added: "The board of directors of RTVE agreed last September that Spain would withdraw from Eurovision if Israel was part of it."

"This withdrawal also means that RTVE will not broadcast the Eurovision 2026 final... nor the preliminary semi-finals."

Continue reading here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cde6d8wyp79o

cross-posted from: https://lemmings.world/post/37882472

Web archive link

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[Prada was among] 13 brands asked to hand over documents about their work practices this week as [Italian] investigators lift the lid on the widespread use of Chinese-run sweatshops in Italy. Workers put in 90-hour weeks for as little as €3.5 an hour to produce some of the world’s top fashion wear.

One investigator said: “We’ve seen squalid dormitories set up in sweatshops so workers are forced to sleep where they work, and safety protection removed from machinery to accelerate work. This means bags and clothes can be turned out for €50 before selling them for up to €1,000.”

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The top cashmere maker Loro Piana was also placed on the list after a Chinese workshop owner near Milan was shut down due to accusations he beat up a worker who asked for unpaid wages.

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While discreetly supplying low-cost fashion to Italy’s big firms, the Chinese-run sweat shop industry in Prato has also attracted the attention of Chinese mafia groups which have muscled into the lucrative business of trucking clothing from the city across Europe.

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In April, Zhang Dayong, an alleged extortionist for a Prato-based mob boss, was shot in Rome in an alleged inter-clan war. Marco Wong, a former city councillor in Prato, said that conditions for workers may slowly improve, although the process would not be driven by prosecutions or corporate codes of conduct.

He said: “What could make the difference is the growing use by Chinese sweatshop owners of Pakistani workers since fewer Chinese are now migrating from China. As opposed to the Chinese, the Pakistanis are protesting about working conditions and holding strikes backed by assertive unions.”

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I have watched a few of his videos on China and do think they're actually one of the only few China video on Youtube and Western social media that aren't anti-China. While he isn't explicitly pro-China and doesn't seem to be a socialist (unless he's hiding that well), the videos "lack" the usual anti-Chinese propaganda points that you usually see on anything related to China online. Of course there's some criticisms in there, but some of them are valid and none seem to be made from any anti-Chinese stance. And he does go more in-depth to explain why something you might criticise is a thing in China currently.

The channel isn't focused only on China, but broadly Eastern Asia in general. The account, at least according to the description, is based in Australia though.

A CNN investigation based on video footage, satellite imagery and eyewitness accounts found a 'pattern' of mishandling bodies

I have never posted anything there before.

The internet was made by us, for us, and we can take it back from the noise.

This is Part 1 of a new series I'm starting to help make the internet quieter, break free of doomscrolling, and bring intentionality to how we use our devices. If you enjoyed this piece, please share your feedback or share it! Thank you!

Round 2, this is a follow-up to this post

1. Which mods/admins were being Power Tripping Bastards?

https://quokk.au/u/quokka

2. What sanction did they impose (e.g. community ban, instance ban, removed comment)?

Account purged/deleted

3. Provide a screenshot of the relevant modlog entry (don’t de-obfuscate mod names).

4. Provide a screenshot and explanation of the cause of the sanction (e.g. the post/comment that was removed, or got you banned).

I asked quokka for an explanation, but did not receive a response until I mentioned it in the db0 general chat.

Here's the comment in /c/slop where I link my yptb post because someone mentioned that I had been banned for my original comment.

I did not include any call to action and I directed the conversation to YPTB because /c/slop is not for getting into it about specific moderators/admins on fedi.

As to what my 'goals' were by linking to it; we're on a discussion forum, signposting a conversation happening elsewhere is not what I would consider 'brigading'.

The post that I linked to was my own post in YPTB complaining about getting comm banned for pointing out the misogyny in the OOP post title

5. Explain why you think its unfair and how you would like the situation to be remedied.

Posting links to other comments to direct discussion there is extremely common on fediverse.

Because this was a full account purge rather than a ban, this looks like pretty clear retaliation to hide criticism of the mod that I was calling out for misogyny, rather than addressing the issue in a serious way at all.

As stated by quokka in the above matrix message, on quokk.au there's apparently an unwritten rule that if you're posting a link on hexbear to anywhere it's grounds for total account deletion due to 'brigading' if one of their members doesn't like what you're saying.

It looks pretty unprecedented based on their modlog, the only people receiving such action previously were spammers

Meanwhile, there's an entire community out there where posts are linked to on other instances with sarcastic, hyperbolic paraphrases and clear calls to action. Worth noting that even the most egregious users there don't have their accounts purged on .ml.

The moderator that I called out (and I have to assume they were the one to report reported me) is an active participant there, and seems to see no problem with that type of behavior.

Looks like a clear double standard and retaliation for calling out the moderators overreaction to me pointing out a misogynistic post title.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz have voiced severe scepticism about efforts by the US government and its envoys to negotiate a peace between Ukraine and Russia, according to a transcript of a confidential call cited by German magazine Spiegel.

https://archive.ph/PX9NF