Gavin Grey: UK correspondent on Eurovision organisers holding a vote to determine whether Israel can participate

The organisation behind the Eurovision Song Contest has confirmed it will hold a vote to determine whether Israel will participate next year.

The European Broadcasting Union confirmed it will invite 68 member countries to give their view at a general assembly meeting in November.

UK correspondent Gavin Grey says other countries - including Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Iceland and Spain have all said they would consider dropping out of the contest if Israel was allowed to stay involved. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Devin Gray UK corresponds with our sello, Gevin Hi, the
haven't got the Russians getting kids to spy for them?

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Well, that's partially one of the avenues of investigation that
the Dutch police are looking at. Two seventeen year old
boys have been arrested on suspicion of quote state interference
in the Netherlands, it can be said, in a case
with reported links to Russian spying.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
So what do we know?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
The details of sparse, but we do know the pair
were allegedly contacted by pro Russian hackers on the messaging
app Telegram. The Dutch media reporting that one of the
boys allegedly walked past the offices of Europol, So that's
European Police eurous, that's the European Justice buildings and the
Canadian embassy all in the Hague, carrying what's called a

(00:46):
Wi Fi sniffer. Now, for the uninitiated, this is a
device which basically allows you, if you can get near
a Wi Fi signal, to possibly identify it and then
intercept the network it's working from.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
The teenagers have appeared before a judge.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
One of the boys has been reminded, the other has
been allowed home but on street bail conditions and rather interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
One of the boys fathers.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Said to a Dutch newspaper that the police had arrested
his son while he was doing his homework, and he
said police had told him the arrest was related to
espionage and rendering services to a foreign country.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
The teenagers described as computer savvy.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
And having a fascination for hacking, all while holding a
job down with the supermarket lord.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Hey, listen, is it quite possible that Israel doesn't get
to participating Eurovision.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
I think it's looking more and more likely.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
The Eurovision Song Contest, this annual festival of music where
each country puts forward a song and everyone else photes
on it is always saying look, we're not political. We are,
you know, we just don't want any politics. This is
all about music and peace and harmony. But more and
more countries are lining up to say, if Israel takes
part this year, as you allowed it to last year

(01:55):
despite protests, if Israel takes pass in the May contest,
we will not come now. This all started with a
couple of countries, but it's been much much more widened
since those original people said that Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia,
Iceland and Spain all said that they would either drop
out or be likely to drop out if Israel's involvement

(02:17):
is continued. So, now the European Broadcasting Union is confirmed,
it would invite sixty eight member countries who knew there
were that many, to give their view at a General
Assembly meeting in early November. A decision would then be
taken by a simple majority. So if more than fifty
percent of those members vote to exclude Israel, then the
country will not be allowed to take part in twenty

(02:37):
twenty six.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
But at least the kebab situation has resolved.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Ah well, this is a story that I know will
be close to many people's hearts. Kebabs in this country
often sort of delivered out of the back of takeaway
vans and often late at night when you've had a
few beers. But the Turks, and this was of course
the kebab don a kebab originally from Turkey. The Turks
applied for traditional specialty guaranteed labels. Now what that effectively

(03:04):
means is, look, this is a regional dish, we want
to keep it original, authentic, and that means that basically
there were a number of things they wanted to make
sure and ensure that people had to follow if it
was going to be called donka bab. First of all,
the meat would have to come from a cowaged over
sixteen months, lamb aged at least six months. Chicken thighs
or breasts were allowed. Vealin Turkey meat would be banned.

(03:27):
Meat would have to be sliced to a thickness of
three to five millimeters head up, and the type of
knife would be regulated. Marinade subject to rules too. Now
that meant, of course that lots of people were up
in arms. Donika babs are huge in Germany alone, where
there are more than one point five million Turkish citizens.
It is a massive industry of its own, said to

(03:48):
be worth roughly five billion New.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Zealand dollars in Germany alone.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
The idea they were going to dictate what type of
knife you could use and the thickness of the meat, well,
that certainly was something that the Europeans were complaining about.
And now Turkey has dropped that application too.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Right, Hey, thank you very much, Gavin, appreciate it. Talk
to you in a couple of days. Kevin Gray are
UK correspondent. By the way, staying in Europe. And this
is actually I A lot of us are going to
listen to this and think this is a good idea.
Zurich has voted to ban the leaf blowers and the
leaf suckers if they run on petrol. Because over in
Zurich they've got the direct democracy, you know, where they
can where citizens can basically if they get a certain

(04:26):
number of votes. You know, I don't think it's an
unreasonable number of votes, so they can get they could
basically launch their own referendu and then it goes out
to a vote, and then they get to vote and
the thing becomes a thing. Anyway, they've done this. They've
banned the leaf blowers and they've banned the leaf suckers
if they run on the petrol. The electric ones are
okay because the electric ones, as you well know from
your own Saturday and Sunday mornings, are quieter. But even

(04:48):
the electric ones are only allowed to run between October
and December, which of course for them is late autumn
early winter, and that's it. Now, I'm I think that's
going a little overboard. I don't mind if they use
the leaf blowers and the leaf suckers anytime of the year,
as long as they're electric. But it's the only time
I hate the fossil fuel. It's the only time I
hate it. That's when it's running one of those little machines.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
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