Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Ukrainian troops are in high alert again following the events of the past few days when Russia accused Ukraine is carrying out armed incursions into Crimea, that was annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014. The spice up the soup is the 25th anniversary of Independence of Ukraine on August 24, and Russia's parliamentary elections on September 18.  Meanwhile Russia has announced they are moving new air defence missiles to Crimea, that are designed to hit airborne target at the range up to 400 kms, and ballistic missiles at the range of 60 kms. Ukraine also claims some 40.000 Russian troops are massed on the Crimea-Ukraine border.  On the other hand Russian UN representative Vitaly Churkin said “There is chaos in Kiev. They don’t know what to do with Donetsk. The Minsk agreements are quite clear, but they have no political will to implement them. Instead of doing this, Kiev “distracts attention to other things,” he added. "Events in Donbass in 2014-15 showed that t...

Eurovision song contest 2013 in Malmö seems to be in trouble with several countries withdrawing for various reasons: financial for Andorra, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Luxembourg, Portugal, other reasons for Poland, Slovakia, Morocco, Monaco. Turkey drops out for not agreeing with the rules or some nonsense like that while Czech Republic just isn't interested. Another 24 hours to know the decisions of Greece, Slovenia and maybe Bulgaria. So it seems there will be 35-39 countries in Malmö 2013 instead of 42 in Baku 2012. That may look like a big drop but it's still far from the drop in 1970... In 1970 only 12 countries took part instead of 16 the year before. Finland, Sweden, Norway, Portugal and Austria protested the rules after four countries ended up sharing the victory in 1969 in Madrid.  Different times, you say. Indeed. But still that was 25% drop to previous year, and transferred to our days that would mean 10-11 countries less than in 2012 to be in the sa...