Miriana Conte said she had been notified that the European Broadcasting Union had ruled against the word ‘kant’. Photograph: Eurovision 2025/Youtube
Singer Miriana Conte told to change title and lyrics owing to suggestive play on Maltese word for ‘singing’
Malta’s contestant at this year’s Eurovision contest will have to change the title and lyrics of her song owing to the phonetic resemblance between the Maltese word for “singing” and the C-word, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has ruled.
Miriana Conte, 23, will represent Malta at the five-day music event in Basel, Switzerland, on 13 to 17 May after winning the Maltese song contest last month with her song Kant.
While kant, from the Latin cantus, does mean “singing” and does not have a rude meaning in Maltese, the play on the English slang word for female genitalia is clearly intentional.
The chorus of Conte’s empowerment anthem contains the phrase “serving kant” – a queer or drag slang phrase roughly meaning “to express boldness”.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Conte said she had been notified that the EBU had ruled against her using the word “kant”.“While I’m shocked and disappointed, especially since we have less than a week to submit the song, I promise you this: the show will go on – Diva NOT down,” she wrote.
A tent camp for displaced Palestinians is set up amid destroyed buildings in the west of Al-Shati camp, west of Gaza City, March 3, 2025
LAUNCH a full public inquiry into Britain’s complicity in the Gaza genocide, left MP Jeremy Corbyn has told the government.
The former Labour leader has written to Keir Starmer warning that he will be working with colleagues to “pursue all avenues to establish a public, independent inquiry into the UK’s involvement in Israel’s military assault in Gaza.”
This probe should “establish exactly what decisions have been taken, how these decisions have been made, and what consequences they have had,” he said.
Mr Corbyn’s move comes as pro-Palestine campaigners face a growing police clampdown, with several summoned for police interview over purported offences at January’s Gaza demonstration.
The letter to the Prime Minister cites the precedent of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war which, though protracted, eventually laid bare the sheer extent of deception undertaken by the Blair government regarding the 2003 aggression.
…
“Britain has played a highly influential role in Israel’s military operations,” Mr Corbyn writes, “including the sale of weapons, the supply of intelligence and the use of RAF bases” in Cyprus.
“Many of us have repeatedly raised objections over the continued sale of F-35 components. We have repeatedly asked for the truth regarding the role of British military bases.
“And we have repeatedly requested the publication of legal advice behind the government’s currently unknown definition of genocide. Our requests have been met evasion, obstruction and silence, leaving the public in the dark,” he added.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
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A United Nations vehicle accompanies aid convoys in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, during the delivery of humanitarian aid after a ceasefire, January 22, 2025 [SAEED JARAS/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images]
International law is fighting for relevance. The outcome of this fight is likely to change the entire world’s political dynamics, which were shaped by World War II and sustained through the selective interpretation of the law by dominant countries.
In principle, international law should always have been relevant, if not paramount, in governing the relationships between all countries, large and small, to resolve conflicts before they turn into outright wars. It should also have worked to prevent a return to an era of exploitation that allowed Western colonialism practically to enslave the Global South for hundreds of years.
Unfortunately, international law, which was in theory supposed to reflect global consensus, was hardly dedicated to peace or genuinely invested in the decolonisation of the South.
From the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan to the war on Libya and numerous other examples, past and present, the UN was often used as a platform for the strong to impose their will on the weak. And whenever smaller countries fought back collectively, as the UN General Assembly often does, those with veto power in the Security Council and military and economic leverage used their advantage to coerce the rest based on the maxim “might is right”.
It should, therefore, hardly be a surprise to see many intellectuals and politicians in the Global South arguing that, aside from paying lip service to peace, human rights and justice, international law has always been irrelevant.
This irrelevance was put on full display through 15 months of a relentless Israeli genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza that killed and wounded over 160,000 people, a number that, according to several credible medical journals and studies, is expected to rise dramatically.
Yet, when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) opened an investigation into “plausible genocide” in Gaza on 26 January, 2024, followed by a decisive ruling on 19 July regarding the illegality of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the international system began showing a pulse, however faint. The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in November were more proof that West-centred legal institutions are capable of change.
The angry American response to all of this was predictable.
Washington has been fighting against international accountability for many years. The US Congress under the George W Bush administration passed a law as early as 2002 that shielded US soldiers “against criminal prosecution” by the ICC, to which the US is not a party. The so-called Hague Invasion Act authorised the use of military force to rescue American citizens or military personnel detained by the ICC.
Naturally, many of Washington’s measures to pressure, threaten or punish international institutions have been linked to shielding Israel under various guises. The global outcry and demands for accountability following Israel’s genocide in Gaza, however, have once again put Western governments on the defensive. For the first time, Israel has been facing the kind of scrutiny that has rendered it, in many respects, a pariah state.
Instead of reconsidering their approach to Israel, and refraining from feeding the war machine, many Western governments lashed out at civil society merely for advocating the enforcement of international law.
Those targeted included UN-affiliated human rights defenders.
On 18 February, German police descended on the Junge Welt venue in Berlin as if they were about to apprehend a notorious criminal. They surrounded the building in full gear, sparking a bizarre drama that should have never taken place in a country that perceives itself as democratic. The reason behind the security mobilisation was none other than Francesca Albanese, an Italian lawyer and an outspoken critic of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Ms Albanese also happens to be the current UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. If it were not for the UN’s intervention, she could have been arrested simply for demanding that Israel must be held accountable for its crimes against Palestinians.
Germany, however, is not an exception. Other Western powers, lead amongst them the US, are taking part in this moral crisis. Washington has taken serious and troubling steps, not only to protect Israel and itself from accountability to international law, but also to punish the very international institutions, its judges and officials for daring to question Israel’s behaviour.
Indeed, as recently as 13 February, the US sanctioned the ICC’s chief prosecutor due to his stance on Israel. After some hesitance, Karim Khan did what no other ICC prosecutor had done before when he issued those arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. They are currently wanted for “crimes against humanity and war crimes”.
The moral crisis deepens when the judges become the accused, as Khan found himself at the receiving end of endless Western media attacks and abuse, in addition to US sanctions.
As disturbing as all of this is, there is a silver lining.
There is an opportunity for the international legal and political system to be fixed, based on new standards, justice that applies to all and accountability that is expected from and for all.
Those who continue to support Israel have practically disowned international law altogether. The consequences of their decisions are dire. But for the rest of humanity, the Gaza war can spark a global reckoning, and provide the opportunity to reconstruct a more equitable world, one that is not moulded by those who are powerful militarily, but by the need to stop senseless killings of innocent children, women and the elderly.
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Workers from the Gaza Electricity Distribution Company repair the power lines that supply seawater to the desalination plant in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on July 04, 2024 [Ashraf Amra/Anadolu Agency]
Israel has cut off power to two desalination plants in the Deir Al-Balah area of central Gaza, depriving thousands of Palestinians of water, the local municipality has said.
In a statement, the Deir Al-Balah Municipality announced that the South Sea Desalination Plant and the Basra Desalination Plant ceased operations after Israeli occupation forces cut off the electricity supply.
It added that the plants produce about 20,000 cubic meters of desalinated water daily which supply about 70 per cent of the area’s residents with water.
For his part, Director General of Planning, Water and Sanitation in the Gaza Municipality, Maher Ashour Salem, warned that “the amount of water currently available in the Strip is less than 25 per cent of the normal quantities,” explaining that more than 70 per cent of water had been lost due to Israel’s destruction of the water supply lines.
He warned of a looming humanitarian disaster if the Israeli water company cuts off the water supply which makes up 80 per cent of the currently available water.
“The loss of this vital water source will severely affect domestic use, hospitals and shelters, amid almost non-existent alternative water sources as a result of the destruction of more than three-quarters of the water wells in the Gaza Strip,” Salem said.
The Israeli occupation’s decision came a day after Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, stopped the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, hours after the first phase of the ceasefire with Hamas had ended.
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Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
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Thousands of people carrying Palestinian flags and banners march as they protest Israel’s attacks on Gaza and Germany’s arms support to Israel in Unter den Linden Street, Berlin, Germany on April 13, 2024 [Halil Sagirkaya/Anadolu via Getty Images]
The German federal ministry has dismissed a lawyer in Berlin due to her opposition to the Israeli assault on Gaza, the Palestinian Information Centre reported.
On Saturday lawyer Melanie Schweizer posted a video on X stating: “Yesterday I got fired as a civil servant working at the Federal Ministry in Germany. Why? In a nutshell because I was speaking out against the genocide in Palestine committed by Israel, against the German support thereof, against the violence and crimes happening there.” Highlighting the German government and police’s efforts to silence pro-Palestine voices, she added: “This is where we’re at in Germany. This is a blatant attack on our constitutional rights to freedom.”
She called on supporters of Gaza to make their stance clear and “keep speaking up, keep using your voice, losing your job is not the worst that can happen to you, losing your life is. Losing your freedom right is.”
Yesterday I got fired as a civil servant in Germany. Why? In a nutshell because I was criticizing Israel for its ongoing genocide in Palestine and Germany‘s complicity. pic.twitter.com/z3mYVabBtn
— Melanie Schweizer | MERA25 🇩🇪 (@Melaniebelizi) March 1, 2025
Many European and American companies have previously dismissed employees over their stance on the war on Gaza and their opposition to genocide.
In October 2024, Microsoft dismissed two employees after they organised a sit-in at its headquarters in Washington, D.C., in solidarity with the victims of the Israeli assault on Gaza.
On 22 January, the Washington Post reported that Google had dismissed more than 50 employees last year after they protested against the “Nimbus” contract, citing concerns that the technology could support military and intelligence programmes used by the Israeli occupation army in its war on Palestinians in Gaza.
In September 2024, the Noguchi Museum in New York announced the dismissal of three employees for allegedly violating the dress code by wearing keffiyehs, which have become a symbol of solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
