Month: September 2018

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday he expected to meet with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in New York as Washington expressed concern at Moscow’s plans to supply the S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Syria.

“I’m sure Sergei and I will have our time together,” Pompeo said of plans to meet Lavrov on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

“We are trying to find every place we can where there is common ground, where we can work with the Russians,” adding that there were many areas where Moscow was working against the United States and “we will hold them accountable.”

Russia announced on Monday it will supply a S-300 missile system to Syria in two weeks despite strong Israeli objections, a week after Moscow blamed Israel for indirectly causing the downing of a Russian military plane in Syria.

The White House said it hoped Russia would reconsider the move, which U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton called a “significant escalation” of the seven-year war.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Helsinki, Finland in July and Bolton and his Russian counterpart met in August.

However, U.S.-Russian relations remain at their lowest point in decades, in part over differences in Syria, Ukraine and U.S. allegations Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. election.

The United States has already imposed economic sanctions on Moscow over the election. Moscow denies any interference.
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Charities operating the Mediterranean rescue ship Aquarius on Monday urged European governments to help the vessel find a new flag to sail under after Panama revoked its registration, and they asked France to let its passengers disembark in Marseille.

Panama’s move to cancel the registration of the Aquarius, now sailing towards the southern French port with 58 migrants on board, means there will be no charity rescue ships operating off the Libyan coast in the near future.

“This a call to European countries,” Francis Vallat, head of the SOS Mediterranee charity, told reporters in Paris.

“The tragedy we’re facing is a European problem,” Thomas Bischoff, another SOS Mediterranee executive, said. “Italy’s European partners are guilty by remaining silent.”

The charity has accused Rome of putting pressure on Panama to revoke the Aquarius’s registration, but Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said it had done no such thing.

A public backlash over the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants in the past five years has fuelled a swing towards far-right parties in many countries in Europe, and helped bring Italy’s anti-establishment ruling coalition to power earlier this year.
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The European Union sued Poland on Monday in the EU’s highest court over the ruling party’s changes to the judiciary, which the bloc believes violate the independence of the courts.

“The European Commission maintains that the Polish law on the Supreme Court is incompatible with EU law as it undermines the principle of judicial independence, including the irremovability of judges,” the EU’s executive Commission said.

The new Polish law lowers the retirement age of Supreme Court judges from 70 to 65 years, putting 27 out of 72 sitting judges at risk of being forced to retire. The mandate of the head of the Supreme Court would be prematurely terminated.

The Commission asked the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice to suspend the application of the law until it reaches a verdict to prevent the forced retirement of the judges and the appointment of new ones.

The Commission requested the injunction because the new Supreme Court judges are appointed by the National Council for the Judiciary, which, after the changes introduced by the ruling, eurosceptic PiS party, is composed of PiS-appointed nominees.

The loss of independence by the National Council for the Judiciary was the reason why Poland was suspended last week from the European Network of Councils for the Judiciary (ENCJ).

Poland’s situation echoes that of Hungary, which the European Parliament sanctioned earlier this month for flouting EU rules on democracy, civil rights and corruption.

“Poland is ready to defend its legal and constitutional position before the ECJ,” government spokeswoman Joanna Kopcinska told the Polish press agency PAP.

The Polish government said it would comment on the lawsuit once it gets the relevant documents from the Commission, but noted that only a binding ruling of the European Court of Justice could make it change legislation.

Diplomats in Brussels said Europe ministers of other EU countries would hold a hearing on Oct. 16 at which Warsaw would be asked to explain its actions on the judiciary.

EU ministers held similar hearings in June and September, each time concluding that they were not satisfied with Poland’s explanations.
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The United Nations, the World Bank and the International Committee of the Red Cross are partnering with technology powerhouses to launch a global initiative aimed at preventing famines.

“The fact that millions of people — many of them children — still suffer from severe malnutrition and famine  in the 21st century is a global tragedy,” World Bank President Jim Young Kim said announcing the initiative.

The global organization will work with Microsoft, Google and Amazon Web Services to develop the Famine Action Mechanism (FAM), a system capable of identifying food crisis area that are most likely to turn into a full-blown famine.

“If we can better predict when and where future famines will occur, we can save lives by responding earlier and more effectively,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a statement.

The tech giants will help develop a set of analytical models that will use the latest technoligies like Artificial Intelligence and machine learning to not only provide early warnings but also trigger pre-arranged financing for crisis management.

“Artificial intelligence and machine learning hold huge promise for forecasting and detecting early signs of food shortages, like crop failures, droughts, natural disasters and conflicts,” Smith said.

According to the U.N. and World Bank, there are 124 million people experiencing crisis-level food insecurity in the world today.

FAM will be at first rolled out in five countries that “exhibit some of the most critical and ongoing food security needs,” according to the World Bank, which didn’t identify the nations. It will ultimately be expanded to cover the world.
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Spain’s maritime rescue service said Sunday it rescued more than 400 people from 15 small boats, most of them off the country’s southern coast, while humanitarian groups lamented that the sole private rescue boat operating near the deadly central Mediterranean human trafficking route risked being put out of action by Italy’s anti-migrant leaders.

While the Spaniards pulled 447 people to safety on Saturday in the western part of the sea, two humanitarian groups which operate the last private rescue vessel in the central Mediterranean, considered the deadliest route for trafficked migrants, said Panama had yanked the ship’s registration following Italian complaints.

Panama’s maritime authority said in a statement that it has begun procedures to remove the registration of Aquarius 2 after Italy complained the boat’s captain failed to follow orders. It said Italy contends that the captain of Aquarius 2 defied instructions to return migrants to Libya that it had rescued from unseaworthy vessels launched by Libyan-based traffickers.

But SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders, the humanitarian groups jointly operating Aquarius 2, say violence-wracked Libya doesn’t meet international standards for safe harbor. On Sunday, they asked European governments to reassure Panama that Italy’s contentions are unfounded or issue a new flag so Aquarius 2 can keep operating.

Right-wing Interior Minister Matteo Salvini won’t let private rescue boats dock in Italy.

In a statement Sunday, the two non-governmental organizations alleged that Italy had forced the Panamanians to revoke the registration “under blatant economic and political pressure from the Italian government,” which has vowed to stop arrivals in Italian ports of migrants saved by private rescue boats.

Italy’s right-wing, anti-migrant interior minister, Matteo Salvini, denied that allegation in a tweet Sunday night, saying “no pressure at all on Panama for the Aquarius 2. I don’t even know Panama’s area code.”

The Panama Maritime Authority said it was acting after the “principal complaint came from Italian authorities” about the ship’s captain. It also noted that maritime authorities in Gibraltar over the summer took Aquarius 2 off its registry and had requested that it suspend its operations.

The two humanitarian groups in response said they “demand that European governments allow the Aquarius to continue its mission, by affirming to the Panamanian authorities that threats made by the Italian government are unfounded, or by immediately issuing a new flag under which the vessel can sail.”

Nearly 300 migrants have died in waters separating Spain and Africa so far in 2018, according to the United Nations, and over 1,600 have died this year trying to cross the Mediterranean, as departures in smugglers boats from Libya’s coast to Italy have sharply declined this year compared to previous years, after the Italian authorities began cracking down on the rescue boats.

But U.N. refugee agency officials say the central route from Libya is by far the deadliest for migrants smuggled by sea.

A recent spike in migrant arrivals in Spain has strained public services, and the Spanish government has faced further pressure since Italy refused to let humanitarian boats dock with migrants they have rescued from the sea.

Aquarius 2 was carrying 58 migrants it rescued in the last few days, and where they would be taken was unclear Sunday night.

The U.N. refugee agency says largely lawless Libya, bloodied by a recent surge in fighting among militias, isn’t a safe harbor. Migrants returned there are brought back to detention centers, where food is scarce and beatings and sexual assault are common.

International maritime law stipulates that those rescued at sea are brought to the nearest safe harbor.

Italy, which has trained and equipped the Libyan coast guard, says that human trafficking will be discouraged by returning those rescued at sea to Libya.

The Mediterranean island of Malta has also come down hard on private rescue boats, blocking the vessels in their harbors and launching prosecutors’ probes of their crew.

In other actions against migrants, Macedonian police said they have detained 120 migrants, in two separate cases, who illegally entered Macedonia from Greece as the number of illegal crossings has significantly risen in recent months.

Police said Sunday that a border police patrol discovered 37 migrants in southern Macedonia, near the frontier with Greece. They were detained, but police gave no more details about their nationality.

In a second case, 83 migrants, 11 of them minors, and most of them Pakistanis (76), were discovered packed in a truck coming from Greece. The truck driver was detained and the migrants transferred to the reception center in the southern town of Gevgelija.

Macedonian police say they have turned back about 6,600 migrants attempting to cross the border in the first half of 2018.
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Macedonia’s president says he won’t vote in a Sept. 30 referendum on whether to change the Balkan country’s name to “North Macedonia.”

Macedonians will vote next weekend on a proposal to change the country’s name, ending a long-running dispute with neighboring Greece, which sees the use of the term “Macedonia ” as a claim on its own province of the same name.

President Gjorge Ivanov was speaking to members of the Macedonian diaspora in Detroit on Saturday. He reiterated his position that the deal with Greece is “harmful and defeating” for Macedonia, according to a statement released by his office Sunday.

Polls indicate Macedonians will likely back the deal, but it remains unclear whether turnout will meet the required 50-percent threshold for the vote to be valid.

 
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The U.S. State Department said Saturday that Washington would not wait to impose sanctions on any shippers helping to get fuel to North Korea, in

an apparent warning to Russia days after the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations accused Moscow of cheating on the measures.

North Korea continues to employ tactics to evade U.N. sanctions, Heather Nauert, the State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement, adding that U.N. member states are required to prohibit ship-to-ship transfers of petroleum fuel to the country.

“The United States will not hesitate to impose sanctions on any individual, entity or vessel supporting North Korea’s illicit activities, regardless of nationality,” Nauert said.

The 15-member U.N. Security Council has unanimously boosted sanctions on North Korea since 2006 in a bid to choke off funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

But the United States and Russia have recently shown cracks in the unity of the council over the sanctions.

Washington has “evidence of consistent and wide-ranging Russian violations” of the sanctions, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said Monday.

Russia was helping North Korea illegally obtain fuel through transfers at sea, had refused to expel a North Korean whom the Security Council blacklisted last year, and had pushed for changes to an independent U.N. report on sanctions violations to cover up breaches by Russians, she said.

Russia blames Haley

Russia said after Haley’s comments that Moscow had not pressured the authors of the U.N. report, and it blamed Haley for heightening tensions.

With the warning on fuel shipments, the Trump administration signaled it was keeping pressure on Pyongyang even after saying there has been progress.

President Donald Trump this week hailed a summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, and said there had been “tremendous progress” with North Korea on several fronts,

including Pyongyang’s denuclearization.

Washington has tracked 148 cases this year of tankers delivering fuel to North Korea in breach of a U.N. cap of 500,000 barrels a year. Haley has not said how many of those transfers may have involved Russia.

Both Russia and China have suggested the Security Council discuss easing sanctions after Trump and Kim met in June and Kim pledged to work toward denuclearization.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that the United States was working to set up another summit between Trump and Kim after their unprecedented meeting in Singapore, but that there was still work to do.
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Comcast beat Rupert Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox in the battle for Sky after offering 30.6 billion pounds ($40 billion) for the British broadcaster, in a dramatic auction to decide the fate of the pay-television group.

U.S. cable giant Comcast bid 17.28 pounds a share for control of London-listed Sky, bettering a 15.67 offer by Fox, the Takeover Panel said in a  statement shortly after final bids were made Saturday.

Comcast’s final offer was significantly higher than its bid going into the auction of 14.75 pounds, and compares with Sky’s closing share price of 15.85 pounds on Friday.

Brian Roberts, chairman and chief executive of Comcast, coveted Sky to expand its international presence as growth slows in its core U.S. market.

Owning Sky will make Comcast the world’s largest pay-TV operator with around 52 million customers.

“This is a great day for Comcast,” Roberts said on Saturday. “This acquisition will allow us to quickly, efficiently and meaningfully increase our customer base and expand internationally.”

Comcast, which also owns the NBC network and movie studio Universal Pictures, encouraged Sky shareholders to accept its offer. It said it wanted to complete the deal by the end of October.

Comcast, which requires 50 percent plus one share of Sky’s equity to win control, said it was also seeking to buy Sky shares in the market.

A spokesman for Fox, which has a 39 percent holding in Sky, declined to comment.

The quick-fire auction marked a dramatic climax to a protracted transatlantic bidding battle waged since February, when Comcast gate-crashed Fox’s takeover of Sky.

It is a blow to media mogul Murdoch, 87, and the U.S. media and entertainment group that he controls, which had been trying to take full ownership of Sky since December 2016.

It is also a setback for U.S. entertainment giant Walt Disney, which agreed on a separate $71 billion deal to buy the bulk of Fox’s film and TV assets, including the Sky stake, in June and would have taken ownership of the British broadcaster following a successful Fox takeover.
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British Prime Minister Theresa May’s aides have begun contingency planning for a snap election in November to save both Brexit and her job, the Sunday Times reported.

The newspaper said that two senior members of May’s Downing Street political team began “war-gaming” an autumn vote to win public backing for a new plan, after her Brexit proposals were criticized at a summit in Salzburg last week.

Downing Street was not immediately available to comment on the report.

Meanwhile, opposition Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn said Saturday that his party would challenge May on any Brexit deal she could strike with Brussels, and he said there should be a national election if the deal fell short.

The British government said Saturday that it would not “capitulate” to European Union demands in Brexit talks and again urged the bloc to engage with its proposals after May said Brexit talks with the EU had hit an impasse.

“We will challenge this government on whatever deal it brings back on our six tests, on jobs, on living standards, on environmental protections,” Corbyn told a rally in Liverpool, northern England, on the eve of Labor’s annual conference.

“And if this government can’t deliver, then I simply say to Theresa May the best way to settle this is by having a general election.”

Labor’s six tests consist of whether a pact would provide for fair migration, a collaborative relationship with the EU, national security and cross-border crime safeguards, even treatment for all U.K. regions, protection of workers’ rights, and maintenance of single-market benefits.
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Pope Francis on Saturday urged Lithuanians to use their experience enduring decades of Soviet and Nazi occupation to be a model of tolerance in an intolerant world as he began a three-nation tour of the Baltic region amid renewed alarm over Russia’s intentions there.

Francis was greeted by Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite at the airport and immediately launched into a hectic schedule of political meetings, encounters with Lutheran and Russian Orthodox leaders, and the ordinary Catholic faithful who are a majority in Lithuania but minorities in Latvia and Estonia.

Speaking outside the presidential palace in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, Francis recalled that until the arrival of “totalitarian ideologies” in the 20th century, Lithuania had been a peaceful home to a variety of ethnic and religious groups, including Christians, Jews and Muslims.

He said the world today is marked by political forces that exploit fear and conflict to justify violence and expulsions of others.

“More and more voices are sowing division and confrontation – often by exploiting insecurity or situations of conflict – and proclaiming that the only way possible to guarantee security and the continued existence of a culture is to try to eliminate, cancel or expel others,” Francis said.

He said Lithuania could be a model of openness, understanding, tolerance and solidarity.

“You have suffered `in the flesh’ those efforts to impose a single model that would annul differences under the pretense of believing that the privileges of a few are more important than the dignity of others or the common good,” he said.

Francis was traveling to the region to mark the 100th anniversaries of their independence and to encourage the faith in the Baltics, which saw five decades of Soviet-imposed religious repression and state-sponsored atheism. During the 1940s Nazi occupation, Lithuania’s centuries-old Jewish community was nearly exterminated.

Scars of occupation

“Fifty years of occupation left their mark both on the church and on the people,” said Monsignor Gintaras Grusas, archbishop of Vilnius. “People have deep wounds from that period that take time to heal.”

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which each have ethnic Russian minorities, are also in lockstep in sounding alarms about Moscow’s military maneuvers in the Baltic Sea area following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its support of separatists fighting the Ukrainian government in eastern Ukraine.

The Vatican, however, has been loath to openly criticize Moscow or its powerful Orthodox Church.

The Baltic countries declared their independence in 1918 but were incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940 and remained part of it until the early 1990s, except for the 1941-1944 Nazi occupation during World War II. All three joined the European Union and NATO in 2004 and are strong backers of the military alliance, which sees them as a bulwark against Russian incursions in Eastern Europe.

The trip, featuring Francis’ fondness for countries on the periphery, will be a welcome break for the Argentine pope. His credibility has taken a blow recently following missteps on the church’s priestly sex abuse scandal and recent allegations that he covered up for an American cardinal.

His visit to Vilnius coincides with the 75th anniversary of the final destruction of the Vilnius Ghetto, on Sept. 23, 1943, when its remaining residents were executed or sent off to concentration camps by the Nazis.

Until Francis’ schedule was changed three weeks ago, there were no specific events for him to acknowledge the slaughter of some 90 percent of Lithuania’s 250,000 Jews at the hands of Nazi occupiers and complicit Lithuanian partisans — a significant oversight for the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

At the last minute, the Vatican added in a visit to the Ghetto, where Francis will pray quietly on the day when the names of Holocaust victims are read out at commemorations across the country.

Francis will also visit the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights, located in a former gymnasium that served as the headquarters of the Gestapo during the 1941-1944 Nazi occupation and later as the headquarters of the feared KGB spy agency when the Soviets recaptured the country.

The issue of Lithuanian complicity in Nazi war crimes is sensitive here, with the Jewish community campaigning to have street signs named for heroes who fought the Soviets removed because of their roles in the executions of Jews.

“I think the presence of the pope is showing attention to the Holocaust and to the Holocaust victims,” said Simonas Gurevichius, chairman of the Vilnius Jewish Community. “However, it is not the pope who has to do the work, it is Lithuania as a country and as a society who needs to do the work.”

 
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Russia cautiously celebrated a move by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to reinstate its own laboratory for testing athletes for performance enhancing drugs, a decision that has divided the sports world by clearing a path for Russian athletes to return to international competition following a three-year suspension over allegations of state-sponsored doping.

The decision by WADA marks the latest chapter in the long-running saga that has divided Russia and the West in recent years, including the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, meddling in the 2016 elections in the U.S., and intervention in Syria’s civil war.

In Russia, the move was heralded as largely overdue recognition of its progress on an issue Russian sports officials say goes beyond Russia.

“The most important thing is that during this time we managed to make big strides forward in the anti-doping culture in the country,” said Pavel Kolobkov, Russia’s Minister of Sport, in reaction to the decision.

Yet, from President Vladimir Putin on down, Russian officials have vehemently denied WADA’s charges of direct state involvement, saying the suspension is a politically-driven campaign to outlaw Russian athletes collectively for the sins of a few.

Roadmap to return

The vote by WADA’s board — in a split 9-2 to ruling with one abstention — amounts to a partial walk back of key demands of Russia’s so-called “roadmap to return” to competition.

The roadmap’s key provision: Russia formally acknowledge two WADA-triggered investigations that found widespread cheating by hundreds of Russian athletes in what the reports alleges was a massive state-sponsored doping program between 2011 and 2015. A related demand requires that RUSADA, the Russian anti-doping agency, offer complete access to its store of past urine samples of Russia’s athletes.

Critics argue Russia has done neither.

Yet a majority of WADA officials said they were satisfied by Russian progress and promises by Kolobkov for future compliance, with the caveat of possible future suspensions, should policies not be implemented.

“Today, the great majority of the WADA Executive Committee (EXCO) decided to reinstate RUSADA as compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code, subject to strict conditions,” said WADA’s President Craig Reedie said in a statement released to the media.

​Fair play?

The decision was widely condemned by sporting federations in the U.S. and Europe, who suggested the decision cast WADA’s role as an arbiter for fair competition in doubt.

Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of RUSADA-turned-whistleblower whose testimony provided key details about the doping effort, argued reinstatement amounted to a “catastrophe for Olympic sport ideals, the fight against doping and the protection of clean athletes.”

Richard McClaren, the Canadian lawyer whose initial report prompted the WADA ban, also condemned the move.

“Politics is dictating this decision,” McClaren said. “The Russians didn’t accept the conditions, so why will they accept the new ones?”

Yet independent Russian sports commentators noted that despite suggestions of a Russian diplomatic victory, not much had in fact changed for Russian athletes themselves.

Russia could now certify its own athletes for competition and host international events once again. They could also certify so-called “therapeutic use exemptions” granted — too often, Russian officials argue — to Western athletes.

Yet some observers noted that Russia’s banned track and field association must still be cleared independently by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), which signaled it would set its own criteria for reinstatement.

The return of Russia’s Paralympic squad, banned from the last two Olympic Games, faces similar hurdles.

“Unfortunately, the return of RUSADA automatically doesn’t give them the flag to compete,” wrote Natalya Maryanchik in the daily Sport-Express newspaper. 

“For top sportsman from Russia almost nothing has changed,” agreed Alexei Advokhin in sports.ru, a popular Russian sports fan website. “Yes, their doping samples will again be tested in Russia.”

“If that’s a case for joy,” he added, “it means for three years we’ve understood nothing.”
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Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev says he expects his countrymen will vote for a deal that will rename the country to “North Macedonia” in exchange for Greece’s ending its objections to Macedonia’s eventual membership in NATO and the European Union.

In a VOA interview, he said, “There is no other alternative. I am an optimist primarily because I know my people. They have a history of making smart decisions and this one will be no different.”

Zaev said he wants Macedonia to soon become the 30th member of NATO in order to secure peace, economic prosperity and security for his country, and that Washington strongly supports Macedonia’s NATO aspirations.

“The message was sent yet again that America stands firmly beside Macedonia as an unwavering strategic partner,” Zaev told VOA Macedonian in an exclusive interview following his meeting with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday.

Zaev was invited to the White House after working to secure the Prespa Agreement with Greece on the long-standing name issue between the two countries, according to a statement issued by the vice president’s office. 

“I am convinced that the United States will stay focused on a Southeast Europe benefiting all the citizens in the region, including the citizens of Macedonia,” said Zaev.

Renaming Macedonia is a key element of a deal with neighboring Greece to end a decades-old dispute. Greece says Macedonia’s current name implies claims on its own northern province of Macedonia, and on its ancient heritage.
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Marc van Bloemen has lived in the old town of Dubrovnik, a Croatian citadel widely praised as the jewel of the Adriatic, for decades, since he was a child. He says it used to be a privilege. Now it’s a nightmare.

Crowds of tourists clog the entrances to the ancient walled city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as huge cruise ships unload thousands more daily. People bump into each other on the famous limestone-paved Stradun, the pedestrian street lined with medieval churches and palaces, as fans of the popular TV series “Game of Thrones” search for the locations where it was filmed.

Dubrovnik is a prime example of the effects of mass tourism, a global phenomenon in which the increase in people traveling means standout sites — particularly small ones — get overwhelmed by crowds. As the numbers of visitors keeps rising, local authorities are looking for ways to keep the throngs from killing off the town’s charm.

“It’s beyond belief, it’s like living in the middle of Disneyland,” said van Bloemen from his house overlooking the bustling Old Harbor in the shadows of the stone city walls.

On a typical day there are about eight cruise ships visiting this town of 2,500 people, each dumping some 2,000 tourists into the streets. He recalls one day when 13 ships anchored here.

“We feel sorry for ourselves, but also for them [the tourists] because they can’t feel the town anymore because they are knocking into other tourists,” he said. “It’s chaos, the whole thing is chaos.”

The problem is hurting Dubrovnik’s reputation. UNESCO warned last year that the city’s world heritage title was at risk because of the surge in tourist numbers.

The popular Discoverer travel blog recently wrote that a visit to the historic town “is a highlight of any Croatian vacation, but the crowds that pack its narrow streets and passageways don’t make for a quality visitor experience.”

It said that the extra attention the city gets from being a filming location for “Game of Thrones” combines with the cruise ship arrivals to create “a problem of epic proportions.”

It advises travelers to visit other quaint old towns nearby: “Instead of trying to be one of the lucky ones who gets a ticket to Dubrovnik’s sites, try the delightful town of Ohrid in nearby Macedonia.”

In 2017, local authorities announced a “Respect the City” plan that limits the number of tourists from cruise ships to a maximum of 4,000 at any one time during the day. The plan still has to be implemented, however.

“We are aware of the crowds,” said Romana Vlasic, the head of the town’s tourist board.

But while on the one hand she pledged to curb the number of visitors, Vlasic noted with some satisfaction that this season in Dubrovnik “is really good with a slight increase in numbers.” The success of the Croatian national soccer team at this summer’s World Cup, where it reached the final, helped bring  new tourists.

Vlasic said that over 800,000 tourists visited Dubrovnik since the start of the year, a 6 percent increase from the same period last year. Overnight stays were up 4 percent to 3 million.

The cruise ships pay the city harbor docking fees, but the local businesses get very little money from the visitors, who have all-inclusive packages on board the ship and spend very little on local restaurants or shops.

Krunoslav Djuricic, who plays his electric guitar at Pile, one of the two main entrances of Dubrovnik’s walled city, sees the crowds pass by him all day and believes that “mass tourism might not be what we really need.”

The tourists disembarking from the cruise ships have only a few hours to visit the city, meaning they often rush around to see the sites and take selfies to post to social media.

“We have crowds of people who are simply running,” Djuricic said. “Where are these people running to?”
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Nations that struck the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, except for the United States, meet on Monday in what many diplomats fear may prove a quixotic effort to keep the agreement alive after U.S. sanctions targeting Iranian oil exports resume in November.

Ministers from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and Iran will gather in New York at 8 p.m. EDT on Monday (0000 GMT Tuesday) to grapple with U.S. President Donald Trump’s May 8 decision to withdraw from the deal and restore the full force of U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Their delicate, and perhaps unrealistic, task is to build a case for Tehran to respect the deal’s limits on its nuclear program even though Washington has pulled out, depriving Iran of many of the economic benefits it was promised.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani “needs arguments to defend the deal in the face of the radicals. He needs us to give him ammunition,” said a senior European diplomat, referring to Iranian hard-liners who oppose the agreement.

“We are trying to give him ammunition, but what we can do, to be honest, is limited,” the diplomat added.

The crux of the deal, negotiated over almost two years by the Obama administration, was that Iran would restrain its nuclear program in return for the relaxation of sanctions that had crippled its economy. Trump considered it flawed because it did not include curbs on ballistic missiles or regional activity.

The United States began reimposing economic sanctions this summer and the most draconian measures, which seek to force Iran’s major customers to stop buying its oil, resume Nov. 5.

Their impending return has contributed to a slide in Iran’s currency. The rial has lost about two-thirds of its value this year, hitting a record low against the U.S. dollar this month.

The European Union has implemented a law to shield European companies from U.S. sanctions. Still, there are limits to what it can do to counter the oil sanctions, under which Washington can cut off from the U.S. financial system any bank that facilitates an oil transaction with Iran.

‘Hurt them more than us’

Many European companies are withdrawing or have withdrawn from Iran because of U.S. sanctions that could cut them off from the American market if they stay.

Iran believes the United States acted in bad faith by withdrawing from the deal even as Tehran has adhered to its terms and has rejected U.S. overtures to meet.

The most recent confidential report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based U.N. watchdog, found Iran had stayed within the main limitations imposed under the deal, whose formal name is the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

In recent weeks, Iranian officials have begun arguing that if the Europeans cannot preserve trade with Iran, perhaps Tehran should reduce, but not eliminate, its compliance with the accord.

On Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif was quoted as telling Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine that Iran could “reduce its implementation” and possibly increase uranium enrichment activities if the deal was jeopardized by “the actions of the Americans and the passivity of the Europeans.”

European diplomats wish to avoid this. Hoping to keep Iran’s nuclear program in check, they have told Tehran that if it stops carrying out the deal to the letter, they will have no choice but to restore their own sanctions.

“They keep telling us the situation is horrible, they are going to leave the accord or just keep partially implementing the deal. It’s the same old music, but for now they continue to implement the JCPOA,” said a second senior European diplomat.

“We [are] warning them that if they were to pull out it would hurt them more than us,” he added.

 
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