Travel
‘We might be crazy’: Passengers who bought berths on 3-year cruise wait for ship to set sail
When it gets going, the Odyssey is scheduled to visit 425 ports in 147 countries on seven continents.
Lanette Canen and Johan Bodin gave up life on land to become seaborne nomads on a years-long cruise.
Months later, the couple has yet to spend a night at sea. Their ship, the Odyssey, is stuck in Belfast undergoing repair work that has postponed its scheduled May departure for a three-and-a-half-year round-the-world voyage.
Bodin said Friday that they have enjoyed their pit stop in the Northern Ireland capital, but “when we’d visited every pub and tried every fish and chips place and listened to all the places that have Irish music, then we were ready to go elsewhere.”
“We’re ready to set sail, for sure,” added Canen.
What’s the appeal of a continuous cruise?
Villa Vie Residences’ Odyssey is the latest venture in the tempest-tossed world of continuous cruising.
It offers travellers the chance to buy a cabin and live at sea on a ship circumnavigating the globe. On its maiden voyage, it is scheduled to visit 425 ports in 147 countries on seven continents.
Cabins – billed as “villas” – start at $99,999 (€90,369), plus a monthly fee, for the operational life of the vessel, at least 15 years. Passengers can also sign up for segments of the voyage lasting weeks or months.
Marketing material, aimed at adventurous retirees and restless digital nomads, touts “the incredible opportunity to own a home on a floating paradise,” complete with a gym, spa, putting green, entertainment facilities, a business center and an “experiential culinary center.”
But first, the Odyssey has to get out of the dock.
When is the Odyssey finally setting sail?
It’s now at Belfast’s Harland & Wolff shipyard, where the doomed RMS Titanic was built more than a century ago.
Villa Vie Residences’ marketing manager Sebastian Stokkendal said the company had been “humbled by the scale of what it takes to reactivate a 30-year-old vessel from a four-year layup.”
He said that after work on the rudder shafts, steel work and engine overhauls, the ship is almost ready to depart.
“We expect a very anticipated successful launch next week where we will head to Bremerhaven, Amsterdam, Lisbon, then across the Atlantic for our Caribbean segment,” he said in an email to The Associated Press (AP).
How are the Odyssey passengers biding their time?
In the meantime, the company has been paying living expenses for about 200 passengers.
They are allowed onto the ship during the day and provided with meals and entertainment, but can’t stay overnight.
The cruise line has paid for hotels in Belfast and in other European cities for those who want to explore more of Europe while they wait.
Passenger Holly Hennessey from Florida told the BBC she can’t leave Northern Ireland because of her shipmate – her cat, Captain.
She said that at first “I thought I’d go home, or the ship sent some people to the Canary Islands. And then I found out that because I have my cat with me, I can’t even leave.”
“I want to thank Belfast for being so welcoming to all of us,” she said.
Bodin and Canen – a Swede and an American who met when both lived in Hawaii – have used the time to travel to Italy, Croatia and Bodin’s hometown in Sweden, where they are awaiting news of the Odyssey.
Canen plans to run her Arizona-based auto-glass business from the ship. Bodin, a carpenter, is running a YouTube channel documenting the couple’s temporarily stalled journey.
The residential cruising business has proved a troubled one
Built in 1993 and operated under different names by several cruise lines over the years before being becalmed by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the Odyssey was bought by Villa Vie Residences in 2023.
The residential cruising business has proved a troubled one. MS The World, launched in 2002, is currently the only vessel of the type in operation. Another venture, Life at Sea, cancelled its planned three-year voyage late last year after failing to secure a ship.
Canen and Bodin put down a deposit on Life at Sea – they got their money back – and also gambled on Victoria Cruises, another stalled venture from which they are still seeking a refund.
But they are undeterred.
“We might be crazy, stupid, naive or resilient,” Bodin said. “I don’t know, you can put any label on it that you want.”
Travel
ICC launches outside investigation into its top prosecutor
The International Criminal Court will launch an external probe into sexual misconduct accusations against its top prosecutor Karim Khan.
The external probe will keep alive a case that the court’s internal watchdog had closed within five days.
Karim Khan has categorically denied the accusations that he tried to coerce a female aide into a sexual relationship, and the claims come amid reports of an ongoing Israeli intelligence campaign to discredit the court’s prosecution of Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
The external investigation was approved this week at a meeting of the court’s oversight body, the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door deliberations.
It was unclear exactly who would conduct the probe, the people said, noting that possibilities included law enforcement officials from Europe and a law firm. The United Nations’ internal watchdog has also been discussed for such a probe but that could be fraught with conflict-of-interest concerns because Karim’s wife, a prominent human rights lawyer, had previously worked at the agency in Kenya investigating sexual harassment.
Neither Päivi Kaukoranta, a Finnish diplomat currently heading the ICC’s oversight body, nor Khan’s attorney immediately responded to requests for comment.
An AP investigation found that two court employees in whom the alleged victim confided came forward with the accusation in May, a few weeks before Khan sought arrest warrants against Netanyahu, his defence minister and three Hamas leaders on war crimes charges. A three-judge panel is now weighing that request.
AP reported that Khan travelled frequently with the woman after transferring her to his office from another department at the ICC’s headquarters in The Hague.
During one foreign trip, Khan allegedly asked the woman to rest with him on a hotel bed and then “sexually touched her,” according to whistle-blower documents shared with the court’s watchdog and seen by the AP. Later, he came to her room at 3 a.m. and knocked on the door for 10 minutes.
Other allegedly non-consensual behaviour cited in the documents included locking the door of his office and sticking his hand in her pocket. He also allegedly asked her on several occasions to go on a vacation together.
After the two co-workers reported the alleged behaviour, the court’s internal watchdog interviewed the woman but she opted against filing a complaint due to her distrust of the watchdog, according to the AP investigation. Khan was never questioned and the watchdog’s inquiry was closed within five days.
While the court’s watchdog could not determine wrongdoing, it nonetheless urged Khan in a memo to minimise contact with the woman to protect the rights of all involved and safeguard the court’s integrity.
Under Khan, the ICC has become more assertive in combating crimes against humanity, war crimes and related atrocities. Along the way, it has added to a growing list of enemies.
Last September, following the opening of a probe into Russian atrocities in Ukraine, the court suffered a debilitating cyberattack that left staff unable to work for weeks. It also hired an intern who was later criminally charged in the U.S. with being a Russian spy.
Israel has also been waging its own influence campaign ever since the ICC recognised Palestine as a member and in 2015 opened a preliminary investigation into Israel’s actions.
London’s The Guardian newspaper and several Israeli news outlets reported this summer that Israel’s intelligence agencies for the past decade have allegedly targeted senior ICC staff, including putting Khan’s predecessor under surveillance and showing up at her house with envelopes stuffed with cash to discredit her.
An external probe would go further than what Khan proposed when, following the AP report, he called on the ICC’s internal watchdog to investigate the matter and said he would fully cooperate.
Travel
Inundated Pompeii plans a limit of 20,000 tourists a day
The Pompeii archaeological park plans to also introduce personalised tickets in a bid to protect the world heritage site, officials have said.
The move comes after what authorities called a record summer that saw over four million people visiting the world-famous remains of the ancient Roman city, buried under ash and rock following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
The park’s director Gabriel Zuchtriegel said visitors to the main archaeological site now exceed an average of 15,000 to 20,000 every day, and the new daily cap will prevent the numbers from surging further.
“We are working on a series of projects to lift the human pressure on the site, which could pose risks both for visitors and the heritage (that is) so unique and fragile,” Zuchtriegel said.
Starting 15 November, tickets to access the park will be personalised to include the full names of visitors. A maximum of 20,000 tickets will be released each day, with different time slots during the peak summer season.
The park’s management is also trying to attract more tourists to visit other ancient sites connected to Pompeii through a free shuttle bus under the “Greater Pompeii” project, including Stabia, Torre Annunziata and Boscoreale sites.
“The measures to manage flows and safety and the personalisation of the visits are part of this strategy,” Zuchtriegel said.
“We are aiming for slow, sustainable, pleasant and non-mass tourism and above all widespread throughout the territory around the UNESCO site, which is full of cultural jewels to discover,” he added.
Travel
Spain aims to ban golden visas from January – but one country is reintroducing its scheme
The EU is turning its back on golden visas – but one country is reintroducing its scheme.
Getting the right to live and work in another country can be a long and difficult process. But that’s not always the case for those with money to spend.
Golden visas offer the opportunity for wealthy people to essentially ‘buy’ the right to residency – sometimes without even having to live in the country.
And their popularity in the European Union is growing as people look to move away from countries facing instability and political decisions such as Brexit that may limit their safety and rights.
With the unsettled political and social environment in the US in recent years, applications for golden visas from Americans were also projected to increase.
But golden visas are now gradually being phased out across Europe.
Spain has finally secured a legal route to ending golden visas via property investment, with reports suggesting the ban could come into force by January 2025. The ban, which is still being debated, could also affect other investment pathways.
Portugal removed real estate investment as a basis for golden visa applications back in October 2023 in the hope of reducing property speculation.
The Netherlands followed suit, ending its golden visa scheme in January 2024.
But Hungary has bucked the trend by reintroducing its golden visa scheme, with applications open as of this month.
So what exactly are these golden visa schemes and why has the EU raised questions about their safety in recent years?
What is a golden visa?
Residence by investment schemes, otherwise known as ‘golden visas’, offer people the chance to get a residency permit for a country by purchasing a house there or making a large investment or donation.
Any applicants must be over the age of 18, have a clean criminal record and have sufficient funds to make the required investment.
There are also golden passports, known officially as citizenship by investment programs, that allow foreigners to gain citizenship using the same means.
For countries in the EU, this also means gaining access to many of the benefits of being a resident of the bloc – including free movement between countries.
Why is the EU against golden visas and passports?
In 2022, the European Commission called on EU governments to stop selling citizenship to investors.
Though this is different to golden visas, which offer permanent residency rather than citizenship, the call came as part of a move to crack down on this combined multi-billion euro industry. In the wake of the Ukraine war, there were concerns that these schemes could be a security risk.
Brussels also called for countries to double-check whether people sanctioned due to the war were holding a golden passport or visa that they had issued.
In the past, the EU has also said that schemes of this kind are a risk to security, transparency and the values that underpin the European Union project.
In October 2022, the European Commission urged Albania to “refrain from developing an investors’ citizenship scheme (golden passports)”. Such a scheme would “pose risks as regards security, money laundering, tax evasion, terrorist financing, corruption and infiltration by organised crime, and would be incompatible with EU norms,” it warned in a report. The country has since suspended its plans to introduce a golden visa.
Threats also come from outside the bloc. Also in October 2022, the European Commission proposed a suspension of Vanuatu‘s visa waiver agreement due to golden passport risks. This is because the scheme enables nationals of third countries to gain Vanuatu citizenship, which then earns them visa-free access to Schengen zone countries.
Which other countries have scrapped their golden visa schemes?
In February 2022, the UK government scrapped its golden visa scheme that allowed wealthy foreign nationals to settle in the country in exchange for bringing part of their wealth with them. The decision to end the scheme came as part of a move to clamp down on dirty money from Russia.
In February 2023, Ireland also axed its golden visa scheme – the Immigrant Investor Programme – which offered Irish residence in return for a €500,000 donation or three-year annual €1 million investment in the country.
Ireland had already suspended the scheme for Russian citizens in March 2022 as part of sanctions imposed on the country for the invasion of Ukraine. The following month, the European Parliament warned that the programme was vulnerable to tax abuse. The final decision to end the scheme was the outcome of various international reports and internal reviews.
Which EU countries still offer golden visas and what are the requirements?
There are only a few places that still offer golden passports in the EU. One of these countries is Malta. Here, the minimum investment amount starts at €690,000 and offers citizenship for between 12 and 36 months.
Many others, however, still offer golden visa schemes. Here are a few examples of exactly how much it costs to get residence by investment in these countries.
Does Spain still offer a golden visa?
Spain launched its residence by investment scheme in 2013. It allowed wealthy people from outside the EU to obtain residency permits on investing more than €500,000 in real estate or certain types of business.
However, in April, the country’s government said it plans to scrap the real estate route – which accounts for 94 per cent of applications – to reduce pressure on the housing market.
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the reform was part of his minority coalition government’s push to make housing “a right, not a speculative business”.
The road to banning the visa has been a long and rocky one, having failed to secure parliamentary support from major opposition parties.
According to local media reports, a ban could be on the horizon in January 2025 but applications made before then are likely to be honoured.
The government says over 15,000 such visas have been issued since the measure was brought into law in 2013 by a previous right-wing Popular Party government as a means to attract foreign investors.
Since Spain announced plans to end its golden visa, Chinese investors have rushed to buy property in the country, a report by Spanish state broadcaster RTVE revealed.
The visa can also be gained by starting certain types of business in Spain, holding company shares or bank deposits with a minimum value of €1 million in Spanish financial institutions, or making a government bonds investment of at least €2 million. The ban could extend to these types of investments, also.
Hungary golden visa scheme
Bucking the trend, Hungary announced plans to reintroduce its golden visa scheme in July 2024, after having ended it back in 2017.
The so-called Guest Investor Program (GIP) offers three routes to residency, including through real estate investment funds (minimum €250,000), purchasing a residential property (minimum €500,000) or donating at least €1 million to a higher educational institution in the country.
The visa is extended to the spouse and dependent children of the applicant and grants visa-free travel in the EU.
Initial applications opened at the end of October, with further real estate investment funds expected to be released by the end of the year.
Italy’s golden visa scheme
Italy is another popular destination for those looking to get residence by investment. Introduced in 2017, its golden visa grants non-EU nationals a residence permit for two years in exchange for an investment in Italy.
The minimum investment here is €250,000 which must be done through an Italian limited company. Those holding these visas can also include their family in the application and benefit from a special tax regime.
Once those using the scheme have lived in Italy for 10 years, they can be eligible for citizenship.
Greece’s golden visa scheme
Greece offers golden visas, with one of the quickest processes for gaining residency. Qualifying foreigners can get a permit within 60 days of applying.
It used to have one of the lowest thresholds for investment at just €250,000 spent on property in the country. But the country raised this to €800,000 in September in areas facing severe housing shortages, such as Athens, Mykonos and Santorini.
Elsewhere, it only rose to €400,000 to encourage investment in a wider range of places.
Golden visa holders aren’t required to stay in Greece to keep their visas.
By the end of 2021, the country had seen 9,500 applications for these residence by investment schemes, one of the highest numbers in Europe.
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