Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
The world is in turmoil. The spectre of global conflict lurks on the horizon. Energy prices are putting the squeeze on millions. COVID lingers. But in Monaco, at the yachting world's most glamorous event, it's business as usual.
This week, superyachts with a combined value of somewhere near $3.8 billion gathered together in the azure waters of the tiny European principality for the 31st annual Monaco Yacht Show. And no amount of geopolitical anxiety could tarnish the glitz.
"All of the boats are here," Johan Pizzardini, head of communications and media for the Monaco Yacht Show told CNN Travel on the eve of the four-day event's grand finale. Some 118 superyachts were among the luxury vessels on display in the country's Port Hercule.
The superyacht crowd were out in force too.
The show is specifically dedicated to the superyacht market. Every year, during normal times, an estimated 30,000 people descend on this tiny Mediterranean Riviera country to view the astounding spectacle of some of the biggest and most expensive superyachts in the world assembled in one place.
And while the event is undoubtedly an opportunity for wealthy boat owners to let their hair down in a safe space, sequestered away from the non-yacht-owning world, it's also a chance to go shopping for yet more ocean-going opulence.
It is, as Pizzardini acknowledges, a "niche market." But one that shows little signs of slowing down, despite turbulent times. There are around 40 brand new luxury yachts this year, including the massive 115.1-metre AHPO, the largest superyacht ever exhibited here.
Some of the huge yachts throwing out their mooring ropes, including the 62-metre Rio from Italian shipbuilder CRN and Tankoa Yachts' 50-meter Kinda, belong to first-time yacht buyers.
This reflects a growing trend that developed significantly during the pandemic, when a vast number of new buyers opted to go big rather than work their way up from a smaller yacht.
"It [the pandemic] inspired people who were always thinking about buying a yacht," Bob Denison, president and founder of Fort Lauderdale-based yacht brokerage Denison Yachting, which has four boats on display at the show, tells CNN Travel.
"People are thinking, 'we're not going to wait 10 years.' They were coming out of nowhere and buying a 60-metre (yacht).
"We're still seeing a lot of that, and I think that's something that will continue. People are taking the plunge."
Pizzardini has also noted a change in the attitudes of potential superyacht buyers as a result of the global pandemic.
"We saw a carpe diem period in which prospective clients that had been hesitating from chartering or purchasing a yacht for months or for years, saying, 'Okay, in this period of uncertainty, I need to enjoy life,'" he says.
While there's no doubt that the sanctions imposed against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, which led to some of the largest and most expensive superyachts in the world being temporarily frozen, have had some impact on the industry, demand remains very strong.
Arthur Brouwer, chief executive officer of Dutch shipyard Heesen, notes that "order books are quite full" across the board despite elements of global uncertainty, due to the "post-Covid push."
In fact, Boat International's 2022 Global Order Book indicated that 1,024 superyachts were under construction or on order in 2022, an increase of 24 per cent on the previous year, with a 10.5 per cent rise in orders for those measuring 45 metres and above.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.