Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00tourism destinations, welcoming a record nearly 40
00:00:03million international visitors in 2019 before the
00:00:06COVID-19 pandemic brought the industry to near
00:00:09standstill. In July 2024, Thailand expanded
00:00:13visa free stairs from 30 to 60 days to attract
00:00:16travelers back and encourage them to stay and spend for longer,
00:00:20and Bangkok alone was named the world's most visited city by Euro
00:00:24Monitor International, a year later, attracting around 30 million
00:00:28international visitors. The length of stay
00:00:31for tourists by the strict definition
00:00:34in Thailand is about a little bit around eight
00:00:38or nine days. High profile incidents of public
00:00:41disorder, violence and tourists breaking local laws and
00:00:45social media have fueled calls for tighter enforcement as officials
00:00:49try to balance welcoming millions of visitors with protecting local
00:00:52communities and Thailand's reputation as a safe
00:00:55destination.
00:00:59works for. While school in Bangkok, she thinks the
00:01:02behavior from some tourists has caused the 30-day visa free
00:01:06limit to return. I feel so sorry, I'm not, I don't know
00:01:10why they say, I think
00:01:12a lot the people come to Thailand,
00:01:16sorry now, some people not good for
00:01:19Thailand, you understand? Hermwate high school relies on both local and
00:01:22international customers to train in its traditional gym
00:01:26often for months at a time. With the new changes to the 60
00:01:30visa, she admits it may impact business going
00:01:33forward. The school has already seen a 20% decrease in
00:01:37customers this year because of external factors such as fewer flights and
00:01:40visitors entering Thailand due to the rising costs because of the conflict in the
00:01:44Middle East. Isaac Taiki says his one-year stint in the country
00:01:48has opened doors for him, but he could have missed out on an opportunity to train
00:01:52White Thai for an extended period and the offer to compete in a
00:01:55semi-professional fight in the Thai capital with a shorter stay.
00:01:59I kept saying. kept trying, kept training and then a fight got offered, so it
00:02:03kind of just rolled into what it is now, but again it kind of goes back to
00:02:06the time, if I was here a shorter time frame or like based
00:02:10on how the the visa could be or how it is, that
00:02:13wouldn't be possible. Thailand is very much open to the world,
00:02:17but a return of shorter visa free stays
00:02:20alongside other subtle policy changes and
00:02:24tighter enforcement could allow authorities to strike a
00:02:28balance between in... origin tourism and
00:02:31tackling any misbehaving visitors.
00:02:35Tommy Walker, TRT World, Bangkok,
00:02:38Thailand. And you're up to date here on TRT World.
00:02:42Across the Balkans is coming next.
00:02:52People are afraid of
00:02:56Hello, you are watching TRT World. Today we look at
00:03:00Croatia, where thousands of tons of illegally
00:03:03dumped waste have sparked mass protests and
00:03:07Serbia, where Belgrade's public pharmacy network is close to
00:03:10collapse, from environmental safety to
00:03:13access to essential medicine, we ask who is
00:03:17responsible when the systems people depend on
00:03:21begin to fail. I'm Naja Muftic and this is across the
00:03:24Balkans.
00:03:40Croatia is celebrated for its pristine lakes and
00:03:44forests, but it's also rapidly unfolding a different
00:03:47narrative. It's at the center of a long-running
00:03:51dispute over thousands of tons of illegally dumped
00:03:54waste from some EU countries. On September
00:03:585th, tens of thousands of protesters marched through
00:04:02the Croatian capital, demanding the government urgently
00:04:05clear a huge illegal dump of hazardous
00:04:08waste. Here is
00:04:09more.
00:04:15Nobody wants to see waste or garbage at their
00:04:18doorstep, not least thousands of tons of
00:04:21it. That's the complaint of these protesters who took to the
00:04:25streets of Zagreb over a dispute stretching back more than
00:04:29a year.
00:04:32Nearly 40,000 tons of waste, including
00:04:34electronics, plastic and medical waste were found at this
00:04:38former industrial complex. Authorities
00:04:41suspect much of it was illegally imported from EU
00:04:45countries like Germany, Slovenia and Italy.
00:04:48Gospić is our home organized the rally titled
00:04:52Walk for Lika, walk for Croatia, and demanded that the
00:04:55government temporarily ban waste imports. The basic
00:04:59human right is to have clean soil, clean
00:05:02water and clean air, and we
00:05:05are responsible to give those to our children and
00:05:09our grandchildren to leave the country clean.
00:05:13because I have to be here, because it is the duty of every
00:05:16normal citizen of this country to fight
00:05:20for a better country, to fight against injustice, to
00:05:24defend our lives, to defend
00:05:27the most beautiful part of our Croatia, that is
00:05:30Lika.
00:05:40Suspected of importing waste and illegally burying it at several sites
00:05:44across Croatia, in a case involving millions of
00:05:47dollars. In 2025, Croatian
00:05:50police and Europol arrested 13 people in an
00:05:53operation related to a scandal over illegal waste disposal in
00:05:57Lika. President Zoran Milanović
00:06:00promised immediate cleanup warning that those
00:06:04responsible will be held accountable and that he would seek amendments to
00:06:07the waste management act and establish a new waste
00:06:11management system. to be measured when it comes to this buried
00:06:14waste, since it is buried and mixed with
00:06:18earth, its characteristics
00:06:21regarding its content can qualify it as containing
00:06:25certain hazardous waste, and here
00:06:29the procedure is such that we must find
00:06:32appropriate companies that are capable of disposing of
00:06:35such waste.
00:06:37of infrastructure to dispose of some
00:06:42hazardous waste. Prime
00:06:46Minister Plenković stated that the country exports more waste
00:06:50than it imports and that only 0.8% of the waste
00:06:54imported in 2024 was classified as
00:06:57hazardous.
00:06:59Following a two-day parliamentary session to discuss illegal waste
00:07:03dumping in the Lika region, the Croatian Parliament
00:07:07rejected four proposals made by the president and
00:07:11adopted 11 put forward by the ruling majority. They
00:07:14included a report on the progress of the clean up, including actions
00:07:18taken, deadlines, costs, environmental monitoring results
00:07:21and greater efforts by local authorities to prevent illegal
00:07:25dumping, but this is also an issue over what
00:07:29cannot be seen. Gospić is located in Croatia's
00:07:33Karst region where water can move through complex underground
00:07:36canals. An expert assessment suggests microplastics
00:07:40and heavy metals were found in the... soil in the contaminated
00:07:44area, but Plenković maintained in a statement that the water
00:07:47in the Lika region and in particular Gospić is
00:07:51completely safe to drink. For the people of
00:07:54Gospić, cleaning up the site is only the beginning. They want assurances
00:07:57that what happened here will not simply be buried elsewhere
00:08:01for other communities to deal
00:08:03with.
00:08:08Joining us now from Zadar, Croatia is Ivana
00:08:11Šarić, a member of the citizen group Gospić je naš dom
00:08:15or Gospić is our home. Ivana, thank you for
00:08:18joining us on Across the Balkans.
00:08:22Thank you for your invitation. Let's start
00:08:25with the basic question: what exactly happened in Gospić?
00:08:28How did more than 30,000 tons of
00:08:31waste, including hazardous medical and industrial
00:08:35refuse end up buried at the former PPK Velebit
00:08:39site and how could this continue for years
00:08:42without the authorities stopping
00:08:44it?
00:08:47Uh, what happened in Gospić is a very serious
00:08:50case of illegal waste dumping that went on for
00:08:53years. According to the investigation,
00:08:57large quantities of waste were transported
00:09:01and illegally dumped in Gospić. To put that in perspective,
00:09:04we are talking about approximately
00:09:081,500 trucks full of that
00:09:11waste. And if we line those trucks up with
00:09:14that waste, we have around 20
00:09:18kilometers long convoy.
00:09:22Ivana, you and other residents say this is
00:09:26not only an environmental problem, but
00:09:29a failure of the state. What in your
00:09:31view did the government, inspectors and other
00:09:35institutions fail to do while thousands of tons
00:09:38of waste were being brought into the region?
00:09:43In our view, the biggest failure was the failure of
00:09:47oversight. We are talking about thousands of tons
00:09:51of waste being transported,
00:09:53processed and buried over a period of several
00:09:56years, and that raises very serious
00:10:00questions about inspections, about
00:10:03waste tracking, about permits, about
00:10:06monitoring and communication between the
00:10:09institutions. The question is not only
00:10:13who dumped that waste? We
00:10:15also have to ask how is this possible on this scale
00:10:19without the system detecting it and stopping them? For
00:10:22citizens, this is essential
00:10:26because with accountability, it
00:10:29is very difficult to rebuild the trust that we
00:10:32lost. The government says drinking water
00:10:36in Gospić and Lika-Senj County is safe,
00:10:39but expert findings reported elevated levels of
00:10:42heavy metals in the area. Who should people
00:10:46believe and why has this contradiction created such a deep
00:10:49public distrust?
00:10:53Um, first we have to distinguish
00:10:57two different things. We have the first thing
00:11:00is that we have the drinking water. The authorities
00:11:04have repeatedly said that the public drinking water supply in
00:11:08Gospić is currently safe, and the
00:11:11Croatian Institute of Public Health has reported
00:11:15that the or tested tap water
00:11:18samples are within the required standards.
00:11:22From the other side, expert findings
00:11:26show that illegally on on the site of
00:11:29an illegal landfill that we have some
00:11:32PFAS compounds. Uh, you
00:11:35know, and those compounds are found in groundwater.
00:11:38So this is that was very
00:11:42confusing and there they
00:11:45also found some levels of certain metals
00:11:48in the soil. And
00:11:51those findings are not necessarily contradictory. Why?
00:11:55Because the groundwater, uh, or the
00:11:57downstream from a contaminated
00:12:00space, not the same thing as treated water coming
00:12:04through the public drinking water system. You know, but
00:12:08this is exactly why the people are
00:12:11worried. When you have hazardous waste, when
00:12:15you have contaminated soil and
00:12:17PFAS that is detected in groundwater in the vicinity,
00:12:21people need more than reassurance. They need to
00:12:25to be sure that we still some short
00:12:28time for waste remediation and
00:12:31continuous independent and transparent monitoring.
00:12:35So we cannot tell citizens that the tap
00:12:38water is unsafe when its current official tests
00:12:42say it is safe, but where what
00:12:45we keep saying is, test it, publish the results,
00:12:49then continue monitoring and make all the data available to the
00:12:52public and above all everything to keep the water
00:12:56safe and that is the only way how to
00:13:00rebuild the trust.
00:13:03People in Gospić have been living next to this
00:13:06waste while waiting for answers and cleanup. What
00:13:10are people most afraid of today in
00:13:12Gospić?
00:13:17the unknown, you
00:13:20know, because they are worried about the
00:13:23water and about the soil, and possible long-term
00:13:27health consequences, but
00:13:29we think there's something even deeper. People are
00:13:32afraid that contamination,
00:13:35contamination could remain in the environment for years
00:13:38and even decades and
00:13:42especially because Gospić has a sensitive
00:13:45Karst environment. That's the the
00:13:48problem that gives up
00:13:51more problems with the remediation.
00:13:55Also, people are afraid that nobody will take
00:13:57responsibility. And imagine living
00:14:01next to thousands of tons of illegally dumped
00:14:05waste and repeatedly asking what is
00:14:07there, uh, is is some something something
00:14:11poisoned in my backyard?
00:14:14Are my vegetables okay or
00:14:17not? So people don't want political
00:14:20arguments. People, they want to know that their
00:14:24families, water and their environment are
00:14:27safe, but the analysis
00:14:30and new analysis don't show that. The state
00:14:34knew it was hazardous waste and the public
00:14:38was kept in the dark for two years. That's the main problem.
00:14:41For an entire year
00:14:45we had been demanding the analysis.
00:14:47We tried to get that analysis in
00:14:51publicity and we
00:14:54have the rights to get that analysis and after
00:14:58we threatened the
00:15:01government that we will close the
00:15:04highways in the middle of the tourist season, they
00:15:08they showed us the result of the analysis and the result
00:15:12of analysis was devastating.
00:15:15Your movement took the issue from Gospić to
00:15:19Zagreb with thousands of people joining the walk for
00:15:22Lika at the latest protest. What was the
00:15:26moment when you realized that petitions and demands
00:15:29were no longer enough and that people had to take to the
00:15:33streets?
00:15:36For a long time or a year and a half, uh, because we
00:15:39found out publicly about this situation in February
00:15:43of 2025 and
00:15:46for that long time for a year and a half, we tried to solve
00:15:49this through institutions. We tried to send thousands
00:15:53of letters, inquiries.
00:15:56We held meetings with some local, national
00:15:59authorities. We asked for information, we asked
00:16:03for analysis, we asked for urgent preventive
00:16:07measures and a clear mediation plan, but
00:16:10months went by and nothing happened. The turning
00:16:14point was the realization of the
00:16:16governance and environmental protection
00:16:20committee that's held in Gospić
00:16:23and when we saw that they were
00:16:26not actually there for people at all,
00:16:30that that was turned into some political
00:16:33infighting and that was the some
00:16:37moment when we started to when we knew that we have
00:16:41to do something and that was the
00:16:44moment when the walk for we for walk for Lika, walk for
00:16:47Croatia became necessary. Uh, for
00:16:51the end, please, Prime Minister Plenković after
00:16:54protests said the government would
00:16:57urgently consider this initiative and that
00:17:00a new waste management system would be established. Do you
00:17:04believe the government has finally taken real
00:17:07action?
00:17:10Uh, it seems today that the government has finally started
00:17:14taking some concrete steps and we
00:17:17acknowledge that. We do not need another
00:17:20promise. We need measurable and visible
00:17:24results. That's the only thing that we can
00:17:27say. If the government delivers that
00:17:31and
00:17:33we will be the first to acknowledge it. And this is not a
00:17:45Thank you so much for being our guest in Across the Balkans
00:17:48and I hope as soon as possible the Lika will be
00:17:52clean and happy as it was again. Thank you so much. Thank you
00:17:55very much. We hope also. Thank
00:17:58you.
00:18:04Across Europe, more people than ever rely on
00:18:07prescription medicine from public funded pharmacies, but an
00:18:11increasing number of these pharmacies now belong to a
00:18:14handful of large chains. This has left
00:18:17governments facing a question they are only
00:18:20starting to answer: who guarantees that people can still
00:18:24get the medicine they need? In Serbia's
00:18:27capital, the public pharmacy network is close to collapse
00:18:30and the city that owns it wants to hand it to a private
00:18:34operator. Katarina Petrović reports from Belgrade.
00:19:07to sell it to him. The state must guarantee that we will have medicine.
00:19:11With the loss of the public pharmacies, the citizens
00:19:15have lost trust and
00:19:17confidence in the healthcare system. On the 28th of
00:19:21July, after almost a year of protest, Serbia's president
00:19:25called the workers in. They left saying every demand had been
00:19:28accepted: medicines and operating funds within two
00:19:32weeks, back pay by mid September, health insurance
00:19:35restored. In return, three to six months to prove the
00:19:39network can compete on the market. Three weeks on,
00:19:42only the health insurance has come through, valid until the end of
00:19:46September. No medicines, no money, nothing in
00:19:49writing. The city did not respond to our request for an
00:19:53interview. Its position is on record. The mayor once called
00:19:57selling the institution the only solution. The assembly
00:20:00later voted for a concession instead, citing around
00:20:045 million dollars in support in taking its
00:20:07debt. Serbia is not short of pharmacies. There
00:20:11are around 4,000 nationwide, more
00:20:14pharmacies than Serbia has pharmacists to staff them.
00:20:18What it is short of is the kind of pharmacy that opens at 3 in the
00:20:22morning, that mixes a medicine no factory makes
00:20:25anymore, that stocks the things nobody makes money
00:20:28selling. Belgrade now has a few months to decide
00:20:32whether that is worth paying for.
00:20:36Here we are sitting on the Zemun embankment, right?
00:20:39200 to 300 meters from us is the Belgrade pharmacy, which
00:20:43was the duty pharmacy for for for for all of Zemun. This
00:20:46somehow we felt safe because we knew that...
00:20:50that we don't have to worry when we'll need medicine,
00:20:53that it's always there for us and that it will be
00:20:57open, and there worked some women for whom we
00:21:01were sure that they somehow work for us. Savo
00:21:04Filipović, head of Serbia's patients
00:21:07association.
00:21:12I very much support both private healthcare and private
00:21:16pharmacies. I have nothing against that, I just think we should have
00:21:20both, then one can choose. Until
00:21:242013, only public pharmacies
00:21:27dispensed state-funded prescriptions. Private
00:21:30ones then wanted the same right, but not the same rules.
00:21:34In Serbia we have a regulation problem. In
00:21:37fact there are no regulations on how pharmacies in
00:21:41general can be opened and where. You may
00:21:44find some pharmacies back to back, side by side, four
00:21:48or five pharmacies being located together, such
00:21:51as the green markets or the bus
00:21:54stops, etc. A public pharmacy could only
00:21:58open where it served at least 4,000 people. In
00:22:01contrast, a private one can open anywhere it expects a
00:22:05profit. Across Europe, aging populations and recurring
00:22:08shortages have made equal access more
00:22:11urgent. There is a rule about
00:22:13geolocation, servicing equally, uh,
00:22:17citizens of that country irrespective.
00:22:25when a lady who was somewhere
00:22:27in her 70s came to look for daily catheters for her husband,
00:22:30people cannot function without them even for a day, I tried in
00:22:34our system to see if there were any left anywhere, there weren't any, and
00:22:38she said, I have visited over 50
00:22:41pharmacies and I can't find this, what should I do?
00:22:44Even today I am thinking about what they did, how they managed.
00:22:48These are things that are unprofitable, because you have a 4% profit
00:22:52on aids, meaning you have no profit. The public network
00:22:56also compounds medicines the market no longer supplies
00:22:59or cannot supply during shortages. More than
00:23:0390% of staff are women, many nearing
00:23:06retirement. Their wages stopped and their health
00:23:09insurance with them. my colleague sold everything
00:23:12she could, after that, since she had no choice, she applied
00:23:16to receive a meal at the public kitchen. However, they refused her because she was employed,
00:23:20on the other hand, she couldn't pay for her own therapy either, because
00:23:24her health books were not activated. The
00:23:27city has also brought 28 rent cases against
00:23:30its own institutions, involving premises it occupies
00:23:34but does not own. Workers say the pressure is
00:23:37deliberate, pushing them towards bankruptcy and
00:23:40concession. Founder's rights passed to the city of
00:23:43Belgrade in 2007. As
00:23:45founder, the city funds it, and its assembly voted for the
00:23:49concession. Yet the rescue promise came from the president. The
00:23:53promise was made in one place, the money and the
00:23:56decision sit in another. We have nothing in writing
00:23:59and as far as I've noticed, a record was
00:24:02kept, but it wasn't handed to us. Novi Sad and
00:24:05Kruševac have already transferred their public pharmacies to Benu and
00:24:09Dr. Max, among Europe's largest chains, Zrenjanin
00:24:13to another private operator. Everyone says you have a good example,
00:24:17I don't know, concessions in Novi Sad, yes, but Novi Sad and...
00:24:50question, who guarantees that a person gets their medicine, the state or
00:24:54the market? Medicine is not a commodity, it is a
00:24:57therapy, it helps people. It is a public good and a
00:25:01matter of state responsibility at the end of the day. The first deadline
00:25:05has already passed, without medicines on the shelves, the test
00:25:08cannot even begin and the wage debt now stands at
00:25:11roughly $10 million dollars. The workers have already told the
00:25:15president what they want, to remain what they have been for
00:25:19decades: a public service people can rely on when they
00:25:22need medicine, because in a public network, access to
00:25:26medicine does not depend on where someone lives, what they
00:25:30can afford, or whether supplying it turns a
00:25:33profit. Katarina Petrović, Across the Balkans,
00:25:36Belgrade.
00:25:42People in their twilight years are generally slowing down,
00:25:45retiring and living a more relaxing life, but not
00:25:49Doctor Apostolov. He is still doing the rounds in the
00:25:52Bulgarian village of Skrat at 90 years
00:25:55old, and he's not the only one as Adam
00:25:59explains.
00:26:0290-year-old general practitioner Kiril Apostolov is one of the last
00:26:06doctors standing in Bulgaria's Skrat, which is near the border
00:26:10of Greece and North Macedonia.
00:26:13Despite his age, he can still walk up a hill every week and do house
00:26:17calls for his patients.
00:26:19Many GPs are working past retirement age across the
00:26:22country, because there are fewer younger doctors to replace
00:26:26them.
00:26:30For now, I feel good. the work doesn't bother me,
00:26:34I still feel pleasure,
00:26:37as long as
00:26:39I'm good and
00:26:43the patients are happy with
00:26:44me.
00:26:47It seems to me that there will hardly be anyone to, with
00:26:51pleasure I would
00:26:53step aside for someone to come to work, but
00:26:57young doctors,
00:27:01before...
00:27:03a few days ago I wasn't well
00:27:07and my wife told me, "Don't bother the doctor while he's
00:27:10here," she said, "I won't bother him."
00:27:13I say
00:27:17I say it will pass and so
00:27:21constantly constantly
00:27:24I go to visit, I see sick people passing by
00:27:27here on our
00:27:29street.
00:28:02and here, I have no words to say, I'm so
00:28:06grateful to him, he can walk, he can
00:28:09come, he's older than me, I don't carry a stick, I carry two
00:28:13but I don't have to, let him help
00:28:16people like this, in 2023,
00:28:2054.5%.
00:28:29younger doctors taking up GP positions,
00:28:32especially in rural areas due to several factors such as
00:28:36bureaucracy, poor career opportunities and low
00:28:39pay. For now, Kirol and elder
00:28:42doctors like him will continue to treat those most in
00:28:45need, but when these doctors finally hang up their jackets and
00:28:49stethoscopes, who will be next to climb up hills like
00:28:52this? Adamunu across the
00:28:55Balkans. That's all from us on across the
00:28:58Balkans. The region continues to change, and we will keep...
00:29:02bringing you the stories and voices shaping its
00:29:05future, you can follow our stories on social media and
00:29:08TRT World's YouTube channel. Thank you for watching,
00:29:11I'm Naja Muftic and we hope to see you next time.
00:30:15The Houthies claim hundreds of government forces have been killed or wounded as
00:30:18fighting continues in Yemen.
00:30:22Meanwhile the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Egypt hold crisis talks in Cairo
00:30:25to address the widening conflict, Washington says it's no plans to step
00:30:29in to boost Saudi security. Hello.
00:30:32Welcome to TRT World Live from London, I'm Aron Armstrong, also coming up on the
00:30:36program:
00:30:38two sailers are missing after another attack on shipping in the straight of
00:30:41Homouz. The United States has blamed Iran. Terran says the
00:30:45ship hit mines and
00:30:48the top American lawker echos president Trump's hoax claims about the
00:30:51dangers of AI and the risks of falling behind
00:30:54China.