For anyone wondering what's going on now - they're writing in the plenum the amendment to the article on the Sites related to recent conflicts. With very divergent views. All very confusing. S Africa and Ethiopia refuse a wording proposal from Australia because they prefer another one from Uganda; Russia refuses any mention of gender balance for a proposed working group ("a very important topic, but not relevant here").

Wow, i didn't follow the livestream but it seems epic! To sum-up: Gdansk postponed and limes inscribed? That's it?

The limes are added on the wh website

Yes. And the rest of the time they spent arguing on the "sites related to recent conflicts" - in pretty undiplomatic terms. This was put aside at the end to select the Chair for next year (from Russia, since it will be hosted in Kazan) and the vice-chairs. And then, sadly, the interpreters had all left and there was no time to continue the discussion. More tomorrow.

Day by day, this is becoming an even greater farce.

Am experiencing a somewhat surreal situation ......am currently watching the YouTube streaming of the closing ceremony of WHC 44.
Apparently, out of a World population of c 7.7 billion, I am the ONLY person doing so since YouTube tells me "1 watching now"!!!
Mr Kuznetsov is giving his farewell to Suzhou and welcome in a year's time to Kazan.... and the "World viewing count" is about to reduce to Zero!

Interestingly, the average viewing figure during the past weeks has hovered around 140 in my experience. Since at least some of those come from this community I have been somewhat surprised how few others involved in Heritage matters worldwide found it worthwhile to tune in.

Perhaps, if the shenanigans which have taken place had been more widely seen, then the results of the deliberations would be accorded less respect. But I suspect not.....

I watched the sessions mostly via the Zoom stream on
http://whc.unesco.org/en/sessions/44com/
Thus the YouTube statistics does not reflect the reality.... The YouTube was an alternative when the offical Zoom did not work for several times this week.
I am sorry but you were not only person who watched the closing ceremony.

Not a situation I sought I assure you!

Given the frequent flakey nature of the UNESCO direct Zoom feed and the fact that Youtube had none of its own I wouldn't have thought that many people would have stuck with the UNESCO feed - but there you go...

Sorry, of course, do not get it in a wrong way. Your conclusions are likely valid anyway. I cannot imagine YouTube: 1, and Zoom: 7.7bilion-1. As I am an enthusiast, I thought that it was much more popular than it was in reality. If YouTube had around 140 viewing counts per day in average, I guess Zoom counts could have been in a comparable order of magnitude.... that is pretty interesting!

In my case, highly bureaucratic committee proceedings, on any subject, always make me nauseous, so it is unlikely that I would ever suffer through any of the live streams. However, I very much appreciate those of you who did and posted updates and comments here!

Also, this was a particularly bad session, as far as my personal count was concerned. I addded one visited Site (Kaeng Krachan), but seven near misses (it would have been eight had Gdansk been inscribed.)

The near misses included places that I had plans to visit recently, but skipped because of time pressures (Burle Marx,) and some that I had plans to visit, but couldn't enter the country because of covid (Jomon, etc.) I also walked right by the entrance to the Speyer ShUM Site, but didn't go inside because I wasn't feeling well (an illness which I later concluded was actually covid, so that one was actually a good thing that I missed.)

The most annoying happened recently. In June and July I was in South Korea and when I was devising my route I thought about going to a Getbol Site. But in those months the birdlife is almost totally absent from the flats, and with the recommendation being "defer" I decided not to go there. Of course the WHC inscribed it anyway. You would think that I would know better by now!

mrayers
I thought I had an exceptionally near miss of the Lower German Limes - but closer investigation reveals that I have photographic evidence of being in the core zone, in that I've visited the Rathaus in Cologne. It's an impressive building and I'm well aware that it was built atop a Roman praetorium..
but it doesn't leave me any closer to appreciating this site - or why it is separate from the Upper German Limes and the Danube Limes.

Incidentally, by my count the three separate Limes plus the bridge in Regensburg and the highly-worthwhile Trier means that Germany now has 5 Roman-era World Heritage Sites. How many sites does Italy have that are principally Roman in origin? (Rome, Pompeii, Villa Adriana, Villa Romana, Aquilegia...?)

I am going to close this topic now, as the session is over.

You can continue at https://www.worldheritagesite.org/forums/index.php?action=vthread&forum=16&topic=2298