Croatia News - CroatiaPress.com

Zagreb, May 6 (CP) — The 5th Book Fair was opened on Tuesday at the Profil Megastore bookshop in Zagreb focusing on the new Croatian novel.

Some 150 publishers are to take part and books at the Profil Megastore bookshop are to be sold up to 50 percent cheaper until May 17th.

Zagreb, May 6 (CP) — The Minister of the Sea, Bozidar Kalmeta signed in Zadar on Tuesday some 22 contracts for the building and reconstruction of sea ports in different countries stretching from Pula to Dubrovnik.

Some 309 million kuna is to be injected into the port infrastructure during 2008 with some 213 million going on modernising state ports.

Fishing ports are to have 13 million kuna invested in them and a total of 83 million will be invested in county ports.
 

Zagreb, May 6 (CP) — Slaven Bilic, the Croatian football squad coach signed a fresh two-year contract with the Croatian Football Federation on Monday and announced a list of players for the upcoming EURO 2008.

Putting forth a list of players he is counting on for the upcoming European Championships  Bilic ommitted some  some big names missing, but introduced some new faces.

Bilic ommitted  Bosko Balaban, Mandjukic, Dino Drpic, Vranjes and Babic from the team, but invited new faces and they are Manuel Pamic and Anas Sharbini.

Zagreb, May 6 (CP) – Speaking to Croatian Radio (HR) during a regular interview, president Stjepan Mesic accused the Foreign and European Integration Ministry (MVPEI) of hiring people tugging the party line.

Mesic said that the seventh administration of the Foreign Ministry was responsible for employing people without tenders being put out for positions, so that those employed are tugging the party line.

He called on the media to investigate under which minister were the most people employed via the seventh administration and what kind of people were employed as well as what education they had, as he claims their professions were quite removed from diplomacy.

Mesic also said that the Croatian state was very expensive to run and had a larger diplomatic network than the former Yugoslavia.

Zagreb, May 2 (CP) – Residents of Zagreb are remembering May 2 and 3 of 1995, when Zagreb was rocketed and six people killed in an attack in retaliation of Croatian forces retaking control of the so-called Krajina.

The cluster bombs rained on Zagreb, the attack ordered by Milan Martic, who has been sentenced to 35 years in prison by the ICTY for the attack.

Apart from the six deaths, a total of 205 people were injured in the attacks.

Zagreb, May 2 (CP) – Four vehicles from Bosnia-Herzegovina were damaged in the late hours of Wednesday as their owners were holidaying in the ancient walled city on May Day.

The cars were parked at the Gradac parking lot and their owners discovered when they came to pick them up that they were badly vandalised with number plates being torn off, the windshields smashed and insults being sprayed onto the car body parts.

The police had immediately arrived to the scene and are searching for the vandals.

Zagreb, May 1 (CP) – A 57-year-old priest has died as he was delivering mass at a funeral in Croatia’s capital Zagreb.
The priest, Ivan Lovric, suddenly fell to the ground, as he was speaking at a grave at the Mirosevac cemetery in Zagreb.
It is believed that the priest died of a heart attack.

Zagreb, May 1 (CP) — Commemorations are being in Okučani today to mark the 13th anniversary of operation Flash in which Western Slavonia was retaken contol of by Croatian forces after four years of occupation by rebel Serbs.

Veterans, locals and visitors are attending along with President Stjepan Mesić, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and Parliament President Luka Bebić.

The operation represented an introduction to operation Storm in 1995 when the Knin area was retaken control of by Croatia.

Zagreb, April 30 (CP) – Dubrovnik’s Sebastijan gallery is hosting an exhibition by Pablo Picasso entitled Sketches on paper for the Guernica from the Prado Museum Collection from Madrid.

Exhibited are lithographs of some of the sketches the artist had made when preparing Guernica.

The exhibition was opened on Wednesday evening in the organisation of the Spanish Embassy in Croatia.

The exhibition will be open until May 12.

Zagreb, April 30 (CP) – Serb businessman Zeljko Mitrovic, the owner of the TV Pink station has confirmed to the Belgrade TANJUG news agency he had expanded his business to Croatia by purchasing several local TV stations.

Mitrovic confirmed TV Pink would take off in Croatia once he joins the network of nine local TVs, some of which he had already acquired.

Mitrovic has bought the local NeT TV station that he paid some €2.5 for some 10 days ago and is to link it to GTV Zadar and TV Dalmacija which he purchased earlier.

Mitrovic is to soon announce the takeover of several more local TV stations across Croatia and is to also set up a production centre where TV Pink Croatian version shows would be made.