Croatia News - CroatiaPress.com

Zagreb, March 4 (CP) – Zagrebacko Kazaliste Mladih (ZKM) theatre is to stage a play, which is to be accompanied by subtitles in English once a month as of March.
The effort is to expand the cultural offer of the Croatian capital, enabling those who do not have the command of the Croatian language to have a chance to enjoy a play staged by a domestic theatre.
The first play in the cycle is Firefly by Tena Stivicic directed by Janusz Kica on March 9 at 8 p.m. at the ZKM theatre.

Zagreb, March 3 (CP) – The Zagreb Stock Exchange index, Crobex, has ended February with a 5.9 percent drop, brining the total loss since the start of 2008 to more than 19 percent.
The January drop in value totalled 14 percent.
The more moderate drop in February was accompanied by a considerably lower liquidity of the market, so that the total turnover at the Zagreb Stock Exchange in February was down 41 percent compared to January with a drop in regular shares’ turnover by 25.1 percent. The sharpest drop has been recorded in bonds’ trade with its regular turnover dropping by 72.2 percent and reported turnover by 87.2 percent, while institutional turnover experienced a drop of 43 percent.
Total turnover at the end of February stood at 3.48 billion kuna, of which 1.84 was regular trade turnover. In comparison, the total turnover in January stood at nearly six billion kuna, while shares’ turnover totalled 2.5 billion kuna.
The most liquid of the shares were the Croatian Telecommunications (HT) shares accounting for more than 274.8 million kuna turnover, making up nearly 15 percent of the overall shares’ trade in February.

Zagreb, February 3 (CP) – PM Ivo Sanader said that there was no dilemma between EU and the Protected Ecology and Fisheries Belt (ZERP), as Croatia needed to protect its national interest but also join the EU.

Sanader said Croatia’s goal was to join the EU and fulfil the conditions to do so, but said that it was also looking to protect its national interest.  He also touched on the issue of Kosovo, saying Croatia would recognize it, once this is done by EU countries.

The PM said that so far no response has been given by either Italy or Slovenia regarding the talks on ZERP.

Croatia has offered Slovenia and Italy to organise a quadrilateral meeting which would also include EU representatives to discuss the ways to resolve the ZERP problem following Croatia’s implementation of its Zone on January 1, 2008.

Zagreb, March 3 (CP) – The Croatian Peoples’ Party leader and the head of the National Commission for Monitoring EU Negotiations, Vesna Pusic has announced Croatia would recognize Kosovo’s independence in about two week’s time.

Pusic said that Kosovo represented a political fact and Croatia needed to recognize its independence. She added that according to what she has learned this would happen in mid-March.

So far some 23 world countries have recognized Croatia, among the United States, Germany and France.

Zagreb, March 3 (CP) — The Croatian movie “The Living and the Dead” by director Kristijan Milić has been voted the best of eight films in competition in the “Europe out of Europe” program of the 36th Belgrade FEST film festival.

The panel of judges chose Milić’s anti-war film for it’s precise direction, distinguished acting and emotion.

Kristijan Milic is a 39-year-old Croatian movie director and this is his first feature film.

Zagreb, March 3 (CP) — In response to media speculation that the Swiss packaged food multinational Nestle intends to take over the Podravka company in Croatia, Podravka’s CEO, Darko Marinac has stated that Podravka is neither negotiating nor assisting any investors in the purchase of stock, nor does it have the authority to do so.

Marinac acknowledged that last week a meeting was held with representatives of the Fima group, which is Podravka’s largest individual stockholder, but changes in the corporation’s ownership structure were not discussed.

Zagreb, March 3 (CP) – Some 56 percent of Croats picked the full implementation of the Protected Ecology and Fisheries Belt (ZERP) over EU membership, claims a Vecernji List daily survey.

In a survey conducted on February 28 and 29 on a total of 900 people, as many as 56 percent have said they would rather Croatia fully implemented ZERP than became an EU member, while 33.8 percent of those surveyed favoured EU membership over ZERP implementation.

At the same time, the survey showed that the support for EU membership was growing among Croats with 52 percent of those surveyed opting for Croatia joining the Union.

Although recently the support of Croats for both EU and NATO membership has been enjoying a positive trend, the ZERP implementation has drawn huge support, probably as it feeds the need of the nation for making sovereign decisions.

Zagreb, March 2 (CP) – Speaking to Banja Luka’s Nezavisne Novine paper, deputy PM Slobodan Uzelac said that the time had not yet come for Croatia to recognize Kosovo.

Uzelac said in an interview that bad judgement on the issue could hurt relations between Croatia and Serbia.

Speaking about the status of Serbs in Croatia, Uzelac said that neither he personally, nor the Independent Democratic Serbian Party (SDSS), who he is a member of were satisfied with the rhythm of return of returnees, as jobs as well as acceptable living conditions were lacking.

Slobodan Uzelac is a SDSS member who has been posted to deputy PM position in charge of regional development, reconstruction and return following the forming of the government in line with the results of the last parliamentary elections held in November 2007.

Uzelac holds the highest position that a representative of the Serb minority has held in Croatia since 1991 and this has been seen by the Western politicians as a step towards reconciliation of the two nations and also a step in the right direction in Croatia’s efforts to join the EU.

Zagreb, March 2 (CP) – Some 2,500 Croatian football supporters have gathered in the eastern town of Vukovar on Sunday in protest against the demolition of the student dorm in Vukovar some two weeks ago when hooligans wearing Crvena Zvezda Serbian football club insignia trashed the dorms.
The protestors have arrived from across Croatia and gathered in front of the Dunav hotel.
They laid wreaths at the monument to the victims of the Homeland war.
Some 500 members of the police are taking part in securing law and order during the event due to its high-risk factor.
The attack on the student dorms in Vukovar happened on February 14 when underage hooligans hiding behind Crvena Zvezda shawls shattered windows and broke the doors to the dorms, while some 70 pupils living in the dorms where occupying it.

Police arrested five of the protestors for chanting inappropriate chants like ‘Kill the Serb’.

Zagreb, March 2 (CP) – A storm accompanied by strong winds swept through Croatia on Saturday afternoon leaving a trail of damage in many Croatian municipalities.
East and central sections of Croatia were hit by strong winds and rain on Saturday afternoon causing electricity failures, uprooting trees and causing debris to land on motorways, slowing down traffic.
Some homes in the eastern section of the country were left without roofs.
No one was injured and emergency services restored power supply by the evening.
Saturday saw the hurricane Emma sweep through Europe killing at least nine.