Croatia News - CroatiaPress.com

Zagreb, February 26 (CP) — Croatia together with Italy, Romania, Serbia and the European Commission has reached an agreement over the start of the setting up of the Pan European Oil Pipeline (PEOP) project.

Some 1350km of pipeline will have to be constructed for transporting oil from the Black Sea to Trieste and Genoa, Italy, securing oil supplies for Western Europe.

The oil pipeline will pass through Romania, Serbia, Croatia and Italy.

Some 423km of the oil pipeline will be passing through Croatia, probably along the existing route of the Janaf’s pipeline, from the Serbian border to the Omisalj terminal.

Slovenia, which was also to become part of the project, has opted out. The finalisation of the effort is expected in two year’s time.

Zagreb, February 26 (CP) – The Croatian national carrier Croatia Airlines (CA) is to scrap issuing airline tickets for its flights as of June1 in a bid to speed up the process of boarding.

The move is part of the International Air Transport Association (IAIT) demand for all of its members to introduce e-ticketing by the deadline of June 1.

This will mean that tickets will no longer be issued and proof of the ticket purchase will remain in the computer, so that valid identification will need to be presented at the check-in desk to obtain a boarding pass.

Croatia Airlines has already introduced e-ticketing for 17 of its destinations and this will soon expand to all the destinations on offer.

It is not clear, however, whether this move will lower the cost of flights.

Zagreb, February 25 (CP) – A youth who attacked the Zagreb Gay Parade marchers in mid-2007 was sentenced to 14 months in prison and has been ordered psychiatric counselling that should last as long as the sentence, itself.
The 25-year-old Josip Situm is the first person to be charged under hate crime law provisions that Croatia incorporated into its Penal Code in 2006.
Situm was spotted by police as he was preparing to chuck Molotov cocktails into the crowd marching in the centre of Zagreb, but he fled the police and was later tracked down.
Several people received light injuries in the attack.
Croatia is a country, which is progressing very slowly towards embracing alternative lifestyles, and although laws are in place granting equality, real life situations often point to not a lot of progress being made so far.
 

Zagreb, February 25 (CP) – The Croatian PM Ivo Sanader has told the national radio that if the European Commission pressure on Croatia continues regarding the non-implementation of the Protected Ecology and Fisheries Belt (ZERP) in the Adriatic Croatia will have to decide on the future direction of its policy.

Sanader said that if there is blackmail regarding ZERP from the European Commission, then the issue of ZERP or the EU would be put on the agenda.

The PM also said that he was of the impression that the EU was dodging a response to the Croatian proposal of a four-way meeting between Croatia, Italy, Slovenia and the EU in a bid for a solution to be found that would satisfy Italy and Slovenia and not block Croatia form implementing ZERP against EU members.

Speaking about the document from 2004, that Slovenia and Italy are citing as a base for protesting against Croatia implementing ZERP, Sanader reiterated that this was just an agreed-to minutes under which Croatia had agreed to postpone ZERP implementation against EU members until an agreement on fishing partnership was signed. Although Croatia insisted on this, Sanader explained, the agreement was never signed and has not been mentioned since.
 

Zagreb, February 25 (CP) – Croatian tennis player Ivo Karlovic has made it up three places following the Rotterdam ATP tournament where he reached the semi-finals and is now in 21st position on the ATP entry list.

Karlovic will be among the 32 players taking part in Zagreb Indoors tennis tournament opening on Monday.

Zagreb, February 25 (CP) – Arsenal’s Eduardo Da Silva, Croatia’s striker who suffered a serious ankle injury during a game with Birmingham City on Saturday is most probably returning to Croatia for physiotherapy.

Eduardo announced he was considering returning to Croatia in a few weeks in order to begin physio. He is to be released from hospital in two days time, but Arsenal will have to approve his plans to move to Croatia for further treatment.

There has been outrage over the way Birmingham City’s Matin Taylor had tackled Eduardo and broke his foot and there have even been calls for him to be banned from the game and he had even allegedly received death-threats, but many have said Taylor had not injured Eduardo on purpose, but that this was just a tragic accident.

Zagreb, February 25 (CP) – The Zagreb Indoors Tennis Tournament is beginning on Monday with 32 players taking part in this tournament worth more than 370,000 euro.

Ivan Ljubicic, Ivo Karlovic, Mario Ancic, Marin Cilic and Roko Karanusic will all be playing, as well as Fabrice Santoro, Andrei Pavel, Gilles Simon and many others.

Sadly, no other Croatian players have managed to get through the qualiflying rounds played during the weekend.

The tournament is to end on March 1, 2008.

Zagreb, February 25 (CP) — The Zagreb Dox international festival of documentary film gets underway in the Croatian capital today running through to March 2nd.

Over 140 films in international and regional competition will be shown in the categories “Musical Globe”, “Fathers and Children” and “Controversial Documentaries”.
 

Zagreb, February 25 (CP) – The towns of Knin, Imotski and Metkovic measured 20 degrees Celsius on Sunday, the unseasonably warm weather announcing the approach of Spring.

The Croatian capital Zagreb has also enjoyed high temperatures and clear blue skies on Sunday with 19 degrees being the highest measures on Sunday.

Although such high temperatures are not characteristic for this part of the year, similar weather is to continue in the coming days.

Zagreb, February 25 (CP) – Croatian International and current Arsenal striker Eduardo da Silva who suffered a serious injury on the Birmingham City pitch on Sunday, vows to return to the game as soon as possible.
Recovering from Sunday’s operation which was to repair his broken ankle, Eduardo said that he was not sure how long the injury would keep him away from the game, but stressed he would now concentrate on speeding up recovery and not dwelling upon missing Euro 2008.
Eduardo thanked all the well-wishers who sent him messages of support and had only words of praise for Arsenal’s medical team and people working at the Birmingham hospital where he underwent surgery.
Although Eduardo is expected to have the cast taken off in about six weeks, the journey to health is expected to be a long one. His Croatian football squad team-mates have been sending him messages of support as did the Croatian team manager Slaven Bilic who said he only wanted to see Eduardo get healthy and go back to football when he’s ready.