Croatia News - CroatiaPress.com

Zagreb, February 17 (CP) – Apart from two official World Cup ski races, Zagreb’s Mt. Sljeme is to host a humanitarian race on Sunday afternoon in which world skiing legends like Janica Kostelic, Ingemar Stenmark and Alberto Tomba are to ski in a bid to raise money for charity.

The race has been organised as part of the Snow Queen Trophy events which combined two slalom FIS World Cup races, one held in the woman’s competition on Friday, won by Finland’s Tanja Poutiainen and the other in the men’s competition to be held on Sunday.

All the proceeds from the humanitarian parallel giant slalom race are to go to a children’s hospital in Gornja Bistra.

Zagreb, February 17 (CP) - The two men who contacted the alert centre in the early hours of Saturday, claiming they lost their way on Mt. Sljeme overlooking Zagreb, have been found safe and well in their beds.

After the seek and rescue mission was lauched, the service operators checked the two men’s home addressed, just in case they managed to return and found they were sleeping soundly in their beds.

Allegedly, the two men were so drunk when they contacted the alert centre, they were unable to state their exact location.

It is yet to be seen if they will be charged with wasting police time.

Zagreb, February 17 (CP) – After a policeman noticed a BMW driver illegally parking his car at a parking lot in Zagreb, the motorist tried to mow him down.

A Zagreb policeman was nearly killed in line of duty as he tried to warn a motorist of parking his car illegally at a parking lot.

The motorist ignored the warnings of the law enforcement officer, locked himself into the vehicle, revved the engine and hit the gas pedal while the officer was standing in front of the car.

Although the policeman managed to avoid the car hitting him, he was injured by the car’s rear view mirror, as the motorist sped off.

The driver was later captured and detained, while the policeman was treated for minor injuries.

Zagreb, February 17 (CP) – The start list of the Men’s World Cup slalom race taking place on Sunday morning at Zagreb’s Mt. Sljeme was revealed on Saturday evening with local favourite Ivica Kostelic setting off as no. 14.

The start number draw for Saturday’s Men’s Slalom World Cup FIS event that lined up the 15 best slalom skiers for the event has put Austria’s Benjamin Raich as the first to go down the slopes and Croatia’s Ivica Kostelic as the 14th competitor.

This is the first men’s World Cup Slalom Race hosted by Croatia’s Sljeme. France’s Jean-Baptiste Grange is tipped as the favourite to win the race, starting fourth.

The first race starts at 10:15 a.m. and the second is to follow at 13:15.

Zagreb’s Mt. Sljeme has been hosting the woman’s FIS World Cup event for the past four years and only this year has it been joined by a race in men’s competition.

Zagreb, February 17 (CP) – The two men that had contacted the local alert centre in Zagreb in the early hours of Saturday claiming they had lost their way on Mt. Sljeme overlooking Croatia’s capital Zagreb have as yet not been located.

One of the two men contacted the 112 local alert service about half an hour after two in the morning on Saturday and the alert centre had attempted to locate the mobile from which the distress call was placed, but failed. Anther unsuccessful attempt to locate the mobile was made just after six in the morning.

The missing men were identified and their home addresses were checked to see if they had returned in the meantime, but this was not confirmed. The search for the missing pair continues.

It is not that often that people get lost on Mt. Sljeme, but this has been known to happen, as if the marked paths are not followed, there is a good chance of one getting confused and possibly lost.

The weather in the area has been quite cold over the past few days with temperatures hovering around minus point. The venue is currently host to two World Cup skiing events, The Snow Queen Trophy ladies’ slalom and men’s World Cup slalom race.

Zagreb, February 16 (CP) – The European Union has approved the sending of 2,000 members of the judicial and police as part of the EU-LEX Kosovo mission, their task being to protect minorities and assist Kosovo authorities in establishing a legal state, fight organised crime and corruption.

Not a single of the 27 EU members was opposed to the proposal of the Kosovo mission, which will number 1,400 policemen and special forces’ members and the rest being judges, prosecutors, financial experts and general staff.

EU-LEX will not replace the UNMIK UN mission in Kosovo. The overall responsibility for the situation in Kosovo should be taken over by Kosovo authorities after the 120-day transitional period expires, while the EU-LEX will be assisting them in this task.

Croatia is to contribute 15 men to the mission, as well as some other non-EU members like Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and the U.S.

The deployment is to begin in one to two weeks.

Zagreb, February 16 (CP) – The Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Jandrokovic has said speaking about Croatia’s accession negotiations with the EU and NATO that both memberships were close to becoming reality.
Jandrokovic admitted that the implementation of the Protected Ecology and Fisheries Belt (ZERP) in the Adriatic had resulted in the EU membership negotiations slowing down and has made Croatia’s position on the international scene somewhat delicate.
He stressed that Croatia had the right to ZERP implementation and would fight for both retaining ZERP and entering the EU, as both were of key interest.
Since introducing the ZERP against EU members on January 1, 2008, namely Slovenia and Italy, Croatia has suffered a slowdown in negotiations on EU membership, which might make it miss its 2009 EU entry it has set as its goal.

Zagreb, February 16 (CP) – A 57-year-old man had spent five days with a corpse, after he stabbed his friend during a fight on January 9, the stabbing resulting of the friend dying of his wounds.

The murder took place in the eastern Croatian town of Donji Andrijevci and the killer decided to move the body after five days, to the cellar of a community hall and position it in such a way for it to look as if the murdered man was sleeping.

Four boys stumbled upon the body on February, after which the police got involved in the case and established the man was murdered. The killer was discovered shortly and the police made the gruesome discovery of the killer keeping the body for five days before discarding of it.

Zagreb, February 15 (CP) – The drop in the value of the Crobex share index has continued at the Zagreb Stock Exchange with the current slip standing at 1.33 percent, while the T-HT shares ended trade at the lowest value since being floated on the market, at 290.65 kuna.

Crobex ended Friday at 4.010,01 points. Regular turnover was 82.1 million kuna, up a little from the previous day, while total turnover stood at 149.8 million kuna.

Crobex has fallen by 23.5 percent compared to the start of the year.

The most traded share was that of INA, which had announced on Friday it had posted a profit of 866 million kuna in 2007, down about two percent from the previous year.

Zagreb, February 15 (CP) – Finnish ski champion Tanja Poutiainen has won the women’s slalom race held at Croatia’s Mt. Sljeme near the capital of Zagreb, while Austria’s Marilies Schield came in second and Slovakia’s Veronika Zuzulova third.

Croatian skiers Ana Jelusic and Sofija Novoselic had dropped out of the race in the first run and the only Croatian who completed both the first and second race was Nika Fleiss, ending the event in 15th place.

The winner Tanja Poutiainen has won the event for the second time.