May the 11th, 2022 - The Rudjer Boskovic Institute's new project which analyses proteins could be the key to a more rapid diagnosis. It can also be applied in many fields, from medicine to biological product quality control.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Crnjak writes, on Monday, the Rudjer Boskovic Institute (RBI) presented its project of qualitative and quantitative analysis of proteins worth more than eight million kuna, which, in addition to very wide application in industry, aims to shorten a large number of diagnostic tests.

The Qua / Qua Protein project is being implemented by the Institute in cooperation with Conscius, with 6.8 million kuna having been provided from the European Regional Development Fund, and the project is expected to result in a patent application for an innovative reagent.

“Through this project, we will be able to identify beings, for example, bacteria from urine, or some bacteria from spoiled food, or benign bacteria from let's say a skin sample, and at the same time measure their amounts.

This analysis has a wide range of applications, in medicine, primarily in diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, bioanalytics, and the food industry, including applications in quality control of biological products, as well as in the scientific and academic community,'' said Mario Cindric, the project manager and the head of the Laboratory for Bioanalytics of the Department of Molecular Medicine at the Rudjer Boskovic Institute.

More than 20 scientists from several different laboratories from across the Republic of Croatia are working on this project, including students and young scientists, and the project was supported by colleagues from both Canada and Israel.

For more, make sure to check out Made in Croatia.

May the 11th, 2022 - The Hungarian PM Viktor Orban is known for his rather unusual political sentiments, but this one probably takes the cake. He recently claimed that Croatia ''took Hungary's sea'', leaving it without ports. This was said in front of Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission's President.

As Morski writes, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban yesterday over Hungary's opposition to the European Union's joint embargo on Russian oil. Von der Leyen said after the meeting that progress had been made and that some issues with Orban had been clarified.

''We've made some progress, but there's still work to be done,'' she added, which actually means that no concrete agreement has yet been reached with Hungary, the leader of which is very reluctant to firmly join the EU on its stance against Russia.

As one European diplomat explained to France Presse, Hungary would need a new pipeline to secure its oil supply, connecting it to the Republic of Croatia, which has access to the sea. Therefore, it seeks guarantees that Zagreb will engage in the construction of this infrastructure, as well as guarantees of European Union funding to facilitate it financially.

''Those who have sea and ports are able to bring oil on tankers. If they hadn't taken it away from us (the sea), we would also have a port,'' Viktor Orban said in an interview with the Hungarian state radio last Friday, as reported by Politico, which explains that Orban was referring to the Dalmatian coast.

Hungary is otherwise the biggest opponent of the joint EU embargo on Russian oil, and Viktor Orban has been seen as a thorn in the side of many diplomats and politicians across the EU for some time now.

To briefly recall, all 27 EU member states must be unanimous in order for sanctions to be imposed against Russia. The sanctions proposal cites certain exceptions, but both Slovakia and Hungary consider them to be insufficient. Hungary is the country that strongly opposes the European embargo on Russian oil and has already asked for a five-year postponement.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Monday night that Hungary cannot accept the proposed package of European Union sanctions on Russia until its fears are resolved.

Earlier, Prime Minister Orban said that the European Commission's proposal would have the effect of an "atomic bomb for Hungary".

"It would destroy our stable energy supply," he added.

For more, check out our politics section.

May the 11th, 2022 - The Croatian company Sobocan's innovative product has seen the company take home bronze at the A’Design Award & Competition, placing Croatian products firmly at the forefront once again.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, following a series of international awards, the mobile office made by the Croatian company Sobocan won a bronze medal at the A’Design Award & Competition, which is known as the leading international design competition. According to the expert jury, bronze was awarded to the company for their movo model THE FREE SPIRIT.

The movo is available in seven different models, all of which are characterised by modern, innovative and functional design because they take up minimal space, and are very simple and easy to fold for work and mobility. Each of the models is entirely mobile, foldable, equipped with an electrical box and storage and has the possibility of being locked. The award-winning THE FREE SPIRIT model has delighted the profession with its elegance and simplicity.

THE FREE SPIRIT arose from Sobocan's idea that the work element is easily moved from one room to another. It therefore features oversized wheels and a handle that makes it very easy to move. When the worktop itself is closed, all the working material becomes invisible and the product becomes a closed element. In addition to the worktop, in the closed part of the product, there are two drawers, compartments for A3 and A4 paper sizes and a laptop, space for binders and a built-in box with power and USB inputs. The aesthetics of this compact product are very simple and as such can be adapted to an array of interiors, and veneered plywood and plastic-coated steel pipes follow modern trends in industrial design.

“Movo is one of the few Croatian brands that can boast of the prestigious A’Design Award and it is a great recognition for Croatian design. We at Sobocan are especially proud because movo is the first product of our own, which we conceptually developed and produced under the roof of our company. We're glad that movo models are recognised on the market as the right solution for the needs of functionality and flexibility of the workplace, as well as a top design solution,'' said Anamaria Burazin Eskinja, product designer and head of the Sobocan design studio.

The aforementioned competition which saw Sobocan's product take home bronze is otherwise the leading international design competition held each year, and awards are given in a variety of creative areas to highlight the best design solutions. The best works are selected in several categories according to the criteria of innovation, technical characteristics and the ability to solve complex design problems. The competition promotes the highest standards in design, advocating for a better understanding and importance of design in all aspects of life.

In addition to winning bronze at the A’Design Award & Competition, which is now the fourth world award in a row, movo has won the following prestigious international awards for design and innovation; German Innovation Award 2021, Iconic Awards - Innovative Interior 2021 and BIGSEE Wood design award 2021.

For more, check out Made in Croatia.

May 11, 2022 - Former Dinamo leader and fugitive football mogul Zdravko Mamić, who was sentenced to six and a half years in prison in Croatia for illegally extracting 52 million kuna from the Zagreb club, filed a lawsuit with the European Court for human rights.

Telegram finds out that the lawsuit was sent to Strasbourg, from which Mamić expects to establish that the court proceedings against him at the Osijek County Court were not fair. Instead, he sued Croatia precisely for violating the right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence and illegally confiscating property from his wife. Lawyers Lidija Horvat and Sandra Markovic filed a lawsuit on his behalf with the European Court of Human Rights, reports Telegram.

Among the arguments, Mamić wants to prove the unfairness of the trial and the fact that the judges who conducted the proceedings against him are now under investigation for accepting bribes. Recently, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia rejected Mamić's lawsuit on the grounds that he had corrupted the judges himself, so he could not complain about their bias since he had not done anything against them before. In a lawsuit sent to Strasbourg, Mamić explains that seeking the disqualification of those judges would have been meaningless in the past. It says that out of six requests to disqualify judges submitted to the court in Osijek in 2020, all were rejected, and in Zagreb, for example, only one of 33 requests was accepted after an appeal to the Supreme Court. That is why Mamić maintains that this is not an effective legal remedy for him as a defendant.

He also reminds that he pointed out corruption before the final verdict and not after everything was over, as suggested by the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia. Namely, Mamić submitted the famous USB stick with criminal charges against Osijek judges to USKOK on October 8, 2020, and at that time, the appeal procedure was still ongoing. The director of USKOK, Vanja Marušić, confirmed at the time that the stick had indeed arrived at USKOK. Despite everything, Mamić states that USKOK did not inform the Croatian Supreme Court about the details of the report, i.e., suspicions of corruption.

Citing further doubts about the judges' bias, Mamić said some judges had multiple roles in his case. Thus, the Osijek County Court judge, Miroslav Rožac, was also a member of the trial chamber and later an investigating judge in the case against Dejan Lovren due to suspicions of giving false testimony.

Osijek judge Ninoslav Ljubojević was also linked to Mamić, as Mamić was his son's manager, and the trial chamber eventually refused to examine him as a witness. The case of Judge Darko Kruslin, president of the Trial Chamber, who is under investigation for receiving an expensive watch from Mamić, was also cited. Can the verdict passed by the judges whose impartiality has been called into question remain in force, Mamić asks in the lawsuit against Croatia. He also points out that all these judges did not satisfy either an objective or a subjective test of impartiality. Therefore, he believes they all had to exclude themselves from his case.

He also resents the Croatian judiciary for delegating his procedure from the Zagreb court to the Osijek court. He said this made it difficult for him to prepare his defense and take part in the proceedings. He also points out that the European Court of Human Rights has ruled several times that the defendant must be allowed to comment on such decisions, but he was not allowed to do so. Namely, the delegation was formed in one day at the request of the Chief State Attorney.

Mamić considers that his removal from the Osijek County Court building several times was a violation of his right to access the court. Furthermore, he was not present at 16 sequels of the main hearing because he was immediately removed due to the noise in the courtroom, without having been warned or fined before, as he points out.

Mamić believes that he was also deprived of the right to equality of arms. Namely, the court read two thousand documents submitted by USKOK and examined over 90 USKOK witnesses, while most of the evidence was rejected. He also states that his wife's property was illegally confiscated within extended forfeiture. The lawsuit also alleges that some high-ranking state officials made statements about him, prejudging his guilt, which, he believes, violated his right to the presumption of innocence. 

To read more about sports in Croatia, follow TCN’s dedicated page. 

May 11, 2022 - Osijek native Mia Dimšić represented Croatia with the song 'Guilty Pleasure' on the first semifinal night of the Eurovision Song Contest but failed to reach the final of the competition.

Dimšić performed 11th out of a total of 17 performers. Apart from Croatia, Albania, Latvia, Lithuania, Switzerland, Slovenia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Moldova, Portugal, Denmark, Austria, Iceland, Greece, Norway, and Armenia competed. 

Croatia's Eurovision representative did her best and said she left her heart on the stage. The night before the semifinals, Mia said that she felt proud and euphoric. Still, she also admitted that she was a little nervous because she had to present herself in the best light so far in just three Eurovision minutes, reports Jutarnji List.

"The performance in Turin, where I represented Croatia at the Eurovision Song Contest, for me, regardless of the placement, is a great personal and business success from which I learned a lot, and that is the most important thing," said Mia, who was encouraged at the Arena in Turin family members, friends and, of course, the HRT delegation led by Tomislav Štengl.

"We are sad because we did not make it to the final, and we are all sorry for that. Of course, we believed and hoped to advance, but sometimes we need to have a little luck. Mia performed superbly and left a great impression on the Eurovision stage. We are proud of her and thank her and her team for all the effort and moments we spent together on this journey from Dora to the Eurovision Song Contest," Štengl said.

In the Eurovision Song Contest final, which TV viewers will be able to watch on Saturday on HTV1 starting at 9 pm, 10 of the 17 semifinalists passed from Switzerland, Armenia, Iceland, Lithuania, Portugal, Norway, Greece, Ukraine, Moldova, and the Netherlands. They will be joined by ten finalists from the second semifinal, which is scheduled for this Thursday.

The last time Croatia was in the final was in 2017, when it was represented by Jacques Houdek. A year earlier, Nina Kraljić also advanced to the final. In 2014 and 2015, Croatia did not participate in the Eurovision Song Contest as it did not have a viable contestant.

TCN had the chance to interview Mia back in February after winning the Dora song competition. You can read our full interview with Mia HERE.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated lifestyle section.

May 11, 2022 - The latest flight news to Croatia as six Brač Airport routes from Zagreb, Italy, Austria, and Slovakia have been announced this summer!

In April this year, Brač Airport accepted and dispatched 137 passengers, most of whom flew on the domestic line to Zagreb, which had just begun operating. And now, six flights to Brač Airport have been announced for this year's summer flight schedule, reports Croatian Aviation. 

Namely, this year, Brač Airport will again be directly connected to Zagreb by the regular PSO line of the Croatian national airline, Croatia Airlines. This line already operates every Tuesday and Saturday, and Croatia Airlines will conduct a number of charter flights from this Croatian airport to Austria and Slovakia, just like last summer.

In addition to the announced SkyAlps flights to Bolzano and Milan (Bergamo), which will operate from mid-May and early July, Brač will also have regular Croatia Airlines charter flights to Linz and Graz!

The charter line to Graz will start soon, on May 14, while the line to Linz will start on May 21. In addition, Croatia Airlines will again operate on the charter line between Bratislava and Brač from the beginning of July this year.

As for the announced regular and charter flights, there will be traffic on Brač on Saturday from the beginning of July, and six landings and six take-offs to the mentioned destinations have been announced. 

In the first four months of this year, Brač received and dispatched a total of 195 passengers, and the numbers will grow significantly in May.

"This year, Croatia Airlines will operate flights on Tuesdays and Saturdays. There is an announcement of a flight from Bratislava, then Bolzano Bergamo and Vienna and Graz, which Croatia Airlines operates mainly for guests of the hotel "Bretanide." We hope that the season ahead of us, despite the events in Ukraine, will still be good. Our projections are between 80 and 90 percent of the 2019 tourism results. We’ll see how the season goes. It is difficult to predict in advance what the situation will be like. However, the preparations are going well, and we expect good tourist results," Brač Tourist Board director Markito Marinković said last month.

For more on flights to Croatia and other travel announcements, make sure to check out our dedicated travel section.

ZAGREB, 10 May 2022 - Human Rights Ombudsman Tena Šimonović Einwalter has joined calls to ensure that women in Croatia are not denied medical assistance when requesting a pregnancy termination in accordance with the applicable laws.

During a discussion on the treatment by Zagreb's Sveti Duh Hospital and the healthcare system of Mirela Čavajda, a woman who has requested a pregnancy termination because the fetus has been diagnosed with massive brain cancer, Šimonović Einwalter said that the regulations should be interpreted by taking into account women's health and decisions. She said that women should be provided with full information, while the system should act faster in emergencies.

Supporting the position of the ombudsman for gender equality, Šimonović Einwalter warned that because legal provisions are not complied with in Croatia and women seeking an abortion go to neighbouring Slovenia.

She said that a first-instance commission can approve a pregnancy termination on request by a pregnant woman, and that, contrary to media reports, the key fact is not whether the child will be born alive, but whether it can be expected that the child will be born with serious congenital physical or mental defects.

As for the view that a pregnancy termination by the 22nd week is considered an abortion because the child cannot live, and after that, it is referred to as an induced birth or feticide, the ombudsman said that the law does not specify any restrictions with regard to weeks of pregnancy in extraordinary situations.

Šimonović Einwalter said she agreed with the view that the right of Mrs Čavajda to full information in accordance with the law has been violated.

She drew attention to numerous complaints she has received regarding access to healthcare, which indicates a wider problem of inadequate information about patients' rights. She said that the competent authorities have a duty to find a solution to the Čavajda case and take steps to improve the healthcare system.

Speaking of the right to conscientious objection, Šimonović Einwalter noted that she has repeatedly warned Sveti Duh Hospital following media reports that it refuses to perform pregnancy terminations because all its staff are conscientious objectors.

ZAGREB, 10 May 2022 - Ukraine's biggest manufacturer and distributor of household and hygiene products, Biosphere Corporation, launched its "Support Ukrainians" campaign in Croatia on Tuesday with a view to expanding the campaign to other EU member states.

A press conference was told that the campaign aims to set up special shelves in leading Croatian retail chains stocked with Ukrainian products to bring attention to products developed and produced in Ukraine.

The campaign is also of a humanitarian nature because Biosphere Corporation will donate HRK 0.50 from each article sold to UNICEF Ukraine to provide support to children and their families affected by the war in Ukraine.

Biosphere's Director Andriy Zdesenko said that the campaign was launched in Croatia in the hopes of expanding it to other EU countries.

"It is important for Biosphere Corporation not only to strengthen its exports and support production in Ukraine but also to lead a social mission that will have a significant impact in supporting the Ukrainian people. That is why we want to establish cooperation with UNICEF Ukraine and donate a share of each product sold to help the children in Ukraine," Zdensenko said.

The campaign is being conducted with the support of the Ukrainian Embassy in Croatia. Ukrainian Ambassador Vasyl Kyrylych said it was important to maintain production during the war and this project was one way to do so.

"I am very happy that retail chains in Croatia have recognised this important campaign and will become pioneers in supporting Ukrainian companies and the Ukrainian people," Kyryliych said and added that this is yet another evidence of solidarity and friendly support to Ukraine in these extremely difficult times.

Suzana Knežević from the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK) said that trade between Croatia and Ukraine prior to the war had increased from year to year, adding that there was great potential to strengthen economic cooperation. This could be seen at the last economic forum held in Kyiv in December when more than 200 Croatian and Ukrainian companies attended.

In 2021, trade between the two countries was valued at about $127 million, which is an increase of 16% compared with 2020 regardless of the COVID crisis.

Knežević added that companies are finding ways to deal with the current situation and that over the past few months more and more Ukrainian companies have been making enquiries through the Croatian Embassy in Ukraine about possible joint projects with Croatian companies and about Ukrainian companies transferring their activities to the Croatian market.