ZAGREB, June 12, 2020 - The police have launched an investigation into the appearance of a banner with vulgar and abusive messages against Serb children and women at a football match in a Zagreb suburb, Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said on Friday.

Minister Bozinovic also reassured the public that the police would solve this case just as any case of incitement to violence and ethnic intolerance.

The banner with a vulgar invective against Serb women and children was raised by spectators on the stands during a football match in Zagreb's Kustosija neighborhood on Thursday.

Asked by the press whether law enforcement authorities had identified the perpetrators, Bozinovic said today that the police were one of the institutions that "very promptly" informed the general public of their activities and that they would share the information when they could do that.

The minister again refused media outlets' allegations about reports of police brutality against illegal migrants along the border.

I have recently pointed out very resolutely that the Croatian police do not treat anyone brutally. "The Croatian police protect the Croatian border and prevent illegal arrivals," he underscored during his visit to the northern town of Prelog.

"In any case, our message is that we will abide by the law, including national and European laws, and nobody can stop us from protecting the Croatian border against illegal entries, regardless of where those pressures come from," the minister said.

He said that those who disseminate allegations about red crosses being sprayed by Croatian police officers on the heads of migrants during the month of Ramadan were ill-intentioned both towards migrants and Croatia.

ZAGREB, June 12, 2020 - The Bridge party and the Croatian Republican Party (HRS), a non-parliamentary party active in Bosnia and Herzegovina, on Friday, signed an agreement on their coalition for Croatia's parliamentary elections in constituency no.11 covering Croatian nationals abroad.

Bridge political secretary Nikola Grmoja said at a news conference that this alliance enables "the Croat people in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the Diaspora to finally have their authentic representatives of integrity, who will represent the Croatian people from Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Diaspora in a coherent manner in the Sabor."

The leader of the HRS party, Slaven Raguz, said that they had acceded to the cooperation with the Bridge party "as for the first time in the history of the Sabor, a political group from Croatia has recognised the political subjectivity of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the Diaspora."

"For the first time, Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in expatriate communities can now vote for people who will clearly and in articulated manner care for the real problems they are faced with," Raguz said.

June 12, 2020 - The latest news from around Croatia’s airports for flights to Croatia with updates from Zagreb, Split and Dubrovnik.

Croatian Aviation reports that Air France announced today on its official website that it is re-launching international routes to numerous destinations in Europe and the world, including three in Croatia.

Air France originally planned to introduce a second daily rotation between Zagreb and Paris (thus connecting the two cities as many as 14 times a week), but the plans have, of course, been disrupted by the pandemic and will not happen this year.

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The company will gradually increase the number of weekly flights to destinations in Croatia. We bring you the planned flight schedule for July:

The Paris - Zagreb line is being reintroduced, from July 1, 3 times a week (Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays),

The Paris - Split line is reintroduced, from July 13, 4 times a week (Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays),

The Paris - Dubrovnik line is being reintroduced, from July 4, twice a week (Saturdays and Sundays). On the Paris-Dubrovnik route, another flight will be added per week, on Mondays, from July 13.

On the routes from Paris to Zagreb and Dubrovnik, Air France will operate aircraft A319, A320 and A321, which in the fleet of this airline have a capacity between 143 and 212 seats in the passenger cabin.

According to current announcements, HOP will operate on the line from Paris to Split! for Air France Embraer 190 aircraft, capacity 100 passengers.

Furthermore, Croatian Aviation announced that Canadian leisure airline canceled the seasonal Toronto - Zagreb - Toronto route, which it launched in 2016.

Air Transat was originally supposed to launch a direct line between Toronto and Zagreb in May this year, but due to the impact of the pandemic, the start of traffic was postponed to July.

The direct line from Toronto was on sale 3 times a week (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays) with the A330-200 wide-body aircraft, but it was withdrawn from sale and the company announced that it will not operate on this line this year, of course, the only reason is poor demand caused by COVID-19.

Last summer, Zagreb was connected directly with Toronto with as many as two airlines, Air Canada Rouge operated 4 times a week between the two cities, while Air Transat operated 3 times a week on the route, i.e., a total of 7 weekly direct flights.

Air Canada Rouge canceled the route to Zagreb in April (as well as many other seasonal ones in Europe), and now Air Transat has done the same.

With this, as things stand now (with the exception of Emirates, which still has a line to Zagreb on sale since September), Zagreb was left without wide-body aircraft this year, given that Emirates will most likely also cancel flights to Zagreb.

June 12, 2020 - Great news for Split cyclists was announced by the city administration, as a new bike path will soon run from Dr. Franjo Tuđman Square, or the end of the Riva, to the Znjan plateau.

Slobodna Dalmacija writes that the new bicycle paths will begin as soon as the circumstances allow, and after the public procurement for the works worth 139,582 kuna with tax, the company "Pismorad" from Zagreb was chosen as the contractor, with whom a contract will be signed soon.

The planned bicycle route will be 5,100 meters long, and from west to east it will extend in the following direction: Trg dr. Franje Tuđmana, Obala Hrvatskog narodnog preporoda, Obala Lazareta, Obala kneza Domagoja, Katalinićev prilaz, Preradovićevo šetalište, Put Firula, Spinčićeva ulica, Šetalište kalafata, Šetalište Pape Ivana Pavla II.

From east to west, due to one-way streets, the route from Preradovićevo šetalište extends to the following streets: Hatzeov perivoj, Ulica Matije Gupca, Trg M. Pavlinovića, Biankinijeva, Petrova ulica, Poljana kneza Trpimira. This is the most that could be achieved, given the infrastructure, confirms Denis Spadina, president of the Split-Dalmatia County Cycling Association and one of the people behind the conceptual design of the new bike path.

"This is the best that could be achieved, in fact, it is the only possible solution without demolishing half the city. It starts, therefore, from the bottom of the Riva, from the entrance to Diocletian's cellars, and there will be no traffic across the promenade," Spadina said, since this is the issue that worried the citizens the most. The number of cyclists, especially during the epidemic, has increased significantly in Split - three to four times!

"There are more and more cyclists and this is a great thing for our city, people have been taking out bicycles that are twenty years old from the basement in recent months, and it is a great trend. I am especially glad that it will now be possible to drive through Trstenik, as so far, traffic rules have been violated. The whole path will be properly marked, and we go step by step. This is only the first phase, if it weren't for the corona, it would have been over a long time ago, as we had everything ready in January. The next thing we are working on is the path from Znjan to Stobrec, we have several options, but we do not want to overlap, let this come to life first," says Spadina.

The City confirms that, given the spatial conditions and the previous spatial planning documentation, which did not provide for the construction of this type of communal infrastructure, they will arrange traffic signals in order to contribute to increasing safety.

The good news is that the people of Split break new records in the rental of public bicycles every month, which, thanks to the European project "REMEDIO" implemented by the City of Split in partnership with its company "Split Parking", are available at 12 locations since July last year.

This new path was also prepared thanks to the European project - "Development of the system of bicycle paths of the city of Split" and the activities of the Department for Smart City projects and digitalization and the Service for international and EU projects.

Split is currently implementing the "Interreg Italy-Croatia" project "TOMORROW", one of the main activities of which is the improvement of the existing system of public bicycles, so the purchase of equipment for four new terminals with classic and electric bicycles worth 743,761 kuna with VAT. Split Parking also announced the expansion of the public bicycle system, so soon, every district in the city will have its own station, and citizens will have access to electric and classic bicycles at each one.

To read more about lifestyle in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, June 12, 2020 - The University of Rijeka has been included for the first time in one of the most prestigious global lists, QS World University Rankings, coming among the 4.5-5.5% best world universities, Jutarnji List daily said on Friday.

QS World University Rankings is an annual publication of the 1,000 best universities. Of the Croatian universities ranked for 2021, the University of Rijeka is in the 800-1,000 group, together with the University of Zagreb,

Rector Snjezana Prijic-Samarzija told Jutarnji List this was the second good news for the University of Rijeka in a short time, after being included among the top 800 in the Clarivate Analytics rankings.

She said QS rated the quality of teaching, scientific publications, internationalization, and the institution's academic reputation as well as an employer, among other things.

"I believe our openness to the world and strongly intensified presence in Europe has led to this recognisability. To a large extent, it is certainly also related to belonging to the best assessed European university network, YUFE (Young Universities for the Future of Europe), where we work with nine other excellent European universities," she was quoted as saying.

ZAGREB, June 12, 2020 - The Interior Ministry on Thursday dismissed allegations which, it said in a press release, accuse Croatian police, by established practice and without evidence, of injuring migrants.

The ministry was responding to an Amnesty International press release which said that Croatian police "tortured" a group of asylum-seekers on the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The ministry said, "this time the alleged police action occurred in late May in the Plitvice Lakes area and on this occasion illegal Afghan and Pakistani migrants were tied to trees, mistreated with a knife, by shooting in the air and to the ground, beaten with pistol grips and eventually had ketchup, mayonnaise, and sugar smeared on their hair."

"We reject the notion that a Croatian police officer would do something like that or have a motive for that," the ministry said.

It recalled that "in the previous version of the accusations" police allegedly sprayed crosses on migrants' heads. "The crosses allegedly had some symbolism that one wanted to use in the month of Ramadan, but now the symbolism of ketchup, mayonnaise, and sugar eludes us."

"If the men wearing black, as has been insinuated, are supposed to be members of the Croatian Special Police, we recall that it is they who deserve credit for rescuing many illegal migrants, women, and children on inaccessible Croatian mountains in the most inhospitable terrain. Should this be a reason to directly attack and call them out?"

The ministry urged "all those who want facts" to pay attention to actual events, fights among migrants in camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as media reports on the injuring of migrants and the accidents and injuries that happen to them along the way.

"Since this latest theory mentions late May, we draw attention to the fact that on May 28, close to the Croatian border, in Cazin, migrants clashed among themselves near the village of Sturlic, and that the police were notified by a local," the ministry said referring to locations in Bosnia.

A representative of the Bosnian Interior Ministry confirmed that a police patrol found two dead men on the scene and that they had visible knife injuries, and Bosnian police established that a number of migrants were injured in that clash, the ministry added.

The people who meet migrants on a daily basis as part of their work know well the pattern of their fights, notably among Afghans and Pakistanis, the ministry said. "However, despite all of the above, all the public accusations need to be checked and they will be in this case too."

As Lucija Spiljak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 11th of June, 2020, the Zagreb company Dizz Concept, which became famous on both Croatian and foreign markets with its award-winning pop-up kitchen concept, has now presented yet another new product called Office Shell.

Office Shell is an innovative workstation that provides isolation and privacy to employees who are working in open-ended offices. The unit is about two metres in diameter and occupies less than four square metres in total. The team from this particular Zagreb company has invested around 300,000 kuna in the project and worked hard on it for about a year, and they're already receiving orders.

The director of the company, Darko Špiljarić, who is also a designer, explained that this new concept enables an increase in productivity, and in the coronavirus dominated era, it represents effective protection against the spread of infectious diseases of all kinds in such offices. Employees can thus achieve a good balance between working in a private environment and still working together, and it is suitable for use in new or existing offices. In yesterday's online presentation, the Zagreb company, Dizz Concept, presented the prototype in more detail and explained the concept.

''Office Shell provides additional protection against viruses and bacteria and also helps alleviate stress in a green environment. The design is evolving and remains subject to change. It will be individually adaptable to each user, and during the production, we used natural materials in order to create a comfortable working environment that doesn't require a period of getting used to,'' explained Špiljarić.

Office Shell can be successfully combined with ordinary office furniture, and assembling or disassembling the unit takes less than twenty minutes. It is suitable, among other things, even for short-term rent. The domestic premiere of Office Shell will take place in September at Zagreb Design Week, and a month later it will be presented at the world's leading office furniture fair - Orgatec 2020, which is being held in Cologne, Germany, as part of the Five Working Worlds exhibition.

This innovative Zagreb company revealed that they have sold several hundred Pop-up PIA kitchens in dozens of countries around the world. What makes them interesting to buyers is that they are very easy to fold and open and thus ''save'' space. The vast majority of copies sold, they added, are exports, while here on the domestic market, they mostly dealt with smaller projects and occasional individual orders.

For more on Croatian innovation, follow Made in Croatia.

As Novac writes on the 11th of June, 2020, after new concessions to the measures set out by the National Civil Protection Headquarters in regard to bus passenger transport, and in accordance with the conditions of travel within individual European countries, FlixBus is set to re-establish its international bus lines and re-connect Croatia with Slovenia, Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic and Luxembourg.

In this way, travellers will once again be able to travel for either tourist, family or business purposes through one part of Europe as of (as things stand) the 18th of this month.

''Demand for international travel has been shown since the very beginning of the re-establishment of public transport. We've adapted all of our departures to the current epidemiological situation in Europe. We will add new destinations and countries as the situation and market demands continue to develop further,'' said Ante Grbesa, the director of the FlixBus CEE South region.

As of next Thursday, up to 30 European destinations will be available to travel to once again from the Croatian cities of Zagreb, Split, Sibenik, Zadar, Rijeka, Pula, Rovinj, Varazdin, Osijek, Vukovar and other cities. All available destinations and departures from the 18th of June onwards can be checked via the official FlixBus website or application, from which you can also buy tickets.

Passengers are encouraged to think about their safety when buying their tickets and use the online method of purchase through a free mobile application or website. This will reduce unnecessary physical contact and long queues. Special attention is being paid to enhanced contagion prevention, hygiene and disinfection of the bus area for passengers and drivers, protective equipment for drivers as well as the regulated boarding and disembarking of passengers has been arranged. Preventive protection measures remain in place for the safety of passengers.

"The demand for travel within Croatia still exists, and with daily departures to central and southern Dalmatia, we have added destinations such as Plitvice Lakes, Rijeka, Slavonski Brod and Imotski, while respecting safety recommendations for our passengers,'' added Grbesa.

Given the importance of road and bus traffic in the tourism sector, the opening of borders and the relaxation of anti-epidemic measures will ensure a new influx of tourists arriving in Croatia by FlixBus in significant numbers. The increase in the number of tourists arriving from abroad on FlixBus buses, from season to season, has grown by up to 80 percent in certain Croatian destinations.

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