ZAGREB, June 2, 2020 - The State Prosecutor's Office (DORH) and the USKOK anti-corruption office are not the sources of information from the investigation in the wind park case that has been published in the media, USKOK said on Tuesday, adding that the police were ordered to investigate the leaks.

DORH and USKOK are not the sources of the information published in the media because the publication of any information from the investigation undermines breakthroughs in the case, which is why the police were ordered today to investigate, USKOK said. 

In this case, the decision to conduct an investigation was made on May 30 and, in line with the Criminal Procedure Act, it was forwarded to all the accused and their lawyers, at least 29 persons, USKOK said, adding that all the transcripts that had been published were cited in the decision on the investigation.

A comparison of what has been published and the transcripts cited in the decision shows that the published transcripts have been partly misinterpreted, USKOK added.

The fact that only transcripts of conversations cited in the decision on the investigation have been published, thereby being available to a large number of persons, confirms that USKOK is not the source of the information that has been published, USKOK said.

It recalled that in line with the Criminal Procedure Act, after a decision to conduct an investigation is made, all accused and their lawyers are entitled to see the case file and copy it.

Although under the Criminal Procedure Act and investigation is not secret but not public either, DORH and USKOK believe that the publication of information gathered during an investigation undermines breakthroughs in the case, which is why it is highly important to establish who leaked it in this case, USKOK said.

Claims that DORH and USKOK are leaking information discredit the efforts and work of DORH and incite distrust in its work, USKOK said.

ZAGREB, June 2, 2020 - President Zoran Milanovic said on Tuesday that Josipa Rimac, a former state secretary arrested in the wind park scandal, had once said that he was not a Croat, adding that he cannot believe that someone who is a state secretary can behave like an "agent for an American investment company."

Asked if he was surprised by the wind park scandal and its extent, Milanovic said that while he was prime minister, Rimac, a former Knin mayor, had said that he was not a Croat and that he did not love his people.

"Then we paid a couple of million kunas for a monument at the Knin railway station. My government did not commission it. We financed it with a feeling of joy and patriotism. Then she brought those troublemakers to Knin and now she is in investigative custody. It is unbelievable that the state secretary in the Public Administration Ministry has the nerve to behave like an agent for an American investment company," he said.

Responding to a reporter's remark that Environment and Energy Minister Tomislav Coric shifted the responsibility for the wind park scandal onto his government because all agreements regarding renewable energy sources were signed during his term in office, Milanovic said that Coric was not telling the truth.

Milanovic said that at the end of his term, the then relevant minister, Ivan Vrdoljak, adopted "some sort of decision," after which the government led by Tihomir Oreskovic was in power for a brief time and then came the current government which, Milanovic said, has had four and a half years to "nip that in the bud."

"If a minister had some authority in my government and could make some decisions on his own, I do not know about that," he claimed and explained that at one stage wind parks were interesting for investors because enterprises were stimulated to invest in that form of energy production.

With regard to the March for Life is held on the day of election silence, Milanovic said that was an initiative that advocated the fight against abortion and is led by a woman who previously worked for Human Rights Watch, adding that he has a problem with the concept of election silence in any case.

"That doesn't mean anything. I think that lady is not a candidate on any election slate. It's all the same to me, the people will decide. That might bother some people and they will go to the polls and vote for someone else or maybe they didn't plan to vote at all," he said.

ZAGREB, June 2, 2020 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Tuesday he did not see anything contentious in Minister Tomislav Coric's decision to revoke a decision for making a new feasibility study for the Krs-Padjene wind park, saying that he does not think Coric would sign something without first checking with experts.

"I don't see anything contentious in Minister Coric's decision if you are referring to the 2017 decision. That was based on the same model as for other wind parks," said Plenkovic during a visit to the Elka company.

He added, however, that he would inspect Environment and Energy Minister Coric's decision which revoked a previous decision on the need to make an environmental impact study and a general assessment of acceptability for the ecological network for the Krs-Paden wind park.

"It is possible to check everything that needs to be checked. I do not think that Minister Coric would have signed anything without first checking with experts in his ministry," said Plenkovic.

He said that Coric did not run the decision by him as those are decisions that are in fact made at the ministerial level.

"There are clear distinctions of authority regarding matters that the government decides on and what ministers decide on. The government cannot make all the decisions," Plenovic said and added that a minimum has to exist with regard to delegating responsibilities and trust.

Asked why such a quick decision was made to penalise former state secretary Josipa Rimac, Plenkovic said that this corruption scandal occurred in real-time during this government's term which is why the reaction followed immediately.

He confirmed that there is an enormous difference between this case and those involving ministers who left the government.

"Let's not generalise stories about this government, ministers, and their responsibilities. Of all the political and media- orchestrated quakes aimed at bringing down the government since 2017 (...) when observed at the operational level, where are those cases? Who is being tried for anything?," asked Plenkovic.

With regard to suspicion of criminal dealings by former public administration minister Lovro Kuscevic, Plenkovic recalled that the case referred to events that occurred while Kuscevic was the mayor of Nerezisce and not a member of the government.

"That isn't something that had any connection to this government and that is the point," he said.

Asked whether he was concerned with information leaks regarding investigations by the USKOK anti-corruption office which, according to some claims, is the reason for the sudden arrests in the wind park scandal, Plenkovic said that that is horrifying.

"People who have that information, that can be a very narrow circle of people, that has to come from the State Prosecutor's Office or the police. They are responsible for that have to find out who is practically compromising their work. I think that is disastrous," the prime minister said.

ZAGREB, June 2, 2020 - The pressure of illegal migrants along the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia in the northwestern Bosnian canton Una-Sana is rising, the local police authorities said on Tuesday.

The fewer the restrictive measures which were in place during the COVID-19 lockdown, the more migrants are arriving in this cross-border area.

Busloads of migrants, who are trying to reach western and northern Europe, are arriving in this canton, and there is no more room in the accommodation centres organised for migrants, which is why there are more and more people staying outdoors or in makeshift migrant shelters.

In the last seven days, with the restoration of bus services between cities, between 100 and 150 migrants arrive in Bihac by bus every day, police spokesman Ale Siljdedic was quoted by the Fena news agency as saying.

The local authorities also fear that the situation will be further worsened with the resignation of Bosnia's Security Minister Fahrudin Radoncic.

"We will again have a crisis in the Bosnia and Herzegovina agencies tasked with managing migrations," the cantonal prime minister Mustafa Ruznic told the N1 commercial broadcaster.

ZAGREB, June 2, 2020 - Slaven Dobrovic, a former minister of energy and environment, on Tuesday, said that there had been pressure regarding the construction of wind parks.

"Yes, there was pressure," Dobrovic said replying to reporters.

He added that it was important to "keep up" developing that project in an effort to retain a high level of subsidies for electricity produced by wind parks. He underscored that 14 years of exploitation and subsidies amount to close to HRK 1 billion, which is also a big business motive.

"A state that uses subsidies as a tool for, in this case increasing the level of renewable energy sources, must not do that by ensuring an extremely high profit for someone. That is what occurred in this case. There was pressure, but I stood firmly by the stance of professionals and that was the decision we issued," said Dobrovic, a minister whose term in office ended when the Bridge party was ousted from the ruling coalition government.

Dobrovic made this statement at a press conference with a few other former Bridge members who have joined the slates of Miroslav Skoro's Homeland Movement.

Skoro told the press conference that Dobrovic, Ruzica Vukovac, and Vlado Maric were the movement's new strength and that they will empower the movement with regard to agriculture, environment protection, and Croatian veterans.

June 2, 2020 - One of the things we have to accept as a part of our "new normal" life post-corona is that our temperature is going to be measured regularly when trying to enter some institutions. Thus, a Croatian company from Varaždin, ExaByte has created a system that will make it as simple and efficient as possible. 

Ines Brežnjak writes for dnevno.hr about the ExaByte company. They have been in business for 12 years now, working on the development of sophisticated IT solutions with implementations in numerous industries (including advanced systems for news websites, the integration of the current business solutions with advanced e-commerce solutions, software support to the industrial manufacturing through the implementation of the artificial intelligence technologies). Now they've decided to develop IT technologies to be used to prevent the spread of coronavirus, protect the healthcare workers, and in many other industries. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they started developing a system that uses artificial intelligence to measure someone's body temperature rapidly. Their system is, compared to similar existing products on the global market, much cheaper, mobile, and simple to install and use. 

New Time - New Technologies

"As we talked to a colleague who has a medical degree, we recognized that being able to control the bodily temperature of many people is one of the bottlenecks and critical points in the age of the epidemic. The standard technology used here these days is measurements with contactless thermometers, which is a technology not up to the challenge during the pandemic times. When you want to use such a handheld contactless thermometer to measure the temperatures of each person in larger groups, such as in hospitals, health centers, factories, schools, or daycare centers, many problems appear", Bernard Toplak, the ExaByte owner explains. Those include an increased risk of infection for the person doing the measurement, as the person holding the thermometer must come within a meter of the person whose temperature is being taken, and who is potentially infected. Also, those measurements can be very imprecise unless they're used properly, and the variation can be up to 2 °C. Many of the hospitals in Croatia have erected mobile tents where the measurements are performed, and such measurements are done in the open, on people with colder foreheads. None of that complies with the specifications and the instructions written by the producers of contactless thermometers. They're designed and calibrated to be used at room temperature and indoors. 

It's evident that handheld devices are just not up for the challenges and dangers of today. That's why numerous systems based on thermal imaging infrared cameras are being introduced worldwide to measure temperature. The solutions that were available in Croatia in March and April were based on security cameras with night-vision capabilities, and they cost between 18 thousand and over 26 thousand euros. That's why ExaByte decided to create their own solution, not compromising on the quality, but at just the fraction of the cost. They've worked closely with a well-renowned producer of specialized thermal imaging cameras since early March, developing software based on artificial intelligence, which can control body temperatures of a group of people fast, using the thermal imaging camera and a reference black body. And, Toplak is proud to say they were successful, and they have a system which is much cheaper than the competition, and much simpler to install and use and is mobile. 

Features of the system include a group screening of the bodily temperature without stopping, ultra-fast measurements (it can measure up to 9 times per second), it's mobile (can quickly be taken from one location to the next if needed), it's simple to install and use. 

The Same System is Used Worldwide

"The same system was recently implemented in thousands of hospitals in China and all over the world, in factories, schools, and other locations where there are many people. For instance, our partner's cameras are located on all subway stations in Wuhan, the epicenter of the pandemic. In Croatia, you can find equipment by those who usually sell surveillance (security) cameras, which have been improved so they can measure temperature instead of performing night-time surveillance. Some of the solutions are quite good, but some of them are not exactly of high quality, especially if they don't use the black body device to calibrate the measurement. Our cameras have been developed to measure temperatures, and not for night-time surveillance," Toplak said when asked if similar systems are used elsewhere. 

A very precise infrared camera is used as a fundamental element of the system, which was developed to measure temperatures in industrial settings, such as to protect against overheating of machines and plants, for protection against fires, to supervise the electro-installations, the transformers, etc. The camera has a very high resolution and precision, which allows us to be precise at a distance of over 4 meters. That's what makes the system perfect for installation at the entrances to the hospitals, factories, schools, daycare centers, public administration waiting rooms, and other areas where many people are found at the same time. 

The other key element is the reference heat source, the so-called black-body element, widely used to calibrate the infrared effect of the optical systems, the infrared detectors and other instruments using the infrared radiation. 

"Other systems, which don't use the black-body source, are unable to achieve precision, which depends greatly on external influences (winds, drafts, sudden changes in the temperature, etc.). Our system re-calibrates nine times in a second using the black-body source, which gives us the precision with the deviation of up to ±0,3 °C at 4 to 5 meters. Our software is built on our many years of experience, but also our partner's rich experience, and they're a factory producing infrared sensors and precise industrial cameras", Toplak explains. 

The prototype of their system is being tested in Varaždin hospital, where such technologies can significantly help. ExaByte has let the hospital use it for free, and the feedback is very positive. IT was the feedback that led them to offer their system on the market, not just in Croatia. They're already talking to partners in Italy, Germany, Slovenia, etc., and many of them are interested in ExaByte's solution, Toplak concludes.

If you would like to find out more information about this product, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Subject Temperature. 

To find out more about business in Croatia, follow our dedicated Business section. 

ZAGREB, June 2, 2020 - The Split office of the Attorney General has issued an indictment against two-man, aged 53 and 21, for assaulting reporter Zivana Susak Zivkovic while she was trying to record a mass in a church in Split on her mobile phone on 12 April.

In the incident in the Sirobuje residential area, the journalist of the Dalmatinski portal web site sustained light injuries when she was pushed away, and her mobile phone, on which she was streaming the gathering, was taken and her arm was pinned with the church door.

The mass was being held despite the ban on public gathering, and the two attackers are charged with preventing the reporter from doing her job which is described as a job of public interest.

In the incident the reporter's mobile telephone, the value of which is estimated at 3,000 kunas, was destroyed. If found guilty, the 21-man, who smashed that phone, will be required to compensate that damage.

ZAGREB, June 2, 2020 - Ombudswoman for people with disabilities Anka Slonjsak on Tuesday called on all candidates campaigning ahead of the election to refrain from using people and children with disabilities for election purposes.

Slonjsak underscored in a press release that she had noticed in previous political campaign numerous actions detrimental to people and children with disabilities.

The difficult position of people and children with disabilities is often used to increase a political party's rating and show their social awareness.

At the same time, such a declarative commitment to the rights of people with disabilities is not translated into actions that really show respect for their voting and political participation rights.

When it comes to the choice of polling stations, we have often noticed that people with disabilities cannot access them, so it necessary to provide locations accessible to people with disabilities and other people with reduced mobility, Slonjsak said.

There should also be polls in healthcare facilities and social welfare institutions where people with disabilities reside because they have difficulties exercising their voting rights unlike, for example, people in the prison system, for whom special polling stations are organised.

Moreover, the marked under-representation of people with disabilities in political life points to a number of obstacles that are put in their way when it comes to how political parties function.

The ombudswoman thus calles on political parties to present their political programs in a way that is accessible to people with disabilities, especially the deaf, the blind, and voters with intellectual disabilities, and to ensure polling stations are accessible to disabled people.