Croatia Business Report Launches on the Internet

Na Internetu pokrenut Croatia Business Report
 

Croatia Business Report has been launched for the international business
community. It on the internet at www.croatiabusinessreport.com  It will
be the first online English language magazine dealing with Croatian
business. It is based in London, England.

“Croatia Business Report is an English Language online magazine devoted
to doing business with Croatia. It will be read by top businesses
dealing with Croatia, and business people in Croatia who want to
export.” says Editor Brian Gallagher.

“Countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic have English language
business periodicals; it’s about time Croatia had one readily available
to international business, who are greatly interested in Croatia” said
Gallagher.

The first issue includes a top analysis on Croatia’s efforts to join the
European Union, analysis of Croatia from a risk perspective by Bonline’s
Nina Krznarić, an American business perspective on Croatia by Steve
Rukavina and an interview with British Airways on their services to Croatia.

Issue 1 of Croatia Business Report is available for free at
www.croatiabusinessreport.com

--
Brian Gallagher
Editor, Croatia Business Report
www.croatiabusinessreport.com

Na Internetu pokrenut Croatia Business Report

Za medjunarodnu poslovnu zajednicu pokrenut Croatia Business Report
(CBR), a dostupan je na Internet adresi
http://www.croatiabusinessreport.com.

Radi se o prvom on-line magazinu na engleskom jeziku, baziranom u
Londonu, koji se bavi hrvatskim biznisom.

“Citat ce ga vrhunski manageri koji posluju s Hrvatskom, i poslovni
ljudi u Hrvatskoj koji su zainteresirani za osvajanje novih trzista” –
kaze Brian Gallagher, urednik CBR-a.

“Zemlje poput Poljske i Republike Ceske vec imaju poslovna izdanja na
engleskom jeziku. Krajnje je vrijeme da i Hrvatska dobije jedan takav
magazin namijenjen medjunarodnom biznisu koji je uvelike zainteresiran
za Hrvatsku” – nastavlja Gallagher.

Prvi broj sadrzi izvrsnu analizu hrvatskih napora pri udruzivanju
Europskoj Uniji, analizu rizika kod ulaganja u Hrvatsku direktorice
Bonline-a Nine Krznaric, americki poslovni pogled na Hrvatsku Steve-a
Rukavine, kao i intervju s British Airways-om o njihovih letovima u
Hrvatsku.

Prvi broj Croatia Business Report-a besplatno je dostupan na
http://www.croatiabusinessreport.com
--
Brian Gallagher
Editor, Croatia Business Report
www.croatiabusinessreport.com

Croatian court rejects Miksic's appeal
 

Ivo Scepanovic, Special To The Star Tribune
January 6, 2005 CROA0106

SPLIT, CROATIA -- The Croatian Constitutional Court on Wednesday turned down the election appeal of Minnesota businessman and Croatian presidential candidate Boris Miksic.

The court concluded that Miksic's claims that he was cheated in Sunday's election were groundless.

"Boris Miksic did not present evidence for his claim that there were irregularities during the presidential elections," the court said, rejecting his request for a recount.

The court in Zagreb, the capital, also rejected Miksic's appeal on the fact that his observers were not allowed to be present as the State Election Commission tabulated votes on Sunday.

The court accepted the commission's explanation that the law requires the admittance only of representatives of political parties, nongovernment organizations and foreign observers during the counting of votes. Such a right has not been anticipated for representatives of independent candidates, such as Miksic, unless they do it via nongovernment organizations.

Speaking at a news conference in Split before the court released its ruling, Miksic said he would abide by the decision.

Miksic, who lives in North Oaks and holds U.S. and Croatian citizenship, also told his supporters something they wanted to hear: "I'll definitely stay in politics."

He said he will participate in local elections scheduled for April and pledged to provide more details at a public rally he has scheduled for Friday in Zagreb.

Miksic finished third in Sunday's election with 17.8 percent of the vote, barely missing out on a spot in a Jan. 16 runoff election with the first-place finisher, President Stipe Mesic.

Miksic cited the absentee vote as evidence of fraud. In voting abroad, including the United States, Miksic got only 9.9 percent of the vote.

"It is hard to understand that my percentage of votes was much better here in Croatia than, for example, in the United States," said Miksic, who left the Balkan region in 1973.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5171369.html

Vukusic's play key in Northwestern's victory
 

BY JOHN MULLIN

Chicago Tribune
Posted on Sat, Dec. 18, 2004

CHICAGO - (KRT) - He was late coming out of the locker room after the game because he was busy eating birthday cake and he had to endure good-natured ribbing from teammates as he talked about his role in Northwestern's 53-44 victory over Seton Hall.

But Vedran Vukusic will take this kind of birthday anytime.

With Northwestern (4-4) struggling and trailing 39-38 with eight minutes remaining Saturday, the 22-year-old junior forward from Croatia, simply took over a game that was slipping away from the Wildcats. Vukusic collected a pair of layups, a three-pointer and two steals in the span of three minutes and effectively secured Northwestern's third straight victory and second in a row over a winning team.

"He's getting that go-to feeling and he's starting to really step up," coach Bill Carmody said. "I wish we could get him more shots."

Vukusic finished with a game-high 14 points to go with seven rebounds, two assists, no turnovers and two blocked shots. Guard T.J. Parker contributed 13 points and center Mike Thompson had 12 in a game where he shot better under pressure from the field (4 of 10) than he did at the free throw line (4 of 11).

"That's something we'll work on tomorrow," Thompson said, laughing.

What Northwestern worked on before a crowd of 4,306 Saturday, however, was defense. Seton Hall (4-3) has four starters averaging double figures but the Pirates had no one in double figures and shot an appalling 28.6 percent.

Seton Hall center Kelly Whitney, from Marshall High School, was limited to a season-low six points on 2 of 15 shooting by a swarming defense. Virtually every Wildcat got into the act at one time or another swatting at the ball anytime Whitney put it on the floor.

"We knew coming in that he was their go-to guy and I wanted to take him out of the game," said Thompson, who led Northwestern with nine rebounds.

He thought the defense got inside Whitney's head as the game wore on.

"The defense was making him afraid to dribble and that helped a lot," he said.

Seton Hall had 21 offensive rebounds to offset their poor overall shooting partially. The Pirates put in eight points off offensive rebounds to overtake Northwestern at 39-38 before Vukusic's explosion, which coincided with Seton Hall suffering a turnover, blocked shot or offensive foul on five of six possessions and going nearly five minutes without scoring.

The very physical game saw players sprawled on the floor repeatedly in the second half but it was the kind of matchup that can only help Northwestern getting ready for the Big Ten season in January.

"You have to have some physical games," Parker said. "Michigan State's going to be the same thing."

© 2004, Chicago Tribune.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/10449849.htm

 

Croatian fans donate potatoes for salaries
 

Fans of a soccer team in Nedeljanec, Croatia, donated six tons of potatoes to be sold to raise money to pay players' salaries. . . .

http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031779759101&path=!sports!punch&s=1045855935482

Incumbent, woman to vie for Croatian presidency

Croatia's incumbent President Stipe Mesic has overwhelmingly won the first round of elections taking 49 per cent of the vote, according to official results.

However, he now faces a run-off to win a second five-year term to lead the country as it seeks to join the European Union.

Mr Mesic will face conservative Deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, who received 20.18 per cent of Sunday's vote, in the January 16 run-off.

Wealthy Croatian-US businessman Boris Miksic finished third with 17.8 per cent of the vote, the electoral commission said.

A jubilant Mr Mesic has urged voters to turn out in big numbers for the run-off, following a low turnout of 51 per cent on Sunday.

"Croatia must be a modern, European and democratic country with satisfied citizens," he said.

"It will be possible only if we change many things. We will decide where Croatia is heading, to the 21st Century or back in time. I offer the 21st Century."

Ms Kosor says Croatia is ready for a woman president.

"I am very happy that for the first time we have two candidates of which one is a woman," she said.

"This shows the maturity of voters since the most frequent question during the campaign was whether Croatia was mature enough to have a woman for a president."

Mr Mesic, 70, was heavily favored to win the vote to lead the former war-torn Yugoslav republic, with exit polls released immediately after voting stations closed showing he might win the 50 per cent needed to avoid the run-off.

- AFP

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1275661.htm
 

Reflection: As another tumultuous year ends, amen to all that

By ROGER COHEN
Last Updated: Dec. 25, 2004
The end of the year is near, a time for reflection. So in search of understanding, I recently visited my grandmother, who is 104.

She was 14 when the shot was fired in Sarajevo that sparked World War I. As the stones of the old city have been smoothed by countless footsteps, so have her memories been honed by time. Honed to silence, or so it seems. She was loquacious on her 100th birthday, but has gone quiet these last few years. Her eyes are now closed much of the time. In her touch, there is recognition, but her eyes, when they open, are impenetrable as pools.

But some things never return. Marriages, great loves, gone and sundered as completely as the empires and nations that have disappeared in her lifetime. Austria-Hungary, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Soviet Union, East Germany, Yugoslavia - all vanished as a single life has been lived.

The birthing of countries has been more hectic in her time than the dying. An independent Croatia was reborn after more than eight centuries: The loops of history can be circuitous. Indonesia came into being, as did Israel, Uzbekistan, myriad independent African states and North Korea.

Some states moved. Poland journeyed westward. Hungary shrank. Some borders did a vanishing act, like those within the European Union.

Political ideologies came and went, taking tens of millions of lives.

So it goes. States are living beings. They shift, they wed and divorce, they wither and perish, as one woman lives her life.

I considered my grandmother’s skin: fissured as parched earth, yet soft as a newborn. I considered her silence. It seemed more sage than vacant.

We do not like riddles or silence; we prefer pronouncements. Journalism is the day-after-yesterday craft. We need to say where things are going, what they mean.

But the living of 104 years speaks for caution. Such longevity is itself unexpected and, scientific advances notwithstanding, unforeseeable.

She was 21 when the British installed a monarchy in the modern Iraq carved from the defunct Ottoman Empire. Eighty-three years later, the country’s statehood still seems tenuous.

It is tenuous because different currents in history, different epochs almost, are clashing there, as they do now throughout the world.

It used to be that we could ignore our differences. No longer. Asian nationalism, European post-nationalism, American expansionism vie for influence.

In Iraq, at the very least, we see the following forces: the apocalyptic fundamentalism of Islamic jihadists; a classic guerrilla struggle against an occupying army; the national aspirations of the Kurdish people; the battle between Shiite and Sunni strains of Islam; an old-fashioned fight for resources; and the zeal of the United States, a country at or near the zenith of its historical power, to fashion more of the world in its image by delivering the freedom that President Bush believes is God’s design for humanity.

Where all this will lead, I do not know. I did not ask my grandmother; she would have responded with the wisdom of silence.

It is possible that the borders of Iraq will not withstand these forces and the country will break up, as Yugoslavia did in the 1990s after its release from despotic rule. But I doubt it, for the simple reason that agreement on the shape of the broken-up parts would be impossible.

I do know that American forces will leave Iraq one day and that it is possible but not inevitable that the young American lives lost in Iraq, more than 1,280 already, will have been lost in vain.

I also know that Iraq in 2004 stands at what the Germans in 1945 called Stunde null or zero hour.

It is quiet in my grandmother’s Johannesburg apartment in South Africa. There is no television; she lives without news.

It is possible to live without news, of Iraq or American elections. So she did not hear the good news of 2004: the Chilean army’s extraordinary apology for the killing and torture after the 1973 coup and the Bosnian Serbs’ apology for the slaughter at Srebrenica in 1995.

Truth, it seems, is gaining a global toehold. For much of her life, it was not so: The lies that exalt and kill were the stuff of political discourse. There are grounds for guarded optimism.

When she was born, the city of Johannesburg, founded in 1884, was a mere teenager. Her father came penniless from Lithuania. Her daughter went to England. Four of her great-grandchildren live in the United States.

Over 104 years, a lot happens. Although she has seen a lot of it, she never liked change much.

“The things you see when you don’t have a gun” was a favorite expression, delivered on encountering any novelty or irritant.

Her husband died a few years back at the age of 98; they were married 75 years. She loved him deeply, and I think she may have forgotten him entirely - proof, if needed, that in the great scheme of things, three-quarters of a century is the blink of an eye.

Occasionally, the silence is broken. My grandmother speaks: “On earth as it is in heaven, forgive us our trespasses.”

Fragments of the Lord’s Prayer, summoned from somewhere. She is Jewish but attended a convent school long ago. Perhaps her last lesson is ecumenism. Or love.

She will not release my hand. I try to ease it away but she clings with surprising force. In her silence, there is indeed knowledge.

A nurse confides: “She’s talking to the people on the other side.” To whomever she is speaking, she has a last word, pronounced slowly: “Aaaa-men.”

Perhaps we can all agree on that.

Roger Cohen writes for The International Herald Tribune. This article first appeared in The New York Times.

Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Dec. 26, 2004.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/dec04/286781.asp
 

Mr. Miksic's chance to be elected

The fact that Mr. Miksic was not allowed to present his views on Croatian HTV and most newspapers until the very last days certainly had much to do with his third position. Considering that among the many candidates, who are much better known, he achieved the third position is surprising and encouraging enough. Croatia needs to be cleaned up of former communists like Mesic and many officials in the leading HDZ party as well as other
parties, then in a democratic state, where the media is not run by the Government, by "former" communists in every party and Yugonostalgics, we can hope that men like Mr. Miksic get a better chance to be elected president.

Hilda M. Foley

Posto gosp. Miksic nije dobio sansu (ili bolje receno dozvolu) da se pretstavi biracima na HTV i u vecini novina sa svojom agendom za Hrvatsku do samih zadnjih dana pred izborima, svakako je bio veliki dio razloga da je dosao istom na trece mjesto. Ali ako se uzme u obzir da je dosao na trece mjesto uz tolike druge kandidate, koji su mnogo bolje poznati, onda je to ipak iznenadjujuce i ohrabrujuce. Hrvatsku se mora ocistiti od prijasnjih
komunista kao Mesic i mnogih visokih funkcijonera u vodecoj HDZ stranci, kao i u drugim strankama, te samo onda u jednoj demokratskoj drzavi u kojoj media nije u rukama Vlade, ni u rukama "prijasnjih "komunista u svakoj stranci i jugonostalgicara, moglo bi se nadati da osobe kao gosp. Miksic dobe bolju sansu da budu izabrani za pretsjednika.

Hilda M. Foley

Fears grow for missing thousands
 

December 31, 2004
Foreigners killed
Families across Europe await news of family and friends, but the death toll is expected to rise.

European leaders prepared their citizens for the worst as hopes dimmed for nearly 5000 tourists, half of them Swedes and Germans, still missing four days after a tsunami tore through some of Asia's most popular beach resorts.

Officially, only 212 foreign tourists have been reported killed by their home countries, but Thailand alone has said that at least 435 foreigners had died there. Thousands more are still unaccounted for.

This is the latest country-by-country breakdown, excluding Australia:

Austria: Five Austrians confirmed dead, 55 are missing. At least 1500 Austrians were in the affected area.

Belgium: Four Belgians, including two babies, have been killed. About 20 are still missing.

Britain: Twenty-six Britons have died. On Monday, officials said 50 teachers in Sri Lanka were unaccounted for.

Croatia: The three-year-old daughter of a Croatian-Dutch couple was killed in Thailand. Nine Croatian nationals are unaccounted for.

Denmark: Three Danish citizens - a man, 71, a man, 63, and a 10-year-old boy - are reported dead in Phuket. Thirteen Danes still listed as missing around Phuket are presumed dead.

Finland: Two Finns have died. About 2000 are believed to have been in the affected areas.

France: At least 20 French nationals are confirmed dead. Hundreds are unaccounted for.

Germany: At least 26 Germans are confirmed dead and about 1000 are missing. At least 4000 Germans are believed to have been on holiday in the region when the quake struck.

Greece: About 20 are still unaccounted for.

Hungary: About two dozen are unaccounted for in Thailand.

Ireland: Dozens are unaccounted for across the region.

Italy: At least 14 Italians have been killed. About 100 are missing.

The Netherlands: At least five Dutch nationals have died.

Norway: Thirteen people are dead and 446 unaccounted for in Thailand.

Poland: One man has been killed and 56 are missing.

Portugal: Eight Portuguese are missing, including a baby who was swept out of her mother's arms.

Romania: Two on Phuket earlier reported missing were found safe at their hotel.

Russia: A 33-year-old Moscow woman and her six-year-old son were killed on Phuket. About 50 other Russians are missing.

Spain: One person is missing, presumed dead, after being swept away. Others are missing.

Sweden: About 1000 tourists are still unaccounted for. Six are confirmed dead.

Switzerland: At least 11 have been killed. About 2200 are believed to have been holidaying in the region.

Turkey: Seventy-five people remain unaccounted for.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Asia-tsunami/Fears-grow-for-Europes-missing-thousands/2004/12/30/1104344924938.html?oneclick=true
 

Croatian Comedians needed for American TV

To whom it may concern:

I am a New York-based producer doing research for a project/series for American television, and we are looking to cast a comedian from Eastern Europe to play an immigrant moving to America and living in New York.

The project is a comedy that will be in-part a reality show, so it requires improv ability. We are looking for a male, mid-to-late 20s to mid-to-late 40s, who has some English speaking ability, and while famous in their home country are unknown in the United States.

I am looking for the top comedians in Eastern European countries, the most famous and the most popular, and would love it if you might have some names or could direct me to someone who might help. They might have done popular movies which then we could hopeful get a hold of to see if they are right for the part.

They can be a little eccentric, like Roberto Benigni - this is a comedy, and they will be put in real-life situation in the struggle of the first few months living in New York.

Any names across Eastern Europe would be appropriate as well, should you have any recommendations.

If you have the names, emails/telephone numbers of the top acting agencies as well, or can forward this email, that would be great too.

Foglight Entertainment would also produce - they have the upcoming series "Ink'd" on A&E Television next year.

Thanks for your assistance.

Best Regards,

Evan Friedman

Producer
TAPELIST

(212) 628-1573
http://www.tapelist.com
info@tapelist.com
 

Internship at Channel Thirteen/WNET
From: jepstein@wesleyan.edu

Thirteen/WNET is looking for an intern for the Local Production department
for January through June. The intern would work with producers and associate
producers of the weekly series NEW YORK VOICES (www.thirteen.org/nyvoices),
and THE WALKING TOURS. You will be instrumental in helping to get shows on
the air as well as learning how programs are produced.

Duties for this position include, but are not limited to the following:

-Logging field tapes
-Assisting on shoots
-Story and footage research
-Helping to develop story ideas
-Writing and researching for our website
-Assisting with everyday administrative tasks and special projects

A great opportunity to learn the basics of TV production and reporting. This
internship is very hands on. Prior experience welcomed, but not necessary.

You must be available to work 2-3 days, Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday.

Please email a cover letter and resume to Jim Epstein at
epsteinj@thirteen.org .