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Britain's Foreign Office is warning visitors to Croatia this summer to beware of a threat from organised crime, following a number of assassinations and attacks on prominent figures, reports Matt Prodger.Irena Scuric shows Matt Prodger the scene where Ivo Pukanic was killed "We heard a very loud and low noise, something like voooom!" On the evening of 23 October 2008, Irena Scuric was eating pizza with her daughter in a restaurant less than a minute's walk from the offices of one of Croatia's most popular newspapers, Nacional, when they heard a blast. "We saw the car, which was burnt," she...

New Allegations by Holocaust Survivors against Franciscan Order - OFMDetails Slowly Emerge about Nazi Gold in Vatican April 16, 2009 San Francisco United States District Court for Northern California Alperin v. Vatican Bank and Franciscan order Case No. C-99-4491 MMC A federal court judge has overruled objections of the defendant Franciscan Order of Friars Minor (OFM) and has permitted the filing of an Amended Complaint in the decade long lawsuit Alperin v. Vatican Bank & Franciscan Order. The plaintiffs, Holocaust survivors and their heirs from former Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, are seeking an accounting and return of gold and...

On April 10th, the day the Independent State of Croatia was born in 1941 to begin a state-mandated campaign of genocide against Serbs, Jews, and Romas, a U.S. judge, for the first time in Western history, issued (on behalf of Barry Lituchy) a permanent ban against a book containing testimonies of Holocaust/genocide survivors.Below: I. Brief History of the Lawsuit A. Initial demands of Lituchy, et al. B. Demands in the Complaint C. Claims in the Complaint D. The lawsuit against Kingsborough E. Preliminary Injunction F. Settlement demands G. Lituchy’s attacks II. Current Status A. Appeal to the Second Circuit III....

WASHINGTON, April 9, 2009 – For NATO’s two newest members, a National Guard program contributed to their April 1 accession into the alliance. Albania and Croatia have been members of the National Guard’s State Partnership Program for more than a decade. Along with other initiatives such as NATO’s Partnership for Peace program, the National Guard’s State Partnership Program helped the countries prepare for NATO membership, National Guard Bureau officials said. Established in 1949 as a defense pact against the former Soviet Union and now 28 members strong, NATO celebrated its 60th anniversary April 4. A dozen countries founded NATO...

A mass grave dating from World War II and containing the remains of up to 4,500 people, including German officers and their Croatian allies, has been found near Zagreb, media reports said Saturday. Bones were found in six caves at Harmica, in the Zapresic region, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) west of the capital, close to the border with Slovenia, newspapers and state television said. The website of the daily Jutarnji List said they included soldiers of the Croation Ustachi regime allied to the Nazis and some 500 German army officers. It quoted an official of the Croatian branch of...

Croatia will not use its membership in NATO to solve outstanding issues with neighbouring countries. On the contrary, Croatia’s goal is security and development of all countries in the region, Croatian President Stjepan Mesic said at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation session in Strasbourg on Saturday. President Mesic said that Croatia joined this military-political alliance to boost its security, but also to contribute to the stability and security of other countries, especially South-Eastern European countries. He believes that what is important for Croatia is not merely joining NATO, but also the whole process of accession during which Croatia met a...

Croatian President Mesic and Prime Minister Ivo Sanader ZAGREB, CROATIA - "This is a historic moment because Croatia is arriving at the summit as a member of NATO. We waited very long for this moment and we implemented all the necessary reforms. We got an army which is depoliticised and profesionalised," Croatia’s President Stjepan Mesic said before leaving for the NATO Summit in Strasbourg. He voiced satisfaction with the fact that he would be present at that historic moment. "NATO is not an army, it is also a political alliance which gathers countries that protect certain democratic values, freedom, democracy,...

Stjepan Mesic, Barack Obama, Ivo Sanader Albania and Croatia have already done a lot on behalf of NATO, Barack Obama said, alluding to soldiers participating in peace missions. The NATO summit in Strasbourg began with a minute of silence for people who had been killed on behalf of NATO. After that, French President Nicolas Sarkozy held a speech. He said the summit was taking place in Germany and France to show that these two countries ensure peace and security together. German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed that Afghanistan is NATO’s biggest challenge. "We must define our goals and periodically determine what...

PRIŠTINA -- Croatian President Stjepan Mesic; said Croatia and Kosovo have well-developed bilateral cooperation at all levels and this cooperation should be strengthened. In an interview with Radio Television Kosovo (RTK), he said that Kosovo was well organized, that all state institutions had been formed and were functioning, and that it was becoming a more functional state. “The proof is in the fact that more than 50 countries in the world have recognized Kosovo,” Mesic said. He said that the development of industry was of special importance, to encourage foreign investors to come to Kosovo and to take advantage of...

ZAGREB, Croatia-A prosecutor in Croatia has lifted the veil on a painful episode of Balkan history: the execution of thousands pro-Nazi soldiers and civilians at the end of World War II. The Croatian state attorney has asked that a case be brought against an elderly former major in the communist-run Yugoslav army on suspicion of ordering 13,000 people put to death. It marks the first legal procedure ever in Croatia regarding postwar killings carried by the victorious antifascists, or partisans. And part of the evidence may be the accused's own autobiography. Simo Dubajic, 86, is suspected of ordering the executions,...

Planters mark the border between Obrezje, Slovenia, foreground, and Bregana, Croatia — and between a NATO and European Union member and a nonmember. OBREZJE, Slovenia — Customers at Kalin, a rustic, 180-year-old tavern, can eat roast pork dinners here in Slovenia, step a few yards across the room to Croatia to use the bathroom, saunter back to Slovenia to pay the bill and end their meal on Croatian soil over a game of billiards and a shot of local pear brandy. They can do so because of the vagaries of history and an accident of geography. To prevent any confusion,...

ICTY - Tribunal Update Zagreb awarded damages to families of victims killed in detention. Croatia secretly paid 1.8 million kuna (250,000 euro) to the families of people killed in the notorious Lora prison camp in the early 1990s, confirmed officials this week. Lora, a Yugoslav-era naval base in the coastal city of Split, was taken over by Croatian forces in 1991, the start of the Croatian war of independence, as the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army, JNA, forces withdrew. From 1992 to 1997, it functioned as a prison camp for mainly Serbian, but also Bosnian and Montenegrin, civilians and prisoners of war,...

VINKOVCI, Croatia (AFP) – Croatians on Saturday cooked up what they claim to be the world's largest sausage, measuring 530 metres (1,738 feet). Hundreds of locals gathered in the main square of Vinkovci in the country's east and grilled the giant sausage, made with 400 kilogrammes of pork, 10 kilos of salt, 2.5 kilos of spices and 3.5 kilos of garlic bought for a local farm, the town hall said.

PRAGUE — Bosnian Serb leaders have threatened to pull out of state institutions and are pressing anew for independence from Bosnia and Herzegovina, threatening to throw the fragile, multiethnic country into political crisis once again. Analysts and observers of the region said the situation could unravel the United States-brokered Dayton accords of 1995, which ended a savage war that killed more than 100,000 people, most of them Muslims, between 1992 and 1995. The pact divided Bosnia and Herzegovina into a Muslim-Croat Federation and a Serb Republic, presided over by a decentralized political system that reinforced rather than healed ethnic divisions....

A border row dating back to the collapse of Yugoslavia is threatening Croatia's chances of completing EU membership talks this year and becoming the bloc's 28th member by 2011. Slovenia, the first former Yugoslav nation to join the EU in 2004, has been blocking talks with Croatia because of the 18-year-old dispute, which mainly concerns a small bay in the Adriatic Sea. Seen from a boat, Piran is a glorious sight - a Venetian-style city built of limestone and marble, lapped by the blue waters of the Adriatic. It's easily missed on a map, but this small bay of just...

KRAKOW, Poland, Feb 20, 2009 (Xinhua via COMTEX News Network) -- NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer expressed concern on Friday that politics in Slovenia might prevent Croatia from formally joining NATO at a summit in early April. "It gives me reason for concern that we might not see a situation at the summit in Strasbourg and Kehl that we can greet Albania and Croatia in the NATO family," he told a press conference at an informal NATO defense ministers' meeting. "I think everyone involved, including in Slovenia, should do everything they can to make that happen," he said....

ZAGREB -- Had he lived, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman would today be in the Hague accused of war crimes, a former American ambassador to Croatia claims. Peter Galbraith told Zagreb daily Jutarnji List that Croatia, "had it not been for the war and Tudjman", would now be an EU member. Galbraith testified at the Hague Tribunal in the trial of Ante Gotovina and two other former Croatian generals charged with Operation Storm crimes committed in 1995. Nearly a quarter of a million ethnic Serbs were driven out of their homes during the Croatian army and police campaign. Now the Zagreb...

Serbs and Yugoslavia were Under Attack, Not Croatia In the exclusive interview, Franjo Tudjman’s Internal Affairs Minister Josip Boljkovac admitted Croat leadership carried out planned attacks on Croatia Serbs in 1991, in order to start a war. “Tudjman wanted the war at any cost, following the concept according to which Serbs must disappear from Croatia,” Boljkovac said. Croat media censored reports from Boljkovac’s testimony at the trial against former Osijek mayor Branimir Glavaš, war criminal responsible for horrific crimes against the local Serbs, concealing parts of his testimony which charge Croatia with instigating the war. “During the testimony, Glavaš accused...

From Iceland to Latvia, the growing financial crisis is triggering popular revolts. Several European governments are on the verge of being toppled. Yet, it is in the Balkans where the rising tide of discontent may have the most significant impact. The bloody breakup of Yugoslavia left in its wake successor states - all of whom, with the exception of Slovenia, are mired in economic stagnation. The region's biggest disappointment, however, has been Croatia. It is now badly lagging behind its northern Slovene neighbor due to massive political corruption. Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader vows to lead his country into the...

Zagreb. U.S. President Barack Obama might visit Croatia and Albania in April, the Croatian Jutarnji List writes on its Internet site. According to anonymous White House sources Obama will most probably visit Zagreb and Tirana immediately after the NATO summit in Strasbourg. If Obama does not visit the two countries on organizational grounds, the prime ministers of the two NATO newcomers will visit the White House, the Jutarnji List says.