Croats

The dispute between Croatia and Slovenia over the Piran Gulf risks going up another notch after Croatian police offered to accompany Croatian fishermen in the waters of the Piran Gulf and ward off any Slovenian attempts to issue them with penalty notices.

The two former Yugoslav republics are locked in an unresolved dispute over the waters off the Istrian peninsula, which both claim.

Croatian Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Marija Pejcinovic-Buric says the border line with Slovenia was established in 1991.

She was speaking in the context of the international arbitration ruling in the maritime border dispute with Slovenia that Croatia rejects, and Slovenia intends to implement.

Serbian Ambassador to Croatia Mira Nikolic on Thursday refused to receive a protest note at the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Asylum Protection Centre, an NGO in Serbia, has told BIRN it is considering launching a lawsuit against Serbia over the death of Medina Husein, an Afghan migrant who lost her life, aged six, near the Serbia-Croatia border earlier in November.

Maja Sever, a reporter for public broadcaster Croatian Radio-Television, HRT, received a death threat via Facebook Messenger late on Sunday night over the report on the African refugee, news site Index reported on Monday.

"A day will come when we'll execute you, you piece of trash," wrote the person who sent the threat, whose name has not yet been confirmed by police.

The Russian embassy in Zagreb was surprised to see Croatia among the signatories of a recent letter asking the EU to combat Moscow's influence in the region.

A prosecution expert told the trial of former Serbian state security chiefs Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic that the majority of people displaced from war-affected areas of Croatia were Croats.

A diplomatic row has continued to simmer for four days after Serbia unveiled a monument to a Yugoslav major who blew himself up rather than surrender to Croatian forces during the war in 1991.

A group of citizens of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serbia caused a serious incident in a cafe in Vienna over the weekend.

The Croatian website index.hr is reporting this, citing the Germany-based Croatian magazine Feniks.

The preserved relics of St Leopold, a 19th-century Croat, are visiting Croatian and Montenegrin coastal cities and town from Thursday to Tuesday next week, where his body is likely to draw thousands of Catholic believers to churches.