CorD Magazine No.87

CaNDiDaCy aND aCCEssioN NEGotiatioNs

rElatioNs NEED strENGthENiNG

sErBia is hElD hostaGE By EXtrEMists

Serbian Deputy Prime Minister

Ambassador of the Republic of Hungary to Serbia

President of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina

h.E. osZkar NikoWitZ,

nenaD Čanak,

NOV ‘11 / ISSUE NO. 87

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BožiDar Đelić,

interviews opinions news comments events PriCe 250 rSd

proF. dr darKo tanaSkoVić, LEADING BELGRADE ORIENTALIST AND THE FORMER AMBASSADOR TO TURKEY

Political Toying

The new head of Turkish Religious Affairs, Mehmet Görmez, and the country’s entrepreneurial foreign minister and the chief architect of the current Turkish neo-Osmanic foreign affairs doctrine Ahmet Davutoglu had the final say THE VICIOUS CIRCLE OF SOVEREIGN DEBT CRISIS

Bankruptcy, a Fashionable Word

The current global sovereign debt crisis, sharing the same destiny as Iceland, Argentina and Russia, and even Spain which went bankrupt seven times in the 19th century BELGRADE PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Fridays at Eight

They say it is the pillar of Serbian cultural reality and our best export product RUGBY WORLD CUP 2011

Risk Pays Off

The decision by New zealand to bid for the Rugby World Cup 2011 was a calculated gamble.

A hosting fee of Nz$150m (€86.3m) was paid to the International Rugby Board (IRB) just for the privilege to stage the event

mr. EnvEr HoXHaJ

KOSOVO’S MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Dialogue is Key

COVER Enver Hoxhaj, Kosovo’s Minister of Foreign Affairs

Dialogue is Key

contents

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Enver Hoxhaj, Kosovo’s Minister of Foreign Affairs , gives us his opinions on the hot topics in the region at the moment and provides a clear insight on the position of the Kosovo Government.

Serbia on Europe’s radar: Candidacy and Accession Negotiations

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BOŽIDAR ĐELIĆ, Serbian Deputy Prime Minister

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Dialogue is Key Mr. Enver Hoxhaj, Kosovo’s Minister of Foreign Affairs

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T he 10 world’s most powerful woman Feature

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Global diary

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Serbia is Held Hostage by Extremists

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F ridays at Eight Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra

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Nenad Čanak, President of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina

A pple Not So Sweet What Jobs Left Behind and What Happens Next

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W inner Winner Any Dinner Restaurant review

Bankruptcy, a Fashionable Word The Vicious Circle of Sovereign Debt Crisis

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G reek Companies are Staying in Serbia “Go International”

Relations Need Strengthening H.E. Oszkar Nikowitz, Ambassador of the Republic of Hungary to Serbia

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November 2011

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In The Land Of Good Readers

Economy page 41

Business Dialogue

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TREA

SURED Islands

Loyalty Enhances the Company Chime.In Pays You To Post BILL GROSS, CEO of UberMedia

PRE SENT & FUTURE gadgets Techno talk

Globalization Advantages

DIMITRAKI ZIPOVSKI, CFO of Energoprojekt Holding a.d.

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Profile page 82

Travel

GORAN JANKOVIĆ, Director and Proprietor of Inmold Company from Požega

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CONTRIBUTORS: Sonja Ćirić, Jovana Gligorijević, Radmila Stanković, Boško Jakšić PHOTOS: Zoran Petrović, Marijana Šaponjić TRANSLATION: Snežana Bjelotomić PROJECT MANAGERS: Marija Savić m.savic@aim.rs; Nataša Popović n.popovic@aim.rs Biljana Dević b.devic@aim.rs Vanja Jokanović v.jokanovic@aim.rs

FINANCIAL DIRECTOR: Ana Besedić a.besedic@cma.rs

Kayoko Yamasaki, Professor, Poet and Translator

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ASSISTANT EDITOR: Max Williams, m.williams@aim.rs

GENERAL MANAGER: Ivan Novčić i.novcic@cma.rs

Prof. Dr Darko Tanasković, leading Belgrade Orientalist and the former Ambassador to Turkey

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ART DIRECTOR: Ilija Petrović, i.petrovic@aim.rs

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Ruža Ristanović r.ristanovic@aim.rs

R isk Pays Off Sport

Political Toying

EDITOR: Miloš Zlatić m.zlatic@aim.rs

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A utumn Essentials Fashion

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office MANAGER: Tanja Banković t.bankovic@aim.rs PRINTING: Rotografika d.o.o., Segedinski put 72, Subotica CorD is published by: alliance international media Makenzijeva 67, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia Phone: +(381 11) 2450 508 Fax: +(381 11) 2450 122 E-mail: cordeditorial@cma.rs www.cordmagazine.com www.allianceinternationalmedia.com ISSN no: 1451-7833 All rights reserved alliance international media 2011

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comment

Serbia on Europe’s radar:

Candidacy and Accession Negotiations This is not the beginning of the end of the European integration process, but it is certainly the end of its beginning

BoŽidar Đelić, Serbian Deputy Prime Minister

T

he European Commission’s positive report on Republic Europe that will undergo reforms and show a true face of solof Serbia’s EU candidate status and prerequisites for idarity. The Copenhagen Criteria will not scare Serbia away. launching accession negotiations was published on the Fulfilling the criteria means becoming a member of a “club”.

12th October 2011, and this is an important date in the his- Stability, regional cooperation, economic competitiveness, tory of democratic Serbia. This is not the beginning of the end respecting human and minority rights, functional parliamenof the European integration process, however it is certainly the tary democracy… These are the things that society agrees on. end of its beginning. Candidate status opens many doors including those to pre-accession funds and The Copenhagen Criteria will not scare Serbia investments. It also puts Serbia in a better posi- away: stability, regional cooperation, economic tion in terms of the new European budget 2014 competitiveness, respecting human and minority – 2020, as well as in large-scale infrastructure projects. The beginning of the negotiations will al- rights, functional parliamentary democracy.., so mean the end of guessing the accession date or These are the things that the society agrees on having theoretical debates about the best develThere are also prerequisites that pertain to the Belgradeopment format for Serbia. We are going to talk about the experiences of 27 nations and Serbia will have its social & histori- Priština dialogue. Our approach has always been constructive, cal heritage covered by 35 chapters which will reflect the real- prudent and we have had concrete proposals. And despite eveity in the society, and which range from environmental issues rything that has happened, there is no reason for us not to conto fighting corruption, from education to tackling monopolies. tinue in the same way. That is in the best interest of every single citizen that lives in Kosovo and Metohija, regardless of their We are going to have to sit down, study, negotiate and work.

Serbia, its citizens and administration, will become bet- nationality, as well as in the best interest of resolving everyday ter after the process, even if we are talking about our neigh- life problems, including inherited ones, that stem from before the 1990s conflicts.

Solution has to be found through negotiations, and Brussels will not become the new Rambouillet, there are no alternatives. Rest assured – Serbia will not we are confident that Europe is giving us its allow for this dialogue, which is currently taking place in undivided support along this road Brussels, or subsequent talks to fail. Brussels will not become the new Rambouillet. We are confident that Europe is giving us its undivided support along this road. bours, our peers. Europe awaits us at the end of the road, Today’s Serbia is adamant to turn its potential into capacia Europe that no longer harbours any illusions about itself. Europe where strikes are no longer the last, but the ty and its European perspective in reality. Our aim is for Serbia first news, a Europe that is battling crisis in the eurozone, to become the 30th member of the European Union. The ball a Europe where populism has been growing…This is also the is in our court. ■

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interview mr. EnvEr HoXHaJ, kosoVo’s minister of foreign affairs

Dialogue is Key ■ By Boško jakŠić

Enver Hoxhaj, Kosovo’s Minister of Foreign Affairs , gives us his opinions on the hot topics in the region at the moment and provides a clear insight on the position of the Kosovo Government. In an exclusive for CorD, Mr. Hoxhaj says that Kosovo has always been willing to talk to the Serbian Government, Serbia must accept the reality on the ground and the facts that dialogue between the two countries is the path that must be taken for both parties sake

ExcLuSivE

W

e want political solutions as well, though at some point freedom of movement for people and goods will have to be guaranteed. I believe KFOR, EULEX and the Kosovo Government are dedicated to finding the most appropriate response to the barricade issue that would minimize the political risk. However, we will be firm in protecting the borders of Republic of Kosovo from any idea of ethnic division.

■ Mr. Hoxhaj, how do you assess the European Commission’s decision to recommend that Serbia become an official candidate for membership of the European Union, after dangling the carrot of accession talks if it stops obstructing the independence of Kosovo?

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- The Republic of Kosovo is a staunch supporter of EU integration for all Balkan states, including Serbia.

Progress of any individual country is a step forward for all the remaining countries in their path towards the European Union. We are hopeful that Serbia will heed the advice of the EU to normalize the relationship with Kosovo, so both countries can look towards the future in a way that benefits our respective citizens and relaxes the tensions between the countries.

■ The European Commission report also states that, “It is important that Kosovo launches a comprehensive agenda for the north.” This puts responsibility on the government in Pristina for reintegrating the area. Are you ready to face all the risks?

- Kosovo has always been ready to talk. We wanted to talk and do a deal in Rambuillet in 1999, we also accepted the recommendations contained in the Kai Eide report in 2005 and we were fully engaged in the Ahtisaari process. As a result, the constitutional package we have approved, as a compromise, provides extensive and unprecedented rights to the Serbian minority living in Kosovo, including self-governance in

We are always coordinating our moves with EU and NATO in the securing and providing of equal opportunities for all the citizens of Kosovo education, health care, local organizations, links with Serbia, financing from Serbia, etc. Most of the Serbs in southern enclaves are now benefiting and participating in elections and the system itself. The problem is in the north where the criminal elements have prevented the progress by threatening, and sometimes even killing, members of the community who want to cooperate with Pristina. This is an issue for both Serbs and Kosovans alike.

■ After all the recent developments, how would you describe the security situation in Northern Kosovo?

- The situation is sometimes tense at the barricades

put up by parallel structures, but overall it’s peaceful and we have clarity of purpose and action with the entire international presence. We hope for dialogue with Serbia to produce the type of results that will be fully implemented in all of Kosovo.

diaLoguE

invESTigaTionS

ELEcTionS

We hope for dialogue with Serbia to produce the type of results that will be fully implemented in all of Kosovo.

Several high-level investigations are currently taking place against several former members of the government.

Most of the Serbs in southern enclaves are now benefiting and participating in elections and the system itself. cordeditorial@cma.rs

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Peace

Reality

Struggle

The government was dedicated to peace regardless of any internal political dynamics.

Inevitably, Kosovo and Serbia will be equal members of the international community.

We went twice to Brussels to wait for the Belgrade delegation who never showed up.

■ A KFOR Commander recently said that he would like the barricades to be removed as a result of political processes, not by force. Can this be achieved?

- We want political solutions as well, though at some point freedom of movement for people and goods will have to be guaranteed. I believe KFOR, EULEX and the Kosovo Government are dedicated to finding the most appropriate response to the barricade issue that would minimize the political risk. However, we will be firm in protecting the borders of Republic of Kosovo from any idea of ethnic division.

■ Some say that not all “parallel structures” in the north – the public institutions financed by Serbia – would have to be dismantled. What do you say?

- The Ahtisaari plan provides a very wide variety of tools and instruments for people’s autonomous decision-making in municipalities. They are clearly defined and this is our offer to all citizens. Anything beyond that would be unacceptable and a direct breach of UN resolution 1244, which clearly says that ALL Serbian authority or presence in Kosovo is banned.

■ In order to keep territorial integrity, the Pristina Government has to win the We are hopeful that Serbia will heed the advice of hearts and minds of the Kosovo Serbs. the EU to normalize the relationship with Kosovo, How do you plan to do it?

- We have to increase interaction and so both countries can look towards the future also assist the international community in launching the process of electing legitimate leaders who would take ownership in the entire process of integration within existing constitutional arrangements. Where there is a will, there is a way – and the Kosovo Government is very interested in assuring all of its citizens of the dedication in pursuing the EU path.

■ Is there any official contact between Pristina authorities and North Kosovo Serbs?

- Yes – of course we keep in contact. These are our citizens. Unfortunately gangs have attacked, in these areas, on multiple occasions any Serbs who dare meet us or even participate in our political life as was the case of Kosovo MP Miletic, who was shot last year or the Bosniak from the The EU and especially German Chancellor north and head of the election commission, Šefko Salković, brutally murdered Merkel were rather clear on the issue of what in front of his own house also only last needs to be done by Serbia year. We do not want to convince Northern Serbs that they have to love the Republic of Ko■ Analysts say much will depend on whether NATO sovo; we just want to ensure the plurality of opintries to remove the Serb barricades by force, and Kosion so those who may want to enjoy the benefits of ovo takes further steps to rein in the north, where conworking with the Kosovo Government can do so, frontation can quickly escalate. Will Kosovo authoriwithout fearing for their life. ties be part of the future actions in the north or it has it been totally left in the hands of KFOR and EULEX? ■ The Kosovo Prime Minister cites organized crime - Kosovo is the host to a robust mission in the rule, and as the chief problem plaguing the Serb-dominated law, from the EU and NATO presence. We are always conorth, and vows to counter it and parallel crimiordinating our moves with them in the securing and pronal structures operating there. What is being done viding of equal opportunities for all the citizens of Kosabout organized crime and corruption in other ovo. Escalation will not happen, as the only ones keen on parts of Kosovo? it are the criminal and smuggling gangs and members of - A progress report received from the European parallel institutions keen to keep the current status-quo.

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Union says that there was a certain amount of progress in the fight against organized crime and corruption. Several high-level investigations are currently taking place against several former members of the government. We are dedicated in using all the means and tools available to us to establish a society where everyone will have opportunities, and we will not allow the minority to misuse and disrespect the system. This will not happen.

■ Belgrade-Pristina dialogue has hit a stumbling block over the recent unrest in Northern Kosovo. Both sides are promising to be a constructive part of talks once they resume. How fast can this happen?

- We went twice to Brussels to wait for the Belgrade delegation who never showed up, so actually the Kosovo Government is waiting for Belgrade to be ready to resume talks. They are conditioning the EU with the issue of opening talks on northern borders, but as this is an internal issue on Kosovo and not a subject of dialogue as foreseen by the UN General Assembly. The EU

Unfortunately gangs have attacked in these areas (of North Kosovo) on multiple occasions any Serbs who dare meet us or even participate in our political life and especially German Chancellor Merkel were rather clear on the issue of what needs to be done by Serbia and we are all waiting for the government in Serbia to be ready to resume the dialogue with us.

■ Some in Pristina hope that dialogue with Belgrade regulating technical issues could open the way for a peace treaty.

Do you share that optimism?

- Inevitably, Kosovo and Serbia will be equal members of the international community. The sooner this is realized in Belgrade, the better for the whole of the Balkan community.

■ Next year Kosovo and Serbia will enter an election year and the danger is that no politician will talk about reconciliation, but mainly patriotism and nationalism to gain votes. Do you agree?

- The Government of Kosovo was dedicated to dialogue and peace regardless of any internal political dynamics. We hope for parties in Serbia not to engage in nationalist and inflammatory discourse. ■

interview H.E. osZKar niKoWitZ, amBassador of tHe repuBliC of Hungary to serBia

Relations Need Strengthening Serbia’s integration in EU structures will be beneficial for Hungary for many reasons, ranging from security to economy, from free movement to investmentfriendliness, etc.

“O

ne must not forget that Hungary’s economy suffers from the vicinity of a region that is branded ‘a black hole’ - an uncertain investment area.

And one must not forget that we are concerned about our fellow-Hungarians welfare and European prospects of their home, in Serbia, said H.E. Oszkar Nikowitz, Ambassador of the Republic of Hungary in Serbia in his exclusive interview for CorD. ■ The Law on Rehabilitation will be debated in the Serbian Parliament soon. Representatives of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (SVM) and Serbian officials have reached an agreement which is incorporated into the law that stipulates that the Hungarians should be given back their property, which was repossessed following WWII. What is your view of the draft law?

- I hope you will pardon my hair-splitting but the statement incorporated into your question is not correct.

What the new law stipulates is not that Hungarians should be given back their property, but it clarifies who to understand under the term ‘members of the occupation forces’ in the other law, in other words, who the persons are that are not entitled to claim restitution.

And this is exactly what we deem important. Since the new draft law says it is those only who have committed war crimes, it is acceptable for us in Hungary.

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■ Could we say that the draft Law on Rehabilitation provides a satisfactory solution to the issue of restitution as far as the Hungarians living in Serbia are concerned?

- Yes, if the draft in its current form is endorsed by the government, submitted to the parliament, survives debate without major amendments and passes – it should be considered as satisfactory. After all, all Hungarians want is to be treated as equal individuals with others, and not looked upon as people, a collective, with a dark stain in their past.

their descendants are excluded from the restitution, but we insist that the rest of the Hungarians are not put under the same heading as them. Which the law on restitution suggests. It is very important that the proposed text clearly says that only war criminals are to be deprived of the restitution. War criminals, sentenced as such. Yes, it will probably provide a solution – but whether for once and for all…? One should be optimistic but not naïve.

■ Can we conclude that the satisfactory resolution of the rehabilitation and restitution issue will prompt Hungary to support the Serbian candidacy for EU membership?

- Once the above mentioned satisfactory solution is found you can take Hungary’s support for candidacy for granted.

■ The process of restitution will be dynamically tied to the process of rehabilitation. In your opinion, what will the speed at which those two processes are implemented depend on?

- I do not really feel competent to forecast or comment on how, and at what pace these processes will be carried out. I think the forthcoming campaign and the election period might slow it down a little, temporarily, but I do not see any reason the process should not continue smoothly.

■ You have said recently that restituting the property to the descendants of Nazi soldiers, who participated in the Novi Sad raids, should not constitute a prerequisite for Serbia becoming an EU member, and that “the collective guilt” of the Hungarian nation for events that took place during WWII should not be imposed.

Do you think that the proposed solutions will resolve this problem once and for all?

- Well, I have to insist again on the precise quotation. I certainly did not say anything with the word Nazi as I consciously try to avoid superficial generalising, especially in such sensitive matters as behaviour in WWII. We do not necessarily need stick the name Nazi on the Hungarian evildoer criminals during the Razzia in order to despise them more. They are despicable enough as they are. What I said is that no-one would mind if

Our stand has not changed. Serbia’s integration in the EU structures will be beneficial for Hungary for many reasons, ranging from security to economy, from free movement to investment-friendliness, etc.

■ At the beginning of this year, you reminded the public that, in 2005, Vojvodina’s Inquiry Board started to investigate the aforementioned crimes, that a committee that would probe the issue of secret graves was set up and that the respective Hungarian and Serbian academy of science formed historically important committees that would investigate the events in question. You have also said that so far it is only ‘on a high official level’ that the intention can be felt . Has anything changed in the meantime?

- I said that the Inquiry Board and the joint committee of historians investigate not only the aforementioned

SErbian bEnEfiT

‘HiSToricaL pEak’

common projEcTS

Serbia had better behave as if it hinged exclusively upon the country. First and foremost, because the entire EU requires work for the benefit of Serbia.

We still haven’t reached the level we had before the crisis and even the before the crisis the ‘historical peak’ of our trade connections was not too high either.

We shall have to find projects in Serbia, or create common ones in the fields we have what to offer: food processing, agriculture, spa and wellness industry, etc cordeditorial@cma.rs

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crimes, that means the ones the Hungarians committed in ’42, but equally the ones the Serbs, i.e. partisans committed against Hungarians in ’44. These are, too, ‘events in question’. Anyway, while the committee on mass graves works very effectively, I can state with regret that the mixed committee of historians has not really started the intensive work yet and neither side has yet allocated the necessary means (read: money) for the investigation.

In other words, from the ‘high official level’ it has still not filtered down to the level of the everyday people.

■ You were also quoted as saying that the burden of the dark history of World War II was the only remaining obstacle in achieving total reconciliation, that enough time has passed and that the relations between our two nations were sufficiently good in order to start talking about that painful issue. Who should initiate these talks and who should participate in them?

- Yes, I really said that and I still think it is time for proper ‘in-depth’ dialogue. Does anyone need any more proof than this recent conflict to be convinced that problems go back as far as the same history period? The reasons boil down to the fact that we bilaterally haven’t yet discussed them thoroughly enough and we

Hungary, during its presidency over the EU in the first half of the year, supported Serbia’s candidacy.”

You have also objected to the attitude that Serbia had towards Hungary. Could you elaborate what was your objection all about?

- I meant that some of the statements made in parliament questioning the Hungarian goodwill were not rebuked by the leading party at all, which made us think that their criticism was shared by the government. And if it is like this, that would certainly mean some amnesia regarding Hungary’s firm support of Serbia’s integration during the last years.

I can state with regret that the mixed committee of historians has not really started the intensive work yet and neither side has yet allocated the necessary means (read: money) for the investigation. In other words, from the ‘high official level’ it has still not filtered down to the level of the everyday people haven’t come to terms about those questions of recent history between us. The initiators of the dialogue could be politicians, but it must be carried out by the intellectuals of the two countries, in the papers, periodicals, in symposiums, conferences, etc. All we should avoid is to cede it to the level of anonymous (and irresponsible) bloggers or let our ultras on both sides, turboSerbs, turboHungarians get meddled in. We say that WWII is over and thinking in those categories is outdated, it does not lead anywhere, any more. Should Europe be still thinking the same way as for example what was reflected in the debate on the Law on Restitution in the skupshtina, if so the EU would never have come about.

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■ If we are talking about Serbia’s integration in the EU, is it fair to say that accession hinges on Serbia alone? How ready is the Union to continue with the enlargement process?

- I agree with the hint in your question that the EU itself is hesitant as regards the continuation of the integration process. However, in my opinion, Serbia had better behave as if it hinged exclusively upon the country. First and foremost, because the entire EU requires work for the benefit of Serbia, even without the EU context. Modernisation of the country is in the interest of its citizens, anyway. Political considerations might get tougher or looser in the EU – I suggest Serbia should not bother much about them, but continue with the modernisation of the country and with the harmonisation of the legislation and administration with EU standards. There is hardly any alternative for all the countries in the Balkans.

■ You have also announced that you expected at least 80,000 Serbian citizens to apply for Hungarian citizenship based on the law that gives that option to the

Equal Treatment

Clarification

Statements

All Hungarians want is to be treated as equal individuals with others, and not looked upon as people, a collective, with a dark stain in their past.

It is very important that the proposed text (Law on Restitution) clearly says that only war criminals are to be deprived of the restitution.

Some of the statements made in parliament questioning the Hungarian goodwill were not rebuked by the leading party at all.

Hungarians living abroad. You have also said that every third Hungarian living in Serbia had expressed interest in obtaining Hungarian citizenship. How many citizenship applications have been filed for so far?

- ‘Approximately’ I said, and not ‘at least’. But anyway, the response has justified our expectations and we are very busy processing the applications amounting to over 15 thousand so far. No up-to-date figures are available.

sources. Often by forming joint ventures or, simply, by providing them partners in the EU.

■ What is your view on the economic relations between Serbia and Hungary and the future of those relations?

- There are huge potentials that are not exploited. We still haven’t reached the level we had before the crisis and even the before the crisis the ‘historical peak’ of our trade connections The Inquiry Board and the joint committee of not too high either. The crisis has historians investigate not only the crimes committed was certainly had a negative impact, but it is

by Hungarians in ’42, but equally the ones the Serbs, the business environment in Serbia that has to improve and change in order to i.e. partisans committed against Hungarians in ’44 attract investments. As regards Hun■ Serbia was expected to participate in two EU funded gary, we shall have to find projects in Serbia, or create projects during Hungary’s presidency – implemencommon ones in the fields we have what to offer: food tation of the Danube strategy and the Hungarian processing, agriculture, spa and wellness industry, etc. ■ proposal for the European Roma Integration Strategy. Did Serbia participate and could you tell us how much progress has been made in the implementation of the Danube strategy?

- Serbia is actively taking part in the Strategy as one of the coordinators of the projects on rail and air traffic and of the ’knowledge-based society’, focusing on research and development. The startegy itself has not reached the implementation phase yet in the most important domains such as navigation, projects on common energy or sewage systems, etc.

The clarification of the financial frameworks seems very time consuming.

■ You have often underlined that Hungary has been trying to help SMEs in Serbia in order for more jobs to be created since small and medium enterprises are crucially important for sustainability of the European social format. What does this help look like in practice?

- Promoting small and medium enterprises was a focal point of our proposals for the economy during our EU presidency - as this is the format that creates jobs at the local level and helps in maintaining the European social model. Vis-à-vis Serbia, it is natural for Hungary to open up first towards these enterprises as Hungarian companies wish to cooperate with Serbian ones of the same size and they can be helpful for their counterparts in Serbia, in most of the cases in Vojvodina, in applying for European tenders and cordeditorial@cma.rs

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The bridge “The bridge over Ada will be ready on time, but the access road to Banovo Brdo will be completed in the spring. This is because one of the owners of a house in Požeška 9 did not want to sell 123 square meters of land. “ - Dragan Đilas, the mayor of Belgrade

global diary

and “incomprehensible.”

The worldwide art market has developed rapidly in the last few years, much to the gratification of big auction houses such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s.

In the first half of 2011, Sotheby’s reported its best ever figures, with consolidated sales of 2.5 billion euros. “That is really a sign of a strong art market,” said Gallus Pesendorfer, director of Sotheby’s Cologne office.

Tabloids are changing media environment Founded in 1925 as a broadsheet affiliated with the Communist Party youth “Komsomolskaya pravda” reinvented itself as a tabloid in the 1990s

The best British food Traditional Observer Food Monthly Awards for 2011, now in their eighth year, celebrated the best in British food and produce, from independent producers to the UK’s most revered chefs

Vladimir Sungorkin, Editorin-Chief, Komsomolskaya pravda “We’ve got the most print presses in the world of any newspaper,” editor-in-chief Vladimir Sungorkin says. “We are printed in about 75 different cities and in each city they have their own content. It’s like a massive factory where 75 cities - each with its own editorial office - takes care of about half the content. KP has a daily circulation of between 600,000 and 700,000, whilst its Sunday edition has a print run of 2.5 million, making it Russia’s most circulated daily newspaper,” said Sungorkin.

“Komsomolskaya pravda’s” impressive numbers are a far cry from the daily circulation run of 22 million it enjoyed in the early 1990s, a decline the paper’s editors attribute to a shrinking global appetite for print media.

However, KP’s numbers still dwarf those of influential Russian broadsheets such as “Kommersant” and “Vedomosti,” which hover at around 100,000.

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The best food personality is writer, campaigner and broadcaster is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

The winners of various categories of the 2011 OFM Awards had been announced at a ceremony in London. The best restaurant is “Dinner by Heston Blumenthal”,London; the best cheap eats (under £15 per head) –“ Koya”, London , best ethical restaurant – “The Ethicurean”, Somerset; the best place to drink – “Mark’s Bar”, Hix, London, best cookbook –“ Plenty” by Ottolenghi, best Sunday lunch –“Bull & Last”, London and best independent local retailer (shop or online)- “The Cheese Shed”, Devon.

“Demand for tabloid entertainment is pretty massive,” Boris Timoshenko, an analyst at the Glasnost Defense Foundation says.” People are less and less interested in serious publications.”

Like KP, “Moskovsky komsomolets” transformed itself into a tabloid now specializing in crime reporting. Both, however, stress that they still do serious reporting and have not become simple scandal sheets.

In 2008, the National Media Group bought “Izvestia” and soon realized there was only one way of turning around circulation figures that had fallen to below 250,000. After 94 years as a staple broadsheet for the Soviet and Russian intelligentsia, the legendary “Izvestia” brand name remodeled itself as a tabloid in June 2011.

www.cordmagazine.com

Vietnamese officials banned from playing golf Golf has become more popular among Vietnam’s growing middle class including Communist Party officials, in recent years

Safe haven in art

Warhol’s “200 One Dollar Bills”

Investors have had plenty of sleepless nights in recent years, prompting many to put money into gold or property, but there are more creative safe havens German artist Gerhard Richter’s painting “Kerze” from 1982 sold for 12 million euros at a Christie’s auction in London in mid October. It was a price even the artist called “absurd,” “silly”

Vietnam’s transport minister Dinh La Thang issued a document recently saying that some ministry leaders have performed poorly and that part of the problem was that they spent too much time playing golf.

The ministry’s website posted a statement late October saying Mr Thang has ordered all senior ministry officials and executives of corporations under the ministry not to play golf, particularly in this difficult time.

Some ministry officials “have not actively given direction or administered their work, leading to the slow handling of affairs, which affects progress on projects and general operations,” a notice on the ministry’s website said.

Elections “In this country, the atmosphere that is created is all to do with elections, and I say it shouldn’t be this way.

We still have much work to do.” - Boris Tadic, Serbian President

missioner decides to prosecute and Facebook or any employees are found guilty of data protection breaches, the maximum penalty is a fine of €100,000.

Age brings wisdom Facebook could face €100,000 fine Age really does bring wisdom, making the brains of older people as agile as their younger counterparts, research claims

The findings contradict previous theories claiming that our brains deterioriate with age, making us less able to make sound decisions, but scientists discovered that years of life experience makes older brains as effective when it comes to decision-making as much younger minds.

Older people were found to be less bothered by making a mistake and used their brains in a far more efficient way, only engaging certain parts of it at the exact moment that they were required.

Canadian researchers studied 24 young people aged 18 to 35 and a group of ten older people aged 55 to 75, all of whom still held down a job.

Participants were asked to perform a special matching task whose rules changed as the game went on. This saw them pair up different words according to a heading given to them.

Study author Dr Oury Monchi, from the University Geriatrics Institute of Montreal said: “”We now have neurobiological evidence showing that with age comes wisdom and that as the brain gets older, it learns to better allocate its resources.”

Facebook could face a fine of up to €100,000 after an Austrian law student discovered the social networking site held 1,200 pages of personal data about him, much of which he had deleted Max Schrems (24) decided to ask Facebook for a copy of his data in June after attending a lecture by a Facebook executive while on an exchange programme at Santa Clara University in California.

Schrems was shocked when he eventually received a CD from California containing messages and information he says he had deleted from his profile in

the three years since he joined the site.

After receiving the data, Schrems decided to log a list of 22 separate complaints with the Irish data protection commissioner, which next week is to carry out its first audit of Facebook. He wrote to Ireland after discovering that European users are administered by the Irish Facebook subsidiary. A spokeswoman for the commissioner confirmed its officers would be investigating alleged breaches raised by Schrems as part of the audit. If the com-

Chocolate fashion show The 17th Salon du Chocolat in Paris is the world’s biggest show dedicated to chocolate.

Every year, fashion designers and chocolatiers from around the world collaborate to dress French models and celebrities.

Art or eyesore?

Centenarian completes Toronto marathon Officials from the Guinness Book of Records were on hand to watch Fauja Singh become the first 100-year-old to finish a full marathon distance

A graffiti project on an old Scottish castle has become more popular than expected. Should it be removed for the sake of preserving the historic building?

Kelburn Castle is just like hundreds of other old Scottish castles with its quaint turrets, grand estate and Earl-in-residence - except that one of its outer walls displays a bright psychedelic graffiti mural.

The Earl of Glasgow, whose family has occupied the castle for the last 800 years, invited four Brazilian graffiti artists - twin brothers Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo, known as Os Gemos to create a work of art on one of the walls in 2007 as a temporary measure. The so-called Graffiti Project involved 1,500 cans of spray paint to decorate the 13th-century castle. It put Kelburn Castle, which lies near the seaside town of Largs on Scotland’s west coast, into the top 10 worldwide examples of street art on the same list as Banksy’s work in Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro’s Favela Morro da Providencia.

Mr Singh, from Ilford, East London, ran the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in eight hours, 25 minutes and 16 seconds. He finished in 3,850th place ahead of five other competitors.

The record-holder took up running 11 years ago after his wife and son died and runs 10 miles every day.

Mr Singh previously held the title of fastest marathon runner in the 90-plus category, covering the distance in five hours, forty minutes and 1 second at the age of 92.

cordeditorial@cma.rs

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focus

Blocked Labour Market Both domestic and foreign businessmen say that it is more than obvious that the Serbian labour market is not functioning as it should. “There isn’t sufficient political will for this problem to be solved. Not only in the government, but also in trade unions and with employers themselves,” the IMF says. The labour market has to be reformed, regardless of these reforms being rather painful. Also, this is crucial for improving the investment atmosphere in Serbia.

What should the new labour legislation be based on, in order for the Serbian labour market to become more flexible, to facilitate employment in the private sector and encourage investments from both domestic and foreign investors?

Reduce Direct Taxes

on the entire working history of an individual, rather than on their record with the last employer. Serbia is very atypical in this respect compared to its regional peers, and this is a reason why older people have scarce opportunities in the labour market.

Another important rigidity is the length of fixed-term contracts, Bogdan Lissovolik, which, at 1 year, is lower in Serbia than in much of Eastern Europe.

IMF Resident Representative in Serbia Furthermore, there have been attempts to unduly broaden collective bargaining agreements to firms that were not party to the neabour market reforms should gotiations. An important rigidity are various mandatory allowancbe based on the following prines and rules (relating to holidays, business trips, ciples.

The length of fixed-term meals etc.), which could be usefully streamlined.

Firstly, there needs to be a shift in the colThirdly, taxation of labour, especially via social lective bargaining process. For now, it has contracts, which, at 1 year, contributions, should be analyzed with a view to been driven by the public sector trade unis lower in Serbia than in increasing incentives for employment. This could ions, which are much more powerful than much of Eastern Europe take the form of a revenue-neutral reform envitheir private sector counterparts. The resioning a reduction in direct taxes. In Serbia, the high social consulting wage leadership by the public sector - with high and often tributions have particularly reduced scope for hiring low-income unjustified wage increases - has hurt Serbia’s export competitiveworkers, especially the young, who badly need experience to begin ness and private sector growth. their careers. Young workers are potentially the most dynamic – and Secondly, there should be an effort to reduce excessive leghence productive - elements of any economy, and a failure to inislative rigidities in the Serbian labour market. This in particular volve them in the labour market severely dampens growth potential. concerns the calculation of severance benefits, which are based

L

O

ne of the features of the financial crisis in Serbia is the low employment rate, i.e. a constantly high unemployment rate. In 2011, less than half of the workcapable population in Serbia have a job.

Over the course of the ownership changes, it has become quite obvious that the private sector has failed to absorb the people who were made redundant in the public sector. The employment rate, as it is at the moment, is being maintained through the growing share of bad, unsafe and low quality (temporary) jobs, self-employment and family members engaging in work.

Preserving sustainable development, i.e. decent, contractual, legal and safe work, is the main priority in this situation of acute crisis. At the same time, that means investing serious efforts in eradicating the black, and reducing the grey economy, which are sources of income for

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Labour Costs Too Much Zoran Stojiljković, Deputy Chairman of the Belgrade Chapter of trade union confederation ‘Nezavisnost’ 1/3 of Serbian citizens and which generate one third of (unregistered) domestic product.

With the imposed prerogative of maintaining the employment rate and creating new jobs, which actually took the back seat, the following have become the main priorities of employment policy: - reducing and combining stimulating (lower contributions, better loans and tax incentives) and destimulating (inspection) measures of informal economy; - work and social protection for poor

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and low-quality employment (temporary and part-time employment, self-employment and undocumented work); - conducting public works; - self-employment projects and training for work at known employer.

At the same time, it is surprising to see just how much apathy there is in using other self-employment venues like cooperative movements, social enterprises and cooperatives.

These employment formats are efficient tools for linking employment and social policy primarily through state support in finding employment for marginalized groups.

Clear and Precise Laws

A

Ernst Bode, Director General of Messer Tehnogas AD, Belgrade and Chairman of the German Business Association in Belgrade

bove all, labour legislation needs to be clear and precise, understandable to everybody and simple to use. It also needs to contain solutions that are applicable in practice by all or most of the companies, since only such legislation will be acceptable, pertinent and useful to all interested parties.

From my experience as Director General of Messer Tehnogas AD and Chairman of the German Business Association in Belgrade, I would like to give a few suggestions pertaining to changing the labour legislation, which, in my opinion, would contribute to employment growth in the private sector and encourage new investments: • To enable more flexibility in temporary employment; • To set up an institute which would deal in “renting out” employees, as well as having attainable preconditions for the functioning of such an institute so it would not remain only a dead letter; • Employment contracts, concluded between an employer and an employee, need to stipulate additional training or sending an employee to work abroad, and the obsolete legislation that currently regulates this area should be entirely abolished; • To enable more flexibility in granting annual leave, i.e. for em-

ployees to reach an agreement with the employer on using their annual leave in two parts. The existing law that regulates this area is absurd and completely outdated; • Compensation of wage to be tied to an employee salary when he was at work, and not to a three-month average; • To leave enough leeway for employers to determine the salary, and for the labour legislation to stipulate a minimum salary (imposing salary calculation formulas is absolutely inappropriate, especially for companies that are majority foreign and which already have an established and tested salary calculation systems used all over the world).

• To set up realistic and rational criteria for ascertaining the number of surplus workers which can be easily verified; • To make sure that an employee is not Enabling more paid a severance payment several times for the same job, which resembles a ’casiflexibility in no mentality’; temporary • To shorten the deadlines for exemployment ercising protection of rights in order to have more legal security; • To make sure that employers and employees alike pay relevant taxes and contributions, with no exceptions; • To reduce the huge amount of red tape wherever possible.

All of the aforementioned, along with reducing income taxes and contributions and providing additional incentives for employing certain categories of the population, whilst not insisting on a company refraining from declaring certain workers as surplus, would certainly contribute to the growth in legally regulated employment and would increase employee status and living standards.

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Flexible Work Formats

Law is Not Main Problem

Dragoljub Rajić, Serbian Employers Association

Ljubisav Orbović, Chairman of the Serbian Trade Union Confederation

B

ack in February this year, the Serbian Employers Union sent the Serbian Government an official proposal stating what had to be done in order to relieve the economy in matters of taxes and income contributions, as well as how to stimulate employment in low-profit economy branches and curtail substantial labour costs.

We propose reimbursing severance payments for the workers made redundant because of structural and technological changes for the period they spent at their last job, just like in the EU, rather than calculate the severance payment based on total years of service.

We propose reimbursing the contractual basic wage to an employee on annual leave, national holidays, sick leave and when calculating severance payment, instead of reimbursing a three-monthaverage. It is vital to reduce the number of formalities apropos employment contract termination (like having to make numerous decisions, drafting bylaws, putting several different stamps and signatures, registries etc.), as well as in the case of job transfer. Hiring and firing needs to serve the company’s economic function. The government needs to terminate Our proposals have the practices which prevent an employer from firing workers in been sitting in a case the employer is experiencdrawer for months ing a substantial drop in turnover and liquidity problems, while adhering to the severance payment legislation and other legitimate rights.

We propose extending the deadline to three instead of one year for hiring temporary workers and providing more options for flexible work formats (part-time work), which would provide more jobs for people under 35 years of age.

We want cash penalties for small companies with up to 10 employees (so-called micro-enterprises), stemming from them breaching their liability, to be reduced since the current penalties, that range from 800,000 to 1 million dinars, are too high, which makes it impossible for small companies to recover and they are often forced to close. State taxes and contributions are also too high and they are forcing employers to pay some wages in cash since that is the only way for them to stay liquid and survive. The penalties for paying a portion of wages in cash are also too high.

The state should make it possible for an employee, who has committed a criminal offence, such as theft, to be immeditely fired even before court proceedings are finished since employers often find themselves exceeding the relevant deadlines for dismissal mentioned in the employment contract due to lengthy court procedures.

The state should cover the costs associated with a worker being given two-day leave on the account of giving blood. By paying high income tax (62.5%) and other taxes, employers have already given the state enough funds to provide for voluntary blood donors.

We want trade union heads to be criminally liable for staging illegal strikes, which cause huge financial damages to employers.

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A

mending the Labour Law is not the basic premise and prerequisite for achieving higher employment in Serbia. First and foremost, the country’s economy needs to be revived with a series of measures that will expedite the economic development, and, hence, increase the employment rate.

Amongst other things, these measures should entail the following: 1) Re-industrialization of the Serbian economy.

2) Setting up a Serbian development bank that is supposed to provide development loans on favourable terms and thus enable largescale infrastructure projects The country’s economy to be implemented and new needs to be revived with jobs created.

3) Reforming the pena series of measures sion system with the aim that will expedite the of equally distributing tax economic development burden among tax payers, i.e. for due taxes to be proportionate to the economic strength of the tax payer. This will encourage production, investments and employment, as well as destimulate import and grey economy.

4) Providing incentives for the financial sector that will be directed toward businesses: a) banks should no longer be obligated to keep dinar reserves; b) enacting a law that will regulate credit guarantees through public – private partnerships; 5) Devising export incentives.

6) Tackling the illiquidity problem – bringing order into the payment system through: a) shortening payment terms b) offesetting debts with tax authorities with the aim of overcoming the crisis and achieving liquidity.

7) Developing infrastructure and providing support to attracting investments in production: a) redefining the system used in attracting and encouraging foreign investors b) simplifying the procedures in obtaining building permits.

Additional funds for the revival of economic activity can be secured by having more organized and better regulated public procurement procedures, as well as in the grey economy zone.

According to some estimates, the grey economy’s annual turnover in Serbia exceeds four billion euros, which is 30% of the overall turnover from the sale of goods and services. If the aforementioned measures could bring at least a billion euros to the state budget, a lot more money could be spent on new investments. In terms of public procurements, some estimates have shown that a billion euros is lost through corruption in public procurements, the annual value of which is close to four billion euros.

With two billion euros, important projects could be instigated in Serbia, primarily the production of goods for export, which, in turn, could create many new jobs.

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interview nenad Čanak, president of tHe league of soCial demoCrats of VojVodina

Serbia is Held Hostage

by Extremists ■ By Radmila StankoVić

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It’s been 21 years since he formed the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina, which he now chairs. He is currently a member of the Serbian Parliament.

He was born to a family of university professors. His father Milan was Novi Sad Mayor and a member of the Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina’s Presidency. Nenad says that he was raised as a child of two teachers, meaning that he never differentiated between people because of their nationality or religion, but rather formed his opinion about people based on their knowledge, skills and diligence

hat is also the reason why nationalism-fueled euphoria in Yugoslavia, and especially in Serbia, in the late 1980s, with Slobodan Milošević at its helm, was so devastating to him since it went against every element of his value system that this economics graduate acquired in his family.

T

■ Did this upbringing entail having more tact than the one that you would demonstrate later in dealing with your political opponents and people who did not share your point of view?

- I really don’t know from where you got the impression that I am ruthless?

■ Bearing in mind that your parents were members of the Communist Party, were you ‘weaned’ on left-wing ideas?

- I would rather call them social-democratic ideas. True, my parents were Communist Party members just like most people who were appointed to prominent positions in society.

But they were strong opponents to revolutionary events, and especially the dictatorship, even if that implied the dictatorship of the proletariat. In that respect, they instilled in me the idea of social democracy.

■ Because you are one of the politicians who are very open and public, and sometimes even offensive, in demonstrating your stance...

- That is not being ruthless, that is calling a spade a spade. I was brought up in that way. And if you scratch the surface of my so-called extremism, as it was called back in the 1990s, you will see that was only a way of faithfully describing the events that happened in the former Yugoslavia and that I was right all along. I have to remind you that the then re-

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Union Hopes

Strength

Reality

I do hope that the EU won’t use Serbia and neighbouring areas as a learning curve for much longer.

There are certain times were we need to “show our teeth“, as it were. If we don’t do that, we will have a serious problem.

It is no secret that Kosovo is no longer a part of the Republic of Serbia and its sovereignty recognized by many countries.

gime was not particularly gentle with the opposition. And there was no other reason for me to behave differently toward the regime, i.e. to have a different approach to the people who were responsible for thousands and thousands of deaths and destroying the future of millions of people. At the time of Slobodan Milošević, we, in Vojvodina, experienced disturbances of tectonic proportions because people were persecuted on account of their nationality or political views. To this day, nobody has talked about that at all. For instance, tens of thousands of Croats were thrown out of Vojvodina after they were exposed to direct pressures, had grenades thrown at their yards, guns pointed at their children as they were returning from school, armed men entering churches during service.... And how was I supposed to refer to people who did that? We were political opponents, we were enemies, and we were defending these unfortunate people. Also today, there are hooligans and their political mentors who think they may damage anyone’s property and any other security, just because they do not like someone’s sexual, religious or national affiliation. There is some kind of communication, especially mindfulness.

powers, and by that I mean the U.S., Russia and the EU, are exercising their foreign policy in light of their internal relations despite their internal differences. The Americans have a rather brutal, but frequently used, saying that goes: “If you do business in hell, you have to make a deal with the devil.”

In this part of the world, such pragmatism comes at a high price. If you reach a sensible agreement without carefully eliminating the ideological background, you are doing a great disservice to the process of democratization and development of the state and overall society. I am happy to accept the possibility that people can change. In that respect, I can understand that Ivica Dačić can change, and I can even accept that Tomislav Nikolić can change, but I don’t think that such change can happen without a catharsis.

■ Maybe we can remove this guilt of the Serbian people from the agenda once and for all?

- In order to have closure, there needs to be strong political will in the country. There is no such will in Serbia at the moment. Never have the democratic, anti-fascist and even antitotalitarian groups, organizations and political parties, won the majority of votes in Serbia. If you pay close attention, you can see that all of that was a result of huge compromises being made. The It is no secret that Serbia cannot do anything in incoherent group, that the Serbian oppo- Kosovo apart from deal with the serious problem of sition was, could not make a step forward protecting its population and culture monuments in terms of democratic and pro-European visions. Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić paid with his ■ What do you mean? life for attempting to reach that vision by taking shortcuts.

- Let me give you a simple example. When somebody steals Today’s coalition government was formed following a tacit something, he ceases to be just a thief once he is sentenced, agreement that the events and issues from the 1990s would i.e. when he returns what he stole to the person he stole it not be re-opened in a principled way. By refusing to re-open from and when he leaves prison after doing the time. He the issues from that era, we keep on finding ourselves in the has been reset, in the civil meaning of the word. We haven’t situation where their heritage is continuing to rot and spread experienced that. Some things need to have their conclulike poison. We cannot close this chapter, since we have never sion and I mean the events from the 1990s. I demand for opened it in the first place. guilt to be determined.

■ There have been speculations that superpowers have their favourites among Serbian leaders. First, it was Dinkić, than Đelić and now Dačić, for example. Do you beleive that such patronage does exist?

- Politics is the mathematics of possibilities. Even super-

■ You really believe that you will see that happening?

- I only ask not be judged too harshly since I do know people who believe in heaven, hell, God, Allah.... Why shouldn’t I believe that lustration is possible? If somebody ridicules your belief in God, then that person is politically incorrect. cordeditorial@cma.rs

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■ You have often been accused of making a problem out of Vojvodina, like we don’t have enough problems in Kosovo.

Would you feel responsible if, in the near future, a dramatic turn of events in Vojvodina were to happen?

- Could you please tell me for how long has Vojvodina had to suffer because of the problems in Kosovo? The so-called “yogurt revolution”, which was, if nothing else, but a constitutional coup d’état that eliminated Vojvodina’s autonomy, was carried out with the help of the people who came to Novi Sad from Kosovo, shouting, “The three parts of Serbia will be one again.” And what happened? Kosovo is getting more distant by the day, centralism in Serbia is growing and the citizens of

also wish for Šumadija or any other region in Serbia for that matter. I want property and source income to be returned, for Vojvodina to be given executive, legislative and partially judiciary powers, and to be assigned the right to dispose of its assets and revenue. Vojvodina should be given its full autonomy and strength back and be treated as a part of the country capable of bringing Serbia to the European family in a much faster, better and bigger way. However, I am forced to take shorter steps and be patient. I need patience when called a traitor and separatist, whilst still insisting on what is in the best interests of Vojvodina and Serbia. Thus, as an example, was with the office of Vojvodina in Brussels. For years we advocated for it and finally agreed on the possibility of opening the office of Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic, in the form of amendments to the authority. And here we met, on the 10th of October and its opening. Now, many find this office to be good. If we are talking about the responsibility for events in Vojvodina possibly taking a dramatic turn, I would feel responsible if it turned out that I did not provide a timely warning. That is what I am doing now – I am warning about fast-growing extremism in Vojvodina and the clear polarization that is taking place because the state authorities are indescribably wimpish and weak in their dealing with the extremist organizations.

■ Which organizations are we talking about?

- Clero-fascist organizations like Obraz, Dveri, 1389… So, what you have are openly fascist organizations with only Nacionalni Stroj actually being banned following street protests on 7th October 2007 held by LSV, the Liberal–DemoToday’s coalition government was formed following cratic Party, several NGOs and citizens of Novi a tacit agreement that the events and issues from the Sad that found themselves there. Look, five years ago, in December, a police report was read 1990s would not be re-opened in a principled way out in the Vojvodina Parliament that branded Vojvodina are becoming increasingly poorer. Did you know Obraz and several other organizations as clero-fascist. To this that Vojvodina, at the time when it had a full autonomy, was day, these organizations are functioning without any interneck-to-neck with Slovenia and Croatia in terms of economic ruptions. And not only that… They have managed to carry out development, while today it is branded as an undeveloped rea sliding coup d’état by disintegrating state structures and takgion? I am referring to the government’s bylaw published in ing over power in streets. If you, as a state, cannot stop them the Official Gazette in September. Did you know that, out of from protesting in the streets, that means that you are hav15 Serbian municipalities with the highest average salary, ten ing serious problems. And nothing has been done to remedy are in Belgrade, four in Central Serbia and only one (Vršac) in those problems.

Vojvodina? At the time of the full autonomy, salaries in VoIn an operational sense, there are no differences between jvodina were nearly as high as those in Slovenia and Croatia! these fascist organizations like Obraz 1389, Naši and others, For years, I and the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina on one side, and Al-Qaeda, on the other. Nobody in Serbia have been advocating the full autonomy for Vojvodina in deis willing to admit that, due to the fact that everybody is centralized Serbia. We are sending out warnings that things thinking that they can use these people just like Slobodan should change. While we are being accused of being separaMilošević used football supporters as recruiters for the sotists, Vojvodinian villages and towns are being emptied out. called paramilitary units. None of them were called paraWhen is the appropriate time to talk about Vojvodina? For military, but state-funded groups with false IDs which were twenty years, Vojvodina has been like a pantry, with things given to them in order to shield the state from responsibility taken out of it and sold off. Even the petroleum industry of for the evil things that those groups did.

Serbia was sold without any discussion, i.e. it was presented as a gift to the Russians. Everything I can and am doing is geared ■ Do Serbian authorities have any real power in the countoward Serbia becoming decentralized and revived. I have said try or are they mere executors of decisions made by the inon many occasions that everything I wish for Vojvodina, I ternational power centres?

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- A small country like Serbia, which is weak and depends on many foreign policy elements, needs to take on board, for the most part, what the international community thinks.

However, there are certain times were we need to “show our teeth“, as it were. If we don’t do that, we will have a serious problem. We have reached boiling point with the situation that we have with the Law on Restitution. This law demonstrates a very strange intention of our northern neighbour – Hungary – to criticize, albeit unfairly in my opinion, certain legal solutions in Serbia. This is where we need to set things straight. In that respect, I welcome President Tadić’s stance of not tolerating being conditioned and threatened with a veto.

The Law on Restitution simply says that property will not be returned to people who fought together with Nazis in World War II. Therefore, we are not talking about a collective guilt here that is being forced onto the Hungarian people. That would be tantamount to equating the Hungarian nation with fascists.

The amendment submitted by the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians, that we objected to and that was not incorporated into the law, released the responsibility from every person that fought on the Nazi side, but lived in the Republic of Serbia territory before the war. If the amendment was accepted, for instance, the family of Peter Egner, the known war criminal originally from Crvenka and a man who is held responsible for the deaths of 18,000 people and sending 150,000 more to concentration camps, would be entitled to claim their repossessed property. That’s why I said, at a certain point that we would give serious thought if forced to choose between EU accession and the rehabilitation of people who shot our citizens and threw them in the frozen river. I also said that it would be absurd if the EU, which is one of the corner stones of anti-fascism, were to blackmail us with fascists.

Let me remind you that I, in the capacity of Speaker of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina’s Parliament, have signed a resolution on rejecting the notion of collective guilt of any nation living in Vojvodina and I know very well what I am talking about since that is one of the founding principles of LSV. The League is the same party that defended and protected Hungarians in the 1990s and after 2000 during various incidents, for which both sides were to blame. In addition to that, several days ago, we asked the Legislative Committee to draft a proposal of an authentic interpretation in the matter of rehabilitated members of occupation forces being entitled to restitution.

■ Is there an ulterior motive behind the way in which the restitution is interpreted in the case of Vojvodina Hungarians?

democracy

changes

The incoherent group, that the Serbian opposition was, could not make a step forward in terms of democratic and pro-European vision.

I can understand that Ivica Dacic and Tomislav Nikolic can change, but I don’t think that such change can happen without a catharsis.

- If you scratch the surface, this story runs deep. And is getting more sinister. The gist of the reactions coming from the Hungarian state is actually something that the international community is not paying much attention to and that is - if you are demanding for every person who was a resident of Vojvodina before the 6th April 1941 to be pardoned, then you need to ask yourself whether the Hungarian army came to occupy a part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia or liberate an occupied part of Hungary? Let’s not forget that only 20 years had passed from the moment Vojvodina was integrated into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and subsequently into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, until Hungarian military formations

I deeply believe that the Treaty of Trianon could be revised, but I also beleive that there is a danger associated with trying to revise it occupied Vojvodina. And during those 20 years, it was quite logical that the Hungarian national minority had been clinging onto the notion of Yugoslavia being a transient country.

In that respect, ominous events have been transpiring namely an attempt to revise the Treaty of Trianon (The Treaty of Trianon was the peace agreement signed on 4th June 1920, at the end of World War I, between the Allies of World War I and Hungary. The treaty greatly redefined and reduced Hungary’s borders. The principal beneficiaries of territorial adjustment were Austria, Romania and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which, to this day, is a source of malcontent among right-wingers – author’s remark). The revision is supposed to be carried out through the back door, so to speak, i.e. through an issue of whether drafted soldiers in Vojvodina were drafted by domestic or occupation forces.

Restitution

We have reached boiling point with the situation that we have with the Law on Restitution. cordeditorial@cma.rs

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Such an approach of the official Budapest makes us think that, indirectly, Hungary wants us to admit that it was the domestic forces. If we did admit to that, we would open the door to the revision of the Treaty of Trianon.

■ Do you believe the revision to be a possibility?

- I deeply believe that the Treaty of Trianon could be revised, but I also beleive that there is a danger associated with trying to revise it. My experience tells me that in such games, which are hegemonistic and nationalistic to the core, it usually ends in people living in diaspora exposing themselves to the possibility of having a conflict with their neighbours, which, in the case of Serbs from Croatia ended up in operations Storm

itself. It will be too late to do anything once conflicts erupt. All of this is a form of spiritual and mental preparation for that.

■ Did the problem with Kosovo stem from the fact that none of the Serbian politicians were bold enough to call it what it actually was?

- The whole of Serbia is held hostage by extremists. Since we failed to properly process the events from the 1990s, when it became clear that Ratko Mladić, Radovan Karadžić and Slobodan Milošević were not Serbian patriots and that Željko Ražnatović Arkan and Milorad Ulemek Legija were not national heros but members of a crime organization that inflicted onto us an unimaginable evil, we have become morally downtrodden, economically exhausted, robbed and reduced to thinking that we have no future. And the democratic and pro-European government has to constantly apologize to the fascists if it does anything that destroys the myths that these fascists feed on. And that is where the problem lies. It is no secret that Kosovo is no longer a part of the Republic of Serbia.

It is no secret that Kosovo declared independence and that its sovereignty was recognized by many countries all around the world. It is no secret that Serbia cannot do anything in Kosovo apart from deal with the serious problem of protecting its population and culture monuments. That can only be done through diplomatic means.

■ Do you think that the European Union has done everything in its power to solve this problem?

- I am quite surprised to see that nobody from the European community actually raised the question of Out of 15 Serbian municipalities with the highest average a customs union between Kosovo and Serbia. If Kosovo and Serbia want to join the salary, ten are in Belgrade, four in Central Serbia and only one borderless European Union, why should (Vršac) in Vojvodina? At the time of its full autonomy, salaries in Kosovo and Serbia be separated by borders?

Vojvodina were nearly as high as those in Slovenia and Croatia! Why don’t we use that as a starting point?

By doing so, we would eliminate the very (Oluja) and Flash (Bljesak). In Bosnia, it manifested itself in things that are making criminal groups rich. Who stands to profethnic cleansing and violent divisions among people who, unit the most from having borders? Smugglers, of course. til yesterday, were neighbours, friends and family, as well as in an exodus of a huge number of people. In Kosovo, the result ■ Can you envisage Serbia never becoming an EU member? was national polarization, relocation of the population and - By being a member of the European community, Serbia is other evils that we saw happening in Yugoslavia in the 1990s. gaining a huge political advantage, meaning taking the isIt is quite clear to me that if this option is kept alive, conflicts sue of borders off the agenda. Borders are the main source of will ensue in Vojvodina. And these conflicts will homogenize income for generations of parasites that live in the Balkans. something that we can provisionally call the Hungarian elecThey have built careers and played historical roles by altering torate, assembled around the national Hungarian parties. borders and relocating the population. If there are no borders with Croatia, Kosovo and Hungary, the huge tension will no ■ So, in your opinion, what should be done? longer have a stronghold.

- If the state authorities fail to arrest people from Obraz, 1389, The European Union is still suffering from serious childDveri and similar organizations, if their activities are not hood diseases. And, as strange as that sounds, EU members banned, if the activities of 64 Županije (the Hungarian exhave found functioning within a coordinate system, that the tremely right-wing movement) are not suppressed, and if the EU is, a brand new experience. In that light, the European state is not noticing that right-wing Hungarian rock and roll Union needs to learn how to behave in certain situations. I bands are holding concerts in Serbia at which they are promotdo hope that the EU won’t use Serbia and neighbouring areas ing their extremist ideas, then such a state is working against as a learning curve for much longer. ■ 26 |

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R eInventing PRINT 16th November, Hotel Continental, 9:00-15:00h Golden Sponsors of the conference:

Conference Sponsor:

Organizers:

The 2. Press Media Summit will be held in Belgrade on the 16th November 2011, and like the previous year, it will gather over 200 regional leaders of the most prestigious newspaper publishing companies and accompanying industry sector businesses. This year, they will be joined by marketing, media and PR agency leaders and the highest officials from European newspaper associations.

The aim of the Summit is to reach, collectively, the most rational solutions for the future of newspaper publishing industry through the exchange of experiences.

The most eminent speakers from Europe and the region have confirmed their presence: Host of the 2. Press Media Summit is Mr. Veselin Simonović, President of Media Association of Serbia, opening speech will be delivered by Mr.Vincent Degert, Ambassador, Head of Delegation of European Union to the Republic of Serbia; and the following have also confirmed their presence, Ms. Francine Cunningham, Executive Director, European Newspaper Publishing Association (ENPA); Ms. Dragana Milićević Milutinović, State secretary for information and media, Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society; Mr. Jurij Giacomelli, President of Management Board, Delo (Slovenia); Mr. Dragoljub Žarković, Editor in Chief, Vreme; Mr. Erl Murati, Editor in Chief, Gazeta Shqiptare (Albania); Ms. Jelena Drakulić Petrović, General Manager, Ringier Axel Springer; Mr. Juergen Bernkopf, Senior Research Consultant, GfK Austria; Mr. Robert Čoban, President, Color Press Group; Mr. Tomislav Wruss, Board member in charge of media EPH (Croatia); Mr. Zoran Sekulić, Director and Editor in Chief, FoNet news agency; Ms. Vanda Kučera, McCann Grupa; Ms. Milica Stefanović, President, Group of Advertisers Serbia, and others.

Moderator: Mr. Ivan Stanković, Director, Communis.

Additional information and online registration can be found on this address www.abcsrbija.com. Registration fee is 80EUR (payable in dinars), and 50EUR for ABC Srbija members. For all additional questions regarding the Summit, please contact us at: office@abcsrbija.com

Media partners:

economy tHe ViCious CirCle of soVereign deBt Crisis

Bankruptcy, a Fashionable Word ■ By Miloš Zlatić

The global sovereign debt crisis, which has reached its lowest depth and is most complex in Europe, has been spreading week-on-week with the looming threat of a certain EU country sharing the same destiny as Iceland, Argentina and Russia, and even Spain which went bankrupt seven times in the 19th century

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hings are not the same. The European bankruptcy candidates belong to the eurozone, which prevents them from simply depreciating their currencies. The suspension in paying liabilities, like loan instalments, interest rates and bond yields, usually comes spontaneously because the state budget has been emptied and there is no opportunity of getting yet another loan. The suspension of payments can be declared by the state too, even if the state is still able to service its debts to a certain extent by applying radical measures and with somebody else’s help. Several countries have already been servicing their debts with the help of the EU and international financial institutions. Ireland, Portugal,

Greece, Spain and Italy are just some of the EU countries that are mentioned as potential bankruptcy candidates. According to a survey conducted by London-based agency CMA Vision, Serbia’s neighbours, Hungary and Croatia, took

Serbia could be facing bankruptcy in 2014 if it fails to conduct radical reforms, primarily in its public sector.

The most recent bankruptcy befell a country that was on the verge of joining the EU. Iceland submitted its membership application in summer 2009, and the accession negoIreland, Portugal, Greece, Spain and began in June 2010.

Italy are just some of the EU countries tiations At the very end of 2008, the that are mentioned as potential country defaulted, which caused quite a shock around bankruptcy candidates the world. Iceland used to be 9th (30.7%) and 12th place (29.7%) respecthe poorest European country, but things tively amongst 68 countries when it came picked up between 2002 and 2007 when to bankruptcy risk. This survey, however, the country experienced its golden age. did not include all the regional countries, The economy was flourishing, stock value as well as Serbia. According to analyses was on the up, but, to sustain this revival, conducted by certain economy experts, the country relied on a fragile founda-

Top 10 Most Risky

Top 10 Least Risky

poSiTion Q3

counTry

5 yEar cpd (%)

poSiTion Q4

counTry

1

Greece

90.6%

1

Norway

5 yEar cpd (%)

4.4%

2

Portugal

61.3%

2

USA

4.6%

3

Venezuela

58.7%

3

Sweden

5.1%

4

Argentina

53.2%

4

Switzerland

6.2% 6.8%

5

Pakistan

51.8%

5

Finland

6

Ukraine

46.9%

6

Hong Kong

7.7%

7

Ireland

46.2%

7

UK

7.8%

8

Italy

33.3%

8

Australia

8.3%

9

Hungary

30.7%

9

Saudi Arabia

8.4%

10

Dubai

30.4%

10

Abu Dhabi

8.4%

■ Note: CPD is a function of the recovery level which varies according the several factors and distance to default. i.e. emerging markets assume 25%, Greece is now 32%, others 40%. Source: CMA Vision

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Short history of state bankruptcies The first country in history to default was the Kingdom of Spain. In 1557, King Felipe II declared bankruptcy for the first time, followed by three more defaults by 1596. The historical records say that the bankruptcy ensued due to high costs Philip II King of Spain (1527-1598) associated with the conquering of South and

tion made of new loans that Iceland kept on getting whilst hoping for growth to continue forever. Young bank and investment fund managers from Iceland took out loans to buy assets all over the world, until, in 2007, the country’s total banking debt grew nine times over the annual revenue generated by the entire Icelandic economy. When, in the summer of 2008, the world was gripped by a financial and credit breakdown, Iceland suddenly run out of places to borrow money to consolidate its debts. By October 2008, Iceland’s currency – the krone – depreciated by 35%, the three leading banks were under receivership, while the government could not pay the country’s foreign debt, including 6.5 billion euros worth of savings deposits in Icelandic banks in Great Britain and the Netherlands. In time, the depreciated krone was good for export and the Icelandic economy managed to recover just nicely, despite natural disasters like the two volcanic eruptions. Recently, the IMF came up with a GDP projection for Iceland, which said that the country’s GDP will grow 2.5% this year and 3.1% next year.

The signs of imminent bankruptcy are usually pretty noticeble and, in the case of Argentines, in 2001, they could feel it in their bones that bankruptcy was coming.

They crossed the state borders in huge numbers, taking their savings in dollars with them to Montevideo. Uruguay is for South America what Switzerland is for Europe, i.e. a safe haven for endangered capital. When most of the wealthy entrepreneurs took their money out of Argentina, the last default stage began. Fearing that their savings would be wiped off, droves of ordinary citizens hurled themselves at banks. They even tried to break into the banks and withdraw their money so the banks looked more like fortress-

Central America. Spain is actually a record holder when it comes to the number of bankruptcies – in only the 19th century, the country defaulted seven times. France defaulted eight times in the 17th and 18th century. Germany went bankrupt twice – both bankruptcies took place after World Wars.

es with metal panels instead of windows.

The state converted foreign currency savings into pesos and limited the withdrawals to only 250 pesos per bank account per week. Nominally, that amount was tantamount to $250, but, in reality, it was worth only $80. Small businesses were hit the hardest, most of them having to close down. In December, mass demonstrations against the government erupted,

bankruptcy, the peso was no longer tied to the U.S. dollar and the peso exchange rate was left to be freely determined by the global market. The peso / U.S. dollar exchange rate grew to 4:1, which destroyed the businessmen who took out loans with the foreign currency clause.

Production virtually stopped for a whole year, the unemployment rate jumped to 25%, all credit card payments were suspended as was grantThe epilogue of the European default crisis ing any kind of loans. is still not in sight, and possible bankruptcy Nonetheless, following bankruptcy, in of some of EU states could cause a domino the next eight years, the Argentine econoeffect and reduce the events in Argentina my grew at a rate of or Iceland to an “exotic episode” nearly 8% per annum.

In 1998, Russia was also gripped by a severe financial crisis caused by reduced productivity, budget deficit and a costly war in Chechnya. Although many national and international economy experts advised the Russian Government to stop spending the country’s foreign currency reserves to keep the rouble afloat, in only ten months, the Russian central bank spent $27 billion on keeping the national currency stable. Rogue traders had been selling the rouble for months on end and, on the 13th August, panic erupted. Russian foreign currency, stocks and bonds markets suffered a meltdown.

Four days later, the government and central bank announced that the rouble was Argentina 2001 depreciating, that they were stopping the stores were looted and 39 people died in payment of the country’s foreign debt clashes with the police. Argentine Presiand imposing a three-month-moratorident Fernando de la Rua fled the presium on foreign debt. dential residence by helicopter, and his The epilogue of the European default successor Adolfo Rodriguez Saa immedicrisis is still not in sight, and possible ately declared, in front of Congress, that bankruptcy of some of EU states could the country would stop paying foreign cause a domino effect and reduce the debts which, together with interest rates, events in Argentina or Iceland to an “exhad grown to $145 billion. Following the otic episode”. ■ cordeditorial@cma.rs

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comment

Political Toying

When it comes to the Turkish side, the new head of Turkish Religious Affairs, Mehmet Görmez, and the country’s entrepreneurial foreign minister and the chief architect of the current Turkish neo-Osmanic foreign affairs doctrine Ahmet Davutoglu had the main say

proF. dr darKo tanaSkoVić, leading Belgrade Orientalist and the former Ambassador to Turkey

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ery contradictory information has been circulating the ing a delicate phase in the European integration process. It was media and political corridors recently. The information expected that Minister Davutoglu would come to Belgrade immediately after the launch of the initiative and present the top pertains to a new initiative for the unification and reconciliation of the two opposing Islamic communities (hereinafter Serbian officials with the ideas and concrete solutions contained referred to as IZ) in Serbia – the first one having headquarters within a 14-point-document that was supposed to clarify everyin Belgrade, with Reisu-l-ulema Adem Zilkić at its helm, and the thing. However, due to the deteriorating situation at the Turkish/ Kurdish front, Davutoglu was forced to postpone his visit for the second, called the Islamic Community in Serbia, based in Novi Pazar, with Mufti Muamer Zukorlić at the helm. This initiative was last week of October. Following his working visit and contacts launched by Turkey in October with a series of meetings with he had, it seems that only Serbian authorities viewed the initiaSarajevo Reisu-l-ulema Mustafa Cerić and the two Bosniak min- tive as interesting and would devote their full attention to it. Still, isters in the Serbian Government – Rasim Ljajić and Sulejman some things are clear even without actually going into the details Ugljanin taking place. It wasn’t clear whether Mufti Zukorlić of the document.

First of all, the way the Turkish initiative has been launched participated in the meetings since the very beginning, while and the profile of the people who have been involved in it since Reisu-l-ulema Zilkić confirmed that nobody had consulted him about anything. A Bosniak member of Bosnia & Herzegovina’s the very beginning, validate what was known for a very long time Presidency, Bakir Izetbegović also played a role in the talks, al- and that is that the conflict between the two IZs is mainly of pothough he did everything in his power to refute a visibly calcu- litical rather than a religious nature. Therefore, it is not realistic lated statement that he and Serbian President Boris Tadić were to expect that the solution will be found through an agreement supposed to sign an agreement on the unification of Islamic com- between two religious heads and on religious grounds. After all, munities in Serbia. Of course, President Tadić also vehement- bearing in mind a series of historical and contemporary circumstances in the former Yugoslavia, the issues that concern the rely denied those claims. When it comes to the Turkish side, the new head of Turkish Religious Affairs, Mehmet Görmez, and the lations and disputes between churches and religious commucountry’s entrepreneurial foreign minister and the chief archi- nities are predominantly of a political nature and not religious. tect of the current Turkish neo-Osmanic foreign afThe issues that concern the relations and fairs doctrine Ahmet Davutoglu had the main say.

Even Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdoğan in- disputes between churches and religious vested his authority in supporting the initiative, which communities are predominantly of a political he personally endorsed. Based on what some participants of the meetings and interested parties, main- nature and not religious ly from Islamic circles in Sarajevo, said, as well as The only persons who participated in the first round of talks in different information that was publicly leaked, it was impossible to have a clear and reliable picture of what happened with Turkey and who could be considered religious leaders are Reisuthe attempt to find a solution for the institutional crisis that the l-ulema Cerić and Mehmet Görmez, who has been wrongly preIslamic Community in Serbia has been going through. According sented in Serbia as ‘The chief of the Turkish Islamic Community’. to the opinion of many, the crisis has lasted for too long and is After all, Mustafa Cerić is much more involved in politics than redamaging to both the Muslims themselves and the overall social ligion, and Görmez is no autonomous leader of the Islamic comand economic atmosphere in Sandžak. The crisis has been indi- munity in the secular state of Turkey, but rather a representarectly harming a harmonious political atmosphere, which Serbia tive, of sorts, of the ‘Ministry for Islam’ which is governed by the desperately needs in dealing with the Kosovo problem and dur- Turkish Government. The institution that he heads was founded 30 |

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by Atatürk in order for the state to control the Islamic religion. vocacy of the secular state, which, in principle, is acceptable to Compared to Atatürk’s time, the “only” difference is that this con- Serbia too, as well as to most Muslims who live here and who are trol is no longer exercised by the Kemalists, but political Islamists not staunchly Islamic. The third aim of this operation is the dissolution or termination of the Council of the Islamic Community who won overall power at the country’s democratic elections.

The second conclusion, which we can come to without know- in Serbia, with Reisu-l-ulema Zilkić at its helm, and establishing a new organizational scheme for the Muslims living in Serbia and ing all the details of the initiative, is the validation of the fact, maybe for those in Bosnia. that has recently been subjected to The latter aim could be very relativization, that, out of all the improblematic. The essence of the disportant factors in the Islamic world, pute between the two IZs is the fact Turkey has, by far, the biggest inthat Zukorlić has been refusing to fluence on Balkan Muslims, includaccept official Belgrade as the oring Bosniaks, both in Bosnia & ganizational-administrative centre, Herzegovina and Sandžak. Aware of but keeps on insisting on subordinathis fact and in line with the doctrine tion to the Sarajevo Islamic Council. of ‘strategic depth’ (= ‘geographiZilkić, on the other hand, was adacal depth’ + ‘historical depth’), which mantly against the idea, which led to was devised by Ahmet Davutoglu, the formation of the Islamic Council the successor to the Ottoman Empire in Belgrade in 2007. The political has been systematically trying to use implications of both formats are very this comparative advantage too. The obvious. There is no end goal of any Turkish initiative The end goal of any Turkish initiative is doubt that this is is consolidating Islamic communisomething that the ties in the Balkans and exercising consolidating Islamic communities in the Belgrade authorities the biggest influence possible on Balkans and exercising the biggest influence will also seriously their functioning. This, of course, possible on their functioning take into account. ■ does not mean that Serbia cannot have short-term political and social benefits from the initiative.

Removing the source of internal tensions is, in principle, a good thing for any state providing that a basis for bigger systematic problems in the future is not created through some thoughtless and asymmetric compromise.

Judging by everything we have heard so far about the Turkish initiative, it seems that the IZs in Serbia are still treated as only the Bosniak Islamic Community, and not the community of all Muslims that live here. Albanian Muslims from South Serbia have been left behind, as have many Roma people, Goranci and Muslim believers of other origin rather than Balkan. Such persistent ‘nationalization’ of the Islamic community in Serbia and its acceptance as a para-political party of the Bosniak minority with, as of recently, pan-Bosniak ideas, is a limiting factor in any attempt to depoliticize it.

Further more, it is safe to say that the immediate goals of the Turkish initiative, albeit somewhat simplified, are the following – number one, removing Mufti Zukorlić from the public eye since his destructive behaviour toward official Belgrade and the other Islamic community has caused his loose credibility even amongst people who were willing to support him. His misguided request for Muslims to boycott the census was “the straw that broke camel’s back” and was seen as the last move in the Mufti’s political adventurism. The Mufti should be temporarily withdrawn and used for some future tasks.

Number two, this new initiative is aimed at depoliticizing IZs in Serbia, which, speaking in a politically objective manner, the increasingly Islamic Turkey wants to use to demonstrate its adcordeditorial@cma.rs

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interview Kayoko Yamasaki, professor, poet and translator

In The Land Of Good Readers ■ By Sonja Ćirić

“When, due to civil wars, the former Yugoslavia began to disintegrate, I saw the need to inform other people of that through poetry“

in the history of Yugoslav literature with Professor Radovan Vučković as her mentor. After that, she left for Ljubljana to study oral ballads. Her poetry was published both in Japan and Serbia. Mrs. Yamasaki his autumn, the Belgrade International Convention of has also translated several Serbian novels into Japanese, namely Writers, which is the most important event organized Danilo Kiš’s ’Early Sorrows’, ’The Encyclopaedia of the Dead’, by the Association of Serbian Writers, awarded Japanese and ‘Garden, Ashes’, as well as poems of Laza Kostić, Vladislav poet Kayoko Yamasaki with ’The Morava Charter’ for Petković Dis, Desanka Maksimović, Miloš Crnjanski, Momčilo her exceptional contribution in translating Serbian literature. This Nastasijević and others. Also, she translated, into Serbian, the was the reason why we depoems of Tanikawa Shuntaro I asked myself what the world would look like and Shiraishi Kazuko, and cided to interview Mrs. Yamasaki, now a Belgrade citizen. wrote several books of essays from a perspective of a small language that and studies. Apart from ’The resembles a miniature window to the world Kayoko Yamasaki is a JapaMorava Charter’, she is the nese studies professor at the Belgrade Faculty of Philology, a poet recipient of the Serbian PEN Centre award for foreign language and a translator. She was born in Japan, where she studied and translators. Mrs. Yamasaki’s co-workers and friends from Belgrade graduated Slavic studies (Serbian language) at Hokkaido Univercall her simply Kaja. sity. She got her PhD from the Belgrade Faculty of Philology, and has been living in Belgrade for the past 30 years. She came to this ■ How do you feel in Belgrade? part of the world after being awarded a scholarship by the Socialist - I feel best when I am among people, and Belgrade makes that Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’s authorities. Her first place of resipossible for me. For instance, one day, I was walking past the dence in Yugoslavia was Sarajevo, in 1979, where she specialized Moskva Hotel and I could see somebody waving at me. It was

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Stevan Raičković! Could you imagine a great poet such as Stevan Raičković waving at you in the street?! Or I would be walking down Knez Mihailo Street, and I see a famous Serbian writer, Dragoslav Mihajlović, walking his dog. He stops and chats with me as if we are the best of friends. Those kinds of things happen in Belgrade! I love when people are open, warm and want to hear different opinions. In smaller places in Serbia, that is even more pronounced. I remember an older married couple picking walnuts underneath this huge walnut tree in Sićevo. I didn’t know these people, but we chatted like we’ve known each other forever.

you hope amidst this horrible drama, and it gives you the strength to stop thinking that a horrid power is actually ruling the world.

Poetry even gives us strength to believe that there is still some purpose and joy to this life. This is how I view Serbian poetry, as well as any poetry in the world. Poetry has that power to enter your darkest parts and shine light into them. When a person is in trouble, it is enough for them to think of a proverb or a verse, of a wise saying by Stevan Raičković or Dis, and they are immediately invigorated and filled with spiritual strength. Japanese poet Tanikawa Shuntaro (Kayoko Yamasaki has translated his collection of poems ’Child on the Stairs’ into Serbian language – author’s remark) said that poetry provides spirituality to the people of this millennium.

■ You have probably been asked this many times, but why, out of all the languages in the world, did you decide to learn Serbian and why did you swap Japan for Belgrade? Bearing in mind ■ In your opinion, and speaking in terms of quality, how is Japathe level of curiosity from the people that have just met you is nese literature accepted in Serbia? understandable, would you be so kind as to indulge the CorD - I think that the situation is the same wherever you look. Thanks readers with a reply? to marketing, your popularity in - The time was appropriate for other countries can grow much something like that. In Japan, folfaster than before. It often happens lowing the subduing of the stuthat the quality of one country’s litdent upheaval, the young people erature is based on its most famous were still left with the question of writer. However, in my capacity as where their civilization was heada translator and a university proing and what was the purpose of fessor, I have been trying to put life. Today, from this perspective, together a list of writers that truththat curiosity looks like ethereal fully capture the spirit of Japan. I life strength and the driving force know that the road to reaching a filled with inquisitiveness. At the big number of readers is different, time when I was a student, my enbut I think that the road I am taktire generation probably felt that ing is better. I already have several way too. That was a time when we young translators that I am very were enchanted with Russian litproud of. The people who are enerature, which was one of the role models for the then Japanese culture. A friend of mine recently told me that there were two beautiful And that is not surprising – The Slavic things in life - to be eternally young and to be anonymous. soul has the same intuitiveness as EastI cannot be young forever, but I can certainly be anonymous ern tradition – it is focused on spirituality and this is where it looks for inspiration, rather than in the gaged in Japanese studies are given a great chance to showcase material world. In such an atmosphere, I asked myself what the wonderful writers whose work would probably never be transworld would look like from the perspective of a small language lated into Serbian. For example, at the same time as you had Bora that resembles a miniature window to the world. Back then, I felt Stanković, we, in Japan, had a writer called Natsume Soseki who very poetic and my instincts were right – my interest in the Serwrote about virtually the same things as Stanković, but in the Japbian language soon resulted in some very interesting and excitanese way. Or, take your ballads, for example. ’Omer and Merima’ ing discoveries. And that is the explanation as to why I chose the was the first ballad that I fell in love with here. Danilo Kiš liked Serbian language, out of all world languages. I stayed in Belgrade, it very much too. Japanese literature is full of stories about tragic i.e. the former Yugoslavia, because I fell in love with your poetry. love. The way literature is translated is exceptionally important, since it connects people.

■ Do you still think that our poetry is worth falling in love with, and moving from Japan?

■ Therefore, we could say that you are a combination of a trans- I am in love with your poetry, especially today when times are lator and an ambassador. For instance, you mediate between rough for anybody with ideals and who is keen on keeping that Serbs and Japanese and are helping them to get to know each feeling alive. On top of that, these times are not only difficult, but other and grow closer. often coax you into thinking that nothing makes sense any longer.

- No, I am not an ambassador of any sort. I am not an institution.

People often think that they are powerless and that our lives are Actually, I am ashamed when somebody says something like that. tailored by others. In a situation like that, it is poetry that gives I feel awkward just like if I were given a dress which didn’t fit me cordeditorial@cma.rs

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or the colour didn’t suit me. A friend of mine recently told me that there were two beautiful things in life - to be eternally young and to be anonymous. I cannot be young forever, but I can certainly be anonymous.

■ Whether you agree or not, nobody in Japan would ever hear about Laza Kostić or other Serbian poets if you did not translate their work.

- No, that is not the case. Somebody else would translate them...

However, all right, I see your point. I am very glad to serve as a link between people who live far apart from each other. I am

My main goal is to help my students to develop spiritually with the help of national collective memories of other cultures so happy to see that my translation of poems written by Miloš Crnjanski, Desanka Maksimović, Stevan Raičković, Momčilo Nastasijević and Vojislav Karanović have been included in the ’Love Poetry’ anthology. You know, poetry always reaches the land of good readers and your audience. It is a God gift to any writer, and any human for that matter, to have somebody listening to you. Since, if nobody’s listening, why write in the first place?! That is why I say that a sincere reader is a real God’s gift to any writer.

■ There is a beautiful story about you and the poetry of Desanka Maksimović.

- When I got a scholarship from the SFRJ authorities, one of the first Japanese – Serbian translators, Kazuo Tanaka gave me two poems written by Desanka Maksimović - “A Bloody Fairy Tale” and “Tremble”- as a gift. He told me: “If you learn these two poems by heart during your flight, you will love them forever.” At that time, I did not even dream about writing poetry or translating it. After 14 years of living in Belgrade, I suddenly felt the urge to translate.

I took two sheets of paper with Desanka’s poems and translated them in one go.

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a language that is not your mother tongue. However, you have been writing poems in both Serbian and Japanese. Why did you start writing poems in Serbian?

- When, due to the civil wars, the former Yugoslavia began to disintegrate, I had an instinctive need to inform other people of that through poetry since I thought that they would find solace in poetry. Up until that point, I was very cautious. I thought that, with so many wonderful poets around me, it would be better for me to translate rather than write. But, when I felt the need to talk about what had been happening in the Balkans, I thought that the best way to do that was with poetry. At first, I wrote in Japanese and had those poems published. I was young and I didn’t see my position as that dramatic. But, to be severed from your national culture and to create at the same time is a very painful process. The feeling of having to write in Serbian as a foreigner in this country helped me a great deal in that. Poetry is a very precise art form. When you write a poem, you are not too sure whether your words are the right ones for a very long time. However, that feeling of insecurity gave me enough strength to be persistent. It is so important in poetry to let yourself go and open up.

And, when you start feeling that a poem is opening you up, that is a sign that your language has become open too, that it has become shapeless and airy. My great mentor, the late Srba Mitrović, always said that writing poetry was not worthwhile. I would like to continue on that and say – but we still do write poetry. I am confident that he would agree with me. But, let me say just one more thing about writing... Sometimes I translate more, sometimes I write more. I visit several islands in the process – one day, I am on my own island, the next on somebody else’s. There are days when I don’t write at all. Sometimes it is important not to write and to consume life more. You keep on living and poetry finds you eventually, and once it finds you, you need to write it down.

It is the same thing with loneliness. Writing poetry does not come mechanically.

■ What is the most important thing that you are trying to convey to your students?

- Many people might not agree with me, but my main goal is to help my students to develop spiritually with the help of national collective memories of other cultures. It is really not crucial how many grammatical units they will learn, but it is important for them to form their personality by getting to know other cultures so that they can enrich their own. A culture that is closed will fail. It will suffocate itself. Hence, national literature is very important.

■ Are you currently translating?

- I would like to put together a collection of Serbian poems that I would translate in Japanese and Japanese poems that I would translate into Serbian. I would like them to be in one book. My life-long dream is to translate Miloš Crnjanski’s “The Journal of Čarnojević“. I do hope that I will have enough time to fulfil this dream of mine. ■

nov 2011 BUsinEss LEaDEr’s mEEtinG Point

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Goran Janković,

DiMitraki ZiPoVski,

globalization advantages

loyalty enhances the Company

Director and Proprietor of Inmold Company from Požega

CFO of Energoprojekt Holding a.d.

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Page 49

Bill Gross,

“Go iNtErNatioNal”

CEO of UberMedia

Chime.in pays you to post

greek Companies are Staying in Serbia

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Business Dialogue 01

Innovations Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly and get on with improving your other innovations. — Steve Jobs

Piraeus bank

Fighting against global warming Piraeus bank has supported the action “Ice cube in Belville” initiated by magazine National Geographic Serbia

The SMS competition, regarding the estimation about how much time in total it would take for an ice cube to melt, had the aim of drawing public attention to what is happening on the ice caps and Earth poles and to support the fight against global warming.

The main prize of a 1000 euro payment card was for the contestant who got closest to the melting time provided by the Bank.

“Ice Cube Meltdown” started in Belville on the 12th October 2011 in the presence of representatives of the Ministry of Environment, City of Belgrade and Novi Beograd municipality, as well representatives of Piraeus bank. Disclosure and meltdown followed an interesting program, celebrity guests and the launching of a number of Eco-workshops in which Serbia’s youngest citizens could learn about the causes and consequences of global warming.

03

Mercedes-Benz

The world’s most valuable premium automotive brand

Mercedes-Benz continues to be regarded as the world’s most valuable premium automotive brand. In the latest ranking by respected brand consultancy Interbrand Zintzmeyer & Lux, ‘Best Global Brands 2011’, the three-pointed star brand again took twelfth place – as it did last year – and is therefore the most valuable European brand.

Its brand equity has risen to US $27.455 billion, an increase of 9 percent compared to 2010. Mercedes-Benz’s brand equity has therefore risen continuously since 2009.

The study’s authors attribute this success to customer satisfaction with the brand, which is higher than that of all other automotive brands. What’s more, the model initiative launched two years ago is enabling MercedesBenz to successfully respond to the market’s demand for ground-breaking, sustainable transport solutions.

Interbrand conducts the ‘Best Global Brands’ study every year. Leading CEOs regard it as the benchmark for measuring the value of international brands. The study identifies the 100 most valuable brands in the world.

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04

Farmers cooperative

Organic food from Stara Planina

02

the new Mercedes-Benz M-Class

Refinement meets efficiency The third generation MercedesBenz M-Class scores particularly highly on outstanding energy efficiency, and on average the new model range consumes 25 percent less fuel than the previous models. One true champion in terms of fuel consumption is the ML 250 BlueTEC 4MATIC, which boasts an NEDC consumption of just 6.0 l/100 km (158 g CO2/km) and has a range of up to 1500 kilometres on a full tank. Further strengths of the premium SUV with permanent all-wheel drive include exceptional safety and well-balanced ride comfort as well as excellent driving dynamics both on and off the road. What’s more, the ML features an array of new chassis developments and innovative dynamic handling control systems which further enhance both driving enjoyment and handling safety. A characteristic body design and a variable inte-

rior with a high wellness factor add to the richness of the driving experience in the new M-Class.

With the M-Class, it’s always been a case of combining the comfort and luxury of a saloon car with the off-road characteristics and the emotiveness of an SUV. The fact that the new M-Class is as fuel-efficient as the economical saloon cars displaying the Mercedes star makes the all-wheel-drive model even more desirable. A range of state-ofthe-art engines, a class-leading cd figure (drag coefficient) of 0.32 and extensive BlueEFFICIENCY measures lay the foundations for outstanding energy efficiency.

Potatoes, onions, beans, green beans, zucchini and, more recently, the Jerusalem artichoke and plum grown in the fields of Stara Planina found their way to the French and Russian markets

The fruits and vegetables are produced by the Arbinje farmers’ cooperative from Pirot, which helps the farmers with setting up production and export to the EU market. For example, a farmer from the village of Dojkinci exported 4.5 tons of organic potatoes to France.

Director of the Arbinje farmers’ cooperative, Nebojša Veličković says that the cooperative was founded four years ago with the aim of engaging in organic production in Pirot County.

“We have twenty or so farmers in the county that are certified. In the village of Pokrovenik, they are rearing pigs (Mangulicas) and there is a plan to raise sheep and goats too. Via a joint French – Serbian company, we are selling organically grown potatoes and onions, which are exported to France, and we have concluded a contract with another company stipulating the processing and conserving of fruit and vegetables to be shipped to Russia. There is a great demand for these products despite their price being 15% to 30% higher than normal. We have a secure market, particularly in bigger countries,” says Nebojša Veličković.

05

bankruptcy

2,099 companies declare bankruptcy

This year alone, 8,893 companies, which bank accounts have been frozen for two consecutive years, qualified for automatic bankruptcy.

2,099 companies in Serbia have declared bankruptcy with the number growing day-by-day.

This year alone, 8,893 companies, which bank accounts have been frozen for two consecutive years, qualified for automatic bankruptcy. In some cases, the bankruptcy procedure has already been instigated or finalized, while others have had creditors wanting at least some of

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their claims settled through regular bankruptcy procedures.

According to the data collated by the Bankruptcy Supervision Agency, the average time to conclude bankruptcy procedures in Serbia is 21 months. It sounds unbelievable that some bankruptcies were launched over 15 years ago; such is the case of the Belgrade-based Sportsman Company, which declared bankruptcy back in 1996, in line with the old law.

Placements & Postings

Communication The average working person spends less than 30 seconds a day in meaningful communication with their children.

06

appointments@cma.rs

www.cordmagazine.com/corporate/appointments.html

Cargo 10

Bosnia joins the project Bosnia and Herzegovina has decided to join the project of Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia setting up a joint company called Cargo 10, with Montenegro, Bulgaria and Macedonia also announcing their interests in joining

Although the company is still not set up in a legal and formal sense, it became operational on 4th October 2010, when the first freight train carrying wood briquettes, intended for the Italian market, left Paraćin for Sežana in Slovenia.

The aim of Cargo 10 is to cut back on the time needed to transport the goods from Ljubljana to Istanbul, which will result in the higher competitiveness of railways over other modes of transport like Corridor 4, which runs across Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.

Due to its obligations to adhere to EU legislation, Slovenian Railways Company has objected to the legal form of the current articles of incorporation of Cargo 10, in part that concerns anti-monopoly legislation. The sides are currently trying to harmonize the documents and subsequently adopt them.

07

Marko Jovanović, new Managing Director of Ilirika dzu Beograd

Public enterprise Serbian Post Office

Post Export service will be launched in ten or so days and will enable businesses to export their goods with only one document required. In the words of Serbian Post Office’s CEO, Goran Ćirić, small companies will find the price of the service affordable. The value of the goods in question should not exceed 1,000 euro’s and be a maximum of 30 kilogrammes in weight.

“The analysis has shown that there are 300,000 small businesses in Serbia, i.e. small and medium enterprises. Our idea was to encourage their export activities primarily through removing numerous obstacles and administration procedures. The point of this project is to simplify and automate the whole process. The Post Office has been collaborating with the Ministry of Finance, the Customs Administration, the Business Registry Agency and the Tax Administration on this project,” says Goran Ćirić.

British American Tobacco

Cigarettes cheaper 5 - 10 dinars British American Tobacco Vranje a.d. has decreased the retail price of its “Viceroy” cigarette brand by 5 - 10 dinars per pack. The new price of a pack of Viceroy Full will be RSD95, Viceroy Charcoal will cost RSD100 and Viceroy Charcoal 100’s will cost RSD105.

“The decision to decrease cigarette prices is the result of an inadequate excise structure, which we have been pointing out all this year, and which has led to consumers’ downtrading,” said Srdjan Lazovic, Head of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs in BAT. British American Tobacco has been present in Serbia for 15 years, and in 2003 it joined the tobacco industry in Vranje, where leading BAT brands, Lucky Strike, Pall Mall, Kent and Viceroy are produced today.

Marko Jovanović got his Masters Degree from the Bocconi University, Milan, majoring in finance and banking. He graduated in 2002 also from an Italian university, majoring in international finances.

He began his career at Lehman Brothers in London, and, in 2005, he got a job in Delta Bank’s tresury. In 2007, he was appointed partner in Atlas Group and was engaged in setting up an investment fund management company. In 2009, he went back to the Delta Investments company for investment fund management in the capacity of a portfolio manager. Following the successful acquisition of Delta Investment funds, Ilirika DZU takes the leading position at the investment fund market. In early September 2011, Jovanović was appointed director of Ilirika DZU a.d. Beograd.

Snežana Jovićević, Director General of Belgrade Pharmacies

Following a decision made by Belgrade City authorities, Snežana Jovićević was appointed the new director general of Apoteke Beograd (Belgrade Pharmacies). Born in Bileća in 1957, she finished elementary school and a gymnasium in Sremski Karlovci. She graduated from Belgrade Faculty of Pharmacy in 1984. She has 25 years of experience, with 20 years of experience working in Belgrade Pharmacies alone, as a pharmaceutical engineer. In the period from 2001 to 2010, she was the general manager of the latter pharmacy.

In June 2010, she was appointed the general manager of Lipov Lad pharmacy followed by director general of Belgrade Pharmacies.

Ms. Jovićević is a member of the Belgrade Pharmacies’ Expert Council and is not politically affiliated.

Nina Bulatović, new Chairwoman of the Management Committee at KPMG d.o.o. Belgrade

Nina Bulatović has over 31 years of professional experience, with the last fifteen years spent as a partner in two out of the four most eminent audit and consultancy companies.

Following her graduation from the Belgrade Faculty of Economics, she got a job at the Social Accounting Services where she managed to get promoted to a managerial position.

Subsequently, she went to work for the Payment and Financial Supervision Services. In 1996, she became a partner at Coopers & Lybrand d.o.o. Beograd, and after Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse merged into PricewaterhouseCoopers d.o.o. Beograd, Nina Bulatović remained at her managerial position until 2001. Her next job was at KPMG d.o.o.

Elmer Geisler, new General Manager of Porsche SCG d.o.o

As of 1st October 2011, apart from Manolito Vujičić, Porsche SCG d.o.o. has another general manager – Elmer Geisler. Mr. Geisler studied economics at the Leopold Franzes University, Innsbruck, and at the Ramon Llull University in Barcelona. He graduated in 2002 and has extensive experience working for Porsche Group where he got a job in 2000. Mr. Geisler started his career at Audi’s Marketing Department, and, in 2003, he moved to Porsche Inter Auto. The same year he was given an opportunity to manage dealerships in the U.S. From 2005 to October this year, he was regional director for East European countries namely the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and Romania.

Goods travelling faster across borders

Small companies will now be able to ship their products to their foreign buyers thanks to an expedited and simplified procedure introduced by the Serbian Post Office

08

Miloš Đurković, new President of AmCham

Since 2010, Mr Đurković has been the managing director of Hewlett Packard Serbia following more than 16 years working in the IT industry in Serbia and neighbouring countries. He was the general manager of IBM Serbia, as well as the head of the Representative Office of CISCO Systems, in charge of the markets of Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania. His previous positions included a number of managing and sales jobs in several companies and institutions in Serbia.

Mr Đurković graduated from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Electrical Engineering. He was member of the Managing Board of NALED and still is member of Association of Serbian Corporate Directors and member of the Managing Board of the Rowing Club “Red Star”. He is married and a father of two children.

cordeditorial@cma.rs

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87 November 2011 | 39

corporate

Globalization Advantages The company due to lower input costs has more favourable prices than its European counterparts, technically wise, it does not lag behind the best companies in the branch Goran Janković, Director and Proprietor of Inmold Company from Požega ■ Inmold is not your first experience

P

rivately-owned company Inmold is designing, building and making tools and equipment used in the production of plastic parts for the food and chemical processing industry, electrical industry, automobile industry and consumer products. The company is engaged in advanced technology, and, due to lower input costs, it also has more favourable prices than its European counterparts. Technically wise, it does not lag behind the best companies in the branch. “Inmold is a reliable partner with good post-sale service and support,” the company’s founder and proprietor Goran Janković explains. He is a mechanical engineer and was the top graduate of the Belgrade Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in 1987. Janković was born in the village of Rečice, near Požega, in Central Serbia, which is also his place of residence. His company is based in Požega. “The tools that we make are of small dimensions, so they can be shipped to any part of the world at affordable costs. And with today’s effortless communication and information exchange, location is no longer a limiting factor in our operations,” Janković outlines. The furthest country that his tools were shipped to was Canada, at the request of a client from Japan who placed in order.

ing more work for Austrian and Slovenian companies, a bit less for German and in running a private business. Why Italian companies, and do business with and when did you decide to take on several Romanian companies. such risk?

- I followed in the footsteps of my parents, who instilled in me the belief that ■ As we can see in your case, location you can succeed in life only by working is not a limiting factor in your busihard and I have been using this approach ness. In what way do you recruit your to everything I needed to do. In 1994, I employees? came to realize that once the financial- Realistically speaking, we are ’producly strong public company Prvi Partizan ing’ our employees ourselves and they from Užice was disintegrating. I never are usually local. Inmold’s business rehad an intention of leaving Serbia and my quires highly qualified labour, mostly of hometown, but I also had to find a way technical education. The company has 53 to feed my family of six and put four chilemployees – 15 mechanical engineers dren through school. I set up a company and the rest are technicians. The average called ATM Sevojno with two partners of age of our employees is very interesting mine, which was also engaged in Our capacities are fully employed. We work tool production. in three shifts, with two shifts being 24/7 I was the generand, during the third, we usually do the work al manager in the company. During that engages automatic machines and our our golden years, employees usually just supervise we had 150 employees and 8 million euros in revenue.

– all of them are very young and most of In late 2006, we made an agreement to them came to work for us straight from leave the business and I embarked on a school, with no work experience whatsonew business venture by myself. ever. That wasn’t easy at all since, with the knowledge they acquired at school, they could offer very little in terms of ■ Do you have enough orders during work and even that wasn’t entirely apthis time of economic downturn? plicable. We have gone through a pretty - Our capacities are fully employed. We painstaking process of additional trainwork in three shifts, with two shifts being and education. We have hired experts ing 24/7 and, during the third, we usufrom various areas who helped us in sucally do the work that engages automatic cessfully doing our job in Inmold. We have machines and our employees usually just been working hard since the very beginsupervise. The lesser part of our current ning and, today, our employees are indeproduction is for the Serbian market, and pendent workers. Actually, their training we have quite a few renowned clients like is still pending – they are attending semFarmakom MB from Šabac. We are working inars and fairs in the country and abroad for foreign companies, which have their and they are continuously learning. ■ equipment installed here. We are also do-

INFO: www.inmold-ltd.com 40 |

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Destination “Serbia is a more attractive investment destination than Slovenia due to better incentives for investors in terms of job creation and tax cuts.” — Franjo Bobinac, President of “Gorenje”.

Dimitraki Zipovski, CFO of Energoprojekt Holding a.d.

Loyalty Enhances the Company Energoprojekt’s biggest advantage is having a long-standing presence on foreign markets

P

eople are the biggest company value, and, in our case, our people are extremely loyal to the company and this loyalty often runs across generations – says Dimitraki Zipovski, CFO of Energoprojekt Holding shareholding company. For instance, his father has worked in Energoprojekt for 42 years and didn’t have a day of sick leave. According to Zipovski, loyalty is also reflected in the context of the attitude that people have toward their work. “I think that such continuity has substantially helped Energoprojekt to survive and develop despite the crisis which has hit the construction sector,” Zipovski underlines.

■ Preservation of professional and human resources and loyalty are certainly valuable. In your opinion, what other things helped you in staying afloat and even develop during the time of the crisis?

- Energoprojekt’s biggest advantage is having a long-standing presence on foreign markets. There are countries where Energoprojekt is more recognizable than the Republic of Serbia.

Kazakhstan, Uganda, Peru, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates are just some of the countries where we have built and are implementing a substantial number of infrastructural and other projects.

■ During these turbulent times, what is your line of thought in managing finances of a big company that operates in the sector that has been hit the hardest by the crisis?

- When implementing projects, we are always trying to optimize project & financial structures by meeting the objectives for maxi-

Economy and bridge Although he runs the finances of a big company, Zipovski still finds time for other things he loves, as he puts it. As a student, in mid-1990, he managed a bridge club and brought in many diplomats, businessmen and public figures in Belgrade to play. At that time, he took 4th place at the European Championship amongst very stiff competition

mizing investments in an adequate way, while, at the same time, minimizing various financial risks, including foreign currency.

Financial institutions have recognized Energoprojekt as a reliable partner, and this long-standing collaboration and solid trust have had an effect on curtailing the costs of financial sources, which, in the end, affect the company’s end results.

■ Could you tell us about the results that Energoprojekt accomplished this year?

- Energoprojekt is a complex system. Apart from the mother company, it consists of nine subsidiary companies with over 100 foreign companies and foreign operations. Only 42% of our revenue comes from construction. For example, in 2010, we took the 127th place on the global list of consultants judging by the revenue generated abroad. In the first nine months of this year, we contracted projects worth 180 million euros, and we expect this figure to grow to nearly 300 million euros by the end of the year. We also expect the overall 2011 total revenue to be around 250 million euros, which exceeds our plans.

We also expect the overall 2011 total revenue to be around 250 million euros, which exceeds our plans ■ It has been often claimed that the state planned to sell its stake in Energoprojekt, but these claims have died down.

- The state owns a third of Energoprojekt and there are indications that the company is not going to be sold as long as the infrastructural process is pending. The reason for this could be found in the state’s need to own a part of a company that can guarantee required quality and meet deadlines in implementation of large-scale infrastructure projects in Serbia which should begin in the near future. ■

of professional bridge players. Even today, he plays both for the bridge club and the national bridge team with a lot of success.

Sometimes he is not so sure that choosing economy over professional bridge was the right thing to do. “In sports, including bridge, the result is a real reflection of knowledge and invested effort, while in business that is

not always the case,” he says. Generations of students of Belgrade Faculty of Economics have been studying from a text book called ’Business Plan – A Guide to Creating’ which he wrote with Dr Blagoje Paunović. As a member of the project team, he participated in writing over 30 projects for the Faculty of Economics’ Science & Research Centre.

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Politics

Business Dialogue 01

“There are no new issues in economic theory with Europe and the euro... the difficult thing is the politics.” — Thomas Sargent, who with Christopher Sims captured the year’s Nobel Prize for economics.

Bulgaria

02

Croatia

Media Monopoly Watchdog

Croatia meets all tourism goals

Bulgaria's monopoly watchdog, the Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC), has imposed a fine worth BGN 30 000 (€ 15,500) on leading cable operator Blizoo for deliberately advertising a misleading TV package

Croatia has successfully accomplished all of its goals for this year's tourism season, Croatian Minister of Tourism Damir Bajs said

A CPC investigation has shown that Blizoo advertised a package including “more than 150 TV channels,” while, in reality, there were just 112 channels.

The fine imposed on the cable operator constitutes a mere 0.03% of the company’s net profit for 2010. The fine is so insignificant because Blizoo has only advertised the misleading product via leaflets and on the Internet, thus affecting a relatively smaller amount of customers.

If the violation was more serious, the monopoly watchdog could have fined the company with 2% of its annual net profit, the Dnevnik daily points out.

The brand Blizoo was born after Bulgaria’s top cable providers Eurocom and CableTel merged last year.

Sweden-based private equity firm EQT acquired two of Bulgaria’s major cable TV and Internet operators in a EUR 210m deal at the end of October 2009 and merged them in mid-May 2010 to form the country’s biggest cable operator.

03

04

Macedonia

Slovenia

Reduced Foreign High Prices Investment Low Demand

The total amount of foreign investments in Macedonia, according to the National Bank, since the beginning of the year, reached 167 million euros, while the Macedonian Government had planned that this year they would amount to 500 million euros.

Political instability, isolation of the country from the EU and NATO and poor road and rail infrastructure are only part of the problem to get potential investors. The absence of the expected influx of investments is most likely due to the judiciary, corruption, difficult access to capital and bureaucratic problems. According to data from the National Bank, foreign investments in Macedonia, in 2010, amounted to 160 million euros and 400 million euros, in 2007.

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The prices of flats in Slovenia remain relatively high, especially when it comes to new apartments.

Even the Ljubljana Housing Fund has been forced to increase its offer on properties seized by banks as collateral when a number of developers failed to meet their financial obligations.

Prices of new housing in Slovenia edged 0.5 percent higher in the second quarter of 2011, the third consecutive increase despite a lower number of transactions. Compared to the same quarter in 2010 prices were 9.9 percent higher and 11 percent higher than the same period in 2009. Prices of existing flats in Slovenia also increased – by 4.2 percent in the second quarter of 2011 compared to the preceding quarter. The average price per square metre stood at EUR 1,800 in the second quarter of 2011, compared to EUR 1,727 in the preceding quarter.

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“We defended our market share in Europe and were twice as good as our competitors; we brought back the domestic guest; and most importantly, we prolonged the tourist season,” Bajs said at the opening of the Croatian Tourism Days held from 19 to 22 October in Sibenik.

Tourism’s share of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 1.7 percent this year. The sector also took in 14 percent more employees than last year, Bajs added.

World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)’s Executive Secretary Marcio Favilla de Paul said Croatia’s success this year overshadowed worldwide trends.

05

“The tourism trade in the world grew four per cent this year, in Europe 6.6 percent and in Croatia 12 percent. That means that Croatia has double the growth of Europe and triple that of the world,” Favilla de Paul said.

He expects a billion tourist arrivals next year around the world, a significant share of them going to Croatia that has established itself in recent years as a recognisable and important destination, daily 24 Sata writes.

Romania

Stimulate domestic savings ”Romania's central bank will not rush to cut interest rates,” Deputy Governor Cristian Popa said

Inflation in Romania slowed sharply to 3.5 percent year-on-year in September, the lowest annual rate since the fall of communism in 1989, entering the bank’s target band of 3 percent plus or minus one per- Cristian Popa, centage point.

Deputy Governor Romania’s borrowing costs are the highest in central Europe at 6.25 percent but the central bank has had to intervene to support the leu currency in the past month and analysts say that has stayed its hand in cutting rates. “It is important to keep inflationary expectations well anchored. I think that a country whose current account deficit was substantial before the (global financial) crisis... and is still hovering around 4 percent needs to stimulate domestic savings. And this also requires appropriate levels of interest rate on deposits,” said Cristian Popa.

06

Bosnia and herzegovina

Hope For Return to Libya

Bosnian Ambassador to Libya, Ferhat Seta said that as months of fighting in Libya came to an end and as government institutions were being formed on all levels, contacts between the two countries were developing afresh. Libya is the most important foreign market for Bosnian Ferhat Seta construction companies, which have lost 110 million euros as a result of fighting in the country between supporters and foes of the now defeated former leader Muammar Gaddafi.

"To-do" list

70% of business and professional people use a “to do” list on a regular basis to administer their “have to’s”.

07

Montenegro

Montenegro to join Russian Customs Union The customs union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan will expand to include Montenegro and Serbia, Russia’s Minister for Emergency Situations, Sergei Shoigu, has said Montenegro and Serbia are the only states in the region which Moscow has free trade agreements with, the minister said in Podgorica on Wednesday.

“This will be an additional incentive for investment because, apart from the existing market, that of the Customs Union will also be opened,” Shoigu said during a meeting with Montenegrin Economy Minister Vladimir Kavarić.

During the meeting, Shoigu and Kavarić also discussed problems in the Podgorica Aluminum Combine, in which the Montenegrin government and the company of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska each own one third.

It was indicated that “the issue of all issues” is the long-term supply of electricity to the company, on which the fate of the aluminum factory depends.

According to some media reports, Shoigu arrived in Podgorica in order to request subsidies for electricity from the Montenegrin government. The state’s aid in this form for the factory expires in spring 2012.

08

Greece

Hellenikon puts on sale Greece is behind target on its divestment plan and must speed it up amid adverse market conditions to keep getting bailout aid from the IMF and its eurozone partners.

“Beggining of Novembr we will announce a public tender for the state lottery. Then, more announcements will follow at about two-week intervals,” Kostas Mitropoulos, CEO of the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (HRAF), told Reuters in an interview. “We will invite expressions of interest for the Hellenikon airport redevelopment, followed by the DEPA-DESFA gas company privatisation tender and the sale of real estate, which will be contingent on market conditions,” he said.

Hellenikon is the site of the capital’s old airport near the city’s coastline, 170 acres of land which the government wants to develop into a mixed residential, tourism and business complex.

Under the terms of the EU/IMF bailout plan, Athens must raise 50 billion euros by 2015 from selling stakes in state firms and other assets to help to pay down a debt mountain expected to hit 162 percent of GDP this year.

Placements & Postings appointments@cma.rs

www.cordmagazine.com/corporate/appointments.html

Dr Dudvarski-Ilić (53) was born in Belgrade where she completed elementary school, gymnasium and the Faculty of Medicine, graduating with an average grade of 9.07. She did her medical residency in Belgrade and passed the state exam in 1983. She’s been working at the Clinical Centre of Serbia’s Institute of Pulmonary Diseases and Tuberculosis since May 1985. Dr Dudvarski-Ilić completed her specialization in 1989, and Masters studies in pulmonology in 1990. She got her PhD in 2008.

Dr Aleksandra Dr Dudvarski-Ilić was appointed assistant professor at the Department Dudvarski-Ilić, of Internal Medicine of the University of Belgrade’s Faculty of Medicine New director of the in 1999 and subsequently, in 2010, she was appointed as docent at the Pulmology Clinic at the Clinical Centre of Serbia same Department. She wrote and co-wrote 152 papers published in both foreign and domestic medical journals.

Doc. Dr Nađa P. Marić Bojović, New Director of the Psychiatric Clinic at the Clinical Centre of Serbia

Dr Marić graduated from the Belgrade Faculty of Medicine in 1993.

She got her Masters Degree in 1998 and PhD in 2003. She is the head of the Department for Scientific and Research Work and Early Psychiatric Interventions, a docent at the University of Belgrade’s Faculty of Medicine, Secretary General of the Serbian Psychiatric Association and a member of the Education Committee of the European Psychiatric Association. Dr Marić has based her scientific work on interdisciplinary cooperation within the framework of nation-wide implemented projects of the Ministry of Science.

For her research Dr Marić was awarded by the European Psychiatric Association in 2004, and in 2005, by the World Psychiatric Association. She wrote and co-wrote over 30 science and research papers which were published in the most renowned medical journals all over the world.

Professor Dr Petar M. Seferović (60), was born in Belgrade, where he completed his gymnasium education and in 1976 he graduated from the Belgrade Faculty of Medicine. He got his Masters Degree in 1981, and completed his specialization in internal medicine in 1982. Dr Seferović obtained his PhD in 1990. From 1990 to 1992, he was the head of the Department of Admissions, Polyclinic and One Day Admission Unit at the Cardiology Clinic of the Institute for Cardiovascular Diseases at the Professor Clinical Centre of Serbia. From 1994 to 2011, he was the head of the 2nd Dr Petar M. Cardiology Unit at the Cardiology Clinic of the Institute for Cardiovascular Seferović, Diseases at the Clinical Centre of Serbia. In 2011, he was appointed an new director of the Cardiology Clinic at the assistant education director of the Clinical Centre of Serbia. He is marClinical Centre of Serbia ried to Dr Dragica Seferović and has one child – daughter Jelena.

Dr Vesna Bumbaširević, new director of the Anesthesiology Clinic at the Clinical Centre of Serbia

Dr Bumbaširević was born in Belgrade, where she graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in 1982, and completed her specialization in anaesthesiology and reanimatology in 1989. She got her PhD degree from the Belgrade Faculty of Medicine in 1993. She is an associate professor and a docent at the Belgrade Faculty of Medicine.

Before she was appointed head of the Anaesthesiology Clinic, Dr Bumbaširević was head of the Central Intensive Care Unit at the ER of the Clinical Centre of Serbia. Dr Bumbaširević has published over 140 papers in leading foreign and domestic medical journals, wrote 15 chapters in medical textbooks and a book called “Septic-endotoxic shock and multi-organ dysfunction”. She is fluent in English, Italian and French, is married and has two children.

Duško Vujošević, new President of the Partizan Sport Association Assembly

Duško Vujošević (42) trained almost all Serbian basketball teams. In his extensive career, as the coach of BC Partizan he won 10 state championship titles, 5 national cups, 4 championship titles in the regional ABA League and the Radivoje Korać Cup (in 1989). He was also the coach of the Yugoslav junior basketball team when they won the European championship title (1988). As a coach to the Yugoslav junior team he won the European championship in Vrbas (1988) and 4th place at the World Junior Championship (1991). Vujošević was mentor and coach to a brilliant generation of players like Danilović, Đorđević, Divac, Paspalj... In 2003, he was the coach of the national Serbian and Montenegrin team that won 6th place at the European Championship, while, in 2007, he coached the Montenegrin national basketball team into making it to the European Divison “A“. cordeditorial@cma.rs

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87 November 2011 | 43

Business Dialogue

'Entrepreneur' My son is now an ‘entrepreneur’. That’s what you’re called when you don’t have a job.

—Ted Turner, media mogul and philanthropist

neW SoCial netWork

Chime.In Pays You to Post While Facebook has earned billions of dollars selling ads next to the content uploaded by their 800 million members, users haven’t seen a dime from their posts

I

ceeds from the ads.

“This is a firing shot in social media,” said Gross “Finally, the interests of the content creators are aligned with the interests of the publisher because they get something for their hard work.”

Most new social networking sites try to lure users away from rivals with the promise of better perks and more advanced features, but Chime.in is using cool hard cash to ensure people have a stake in investing time into the site and driving viewers its way.

This fiscal incentive seeks to address the problem that plagues every new social media site: how to attract users before a critical mass has already joined.

“We’re relying on the crowd sourced efforts of millions of people who are interested in driving traffic to our place,” said Gross of the startup’s growth strategy. “We’re going to have great communities curated by really strong people and they’ll be driving traffic to us. We won’t have to [drive traffic] because they’ll have an economic self-interest.”

In an effort to improve the quality of its videos, YouTube has implemented a similar revenue-sharing strategy that rewards users who upload popular content.

Though paying people to post is hardly a sure bet, Gross maintains that money will actually improve the quality of the content on Chime.in.

“When money is involved, you will get a level of seriousness that is not there when there is no money involved,” he said.

Chime.in also offers a solution for brands that have yet to figure out how to leverage their Facebook “likes” or Twitter followers to improve their bottom line. So far, Disney, E! Entertainment, Universal Pictures and Bravo TV have signed up with Chime.in to create branded pages they could eventually use to turn a profit.

“Celebrities, movie studios, TV shows and publishing companies will want to make pages here because unlike with a page on Facebook, they can achieve monetization adjacent to the content itself, not only through a link,” said Gross. “Not everyone follows a link posted on Facebook.”

Gross claims that Chime.in -- which he calls an “interest network,” not a social network -- further improves on existing social media sites by offering a design that weeds out “noise” and shows only relevant content.

The site allows users to tag their chimes with up to five

t’s an arrangement that extends across many of the web’s largest social networking sites -- and one serial entrepreneur Bill Gross plans to change.

Gross, the CEO of UberMedia, which owns several popular social networking apps, launched a new social media site late Ocober, Chime.in, that will effectively pay its users to contribute.

Share with Chime.in and Chime.in will share with you. The site, which allows individuals to post photos, links, videos and text in two Chime.in supports iOS, Android, and Blackberry for thousand character “chimes,” will give usits mobile apps and allows you to compose Chimes, ers 50 percent of the revenue it earns from selling advertising on their profile pages. reply to Chimes, upload photos, browse your Individuals or brands that sell that real Chimeline and view profiles estate themselves can keep all of the pro-

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www.cordmagazine.com

right - wrong You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.

— Warren Buffett, American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist.

“interests,” such as “Apple” or “architecture,” and lets people subscribe to updates about a particular topic, essentially a stream of “chimes” that are aggregated based on the tags authors have added to their posts.

As on Twitter, users can subscribe to each others’ feeds, though Chime.in offers additional control over what appears in their “chimeline”: Individuals can choose to receive only updates pertaining to a particular subject, so people interested in a pundit’s take on technology won’t be stuck hearing from him about artisanal cheeses from an outing to a farmers’ market.

“This platform is not just about urgent news and keeping up with friends and relatives. It’s about diving into interests,” said Gross. “People are moving away from searching the web to connecting with people and they’ll tell me what I need to know.”

The idea is intriguing, but the execution, at least in the beta version of the site, leaves much to be desired. People can add unrelated tags to their chimes, and a visit to several topics revealed posts about ramen and tomato sauce in a channel ostensibly dedicated to chimes about Google.

Chime.in claims its algorithm will “bring quality

Bill Gross, the CEO of UberMedia

content to the surface” and prioritize the best chimes, though it’s easy to imagine scammers will find ways to promote low-quality posts—especially with money at stake.

The most interesting aspect of Gross’s pay-youto-post model may not what it does for Chime.in, but for sites like Facebook and Twitter. When users catch wind of the offer, will they sour on social networking sites that aren’t sharing their loot? The biggest question Chime.in may raise is: Why isn’t Facebook paying me? ■

cordeditorial@cma.rs

Here are some basic features of Chime.in

■ One can easily integrate media in every post. However, the good thing is that it does not allow you to post GIFs. ■ You have an option to either follow a specific category of a user or the user as a whole (includes all his/her categories) ■ Everything on Chime is public. There are no direct messages or PMs. This however, is a limitation which hopefully should be deleted when it is out of beta.

■ You can place ads on community pages and makes some money.

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87 November 2011 | 45

Keeping Kosovo

Business Dialogue 01

According to a study by the Belgrade Centre for Practical Politics, Serbia’s 8 million citizens spend 16 euros every second to keep Kosovo in the country’s fold. The website, www.kolikokostakosovo.info, puts the total cost since 1999 — the end of the Kosovo war — at above six billion euros.

Finance

Goldman Sachs posts $393m loss Goldman reports surprise loss of $393m. Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman, said trading had been affected by volatile markets The investment bank reported a $393m loss for the third quarter of the year, compared to a profit of $1.9bn in the same period last year.

Though much smaller than the record $2.12bn loss Goldman recorded during the depths of the financial crisis, the red ink is a major blow to a bank that’s traditionally been one of the most envied and smartest performers on Wall Street.

“Our results were significantly impacted by the environment and we were disappointed to record a loss in the quarter,” said Lloyd Blankfein, the chairman and chief executive, in a statement.

Goldman, which is already

Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman

03

04

Trade

Australian Beef goes to Brazil

The main Australian product exported to Brazil so far in 2011 has been rump, accounting for 81% of the total or 782 tonnes.

Out of this total, 370 tonnes has been full rump, with 366 tonnes of rump cap - one of the highest valued cuts in Brazil. Other products shipped included chuck (11%) and striploin (3%).

A huge middle class population that has grown significantly in recent years has driven an increase in Brazilian protein consumption, which has led to high beef prices in the domestic market. This has provided opportunities for imports of high quality beef and lamb from Uruguay, Argentina and Australia across the higher end foodservice segme.

87 November 2011

BANKING

Stall of Growth Bank of England policymakers are preparing for UK growth to almost grind to a halt and have discussed pumping even more electronic money into the economy than the £75bn they agreed on last month

The policymakers discussed injecting as much as £100bn (€114.5 bn) of fresh money as they considered the threats to UK growth from the global economy, sovereign debt problems and stalled household spending.

Minutes from the meeting said: “In the United Kingdom, the path of output had been affected by a number of temporary factors, but the available indicators suggested that the underlying rate of growth had moderated and would be close to zero in the fourth quarter.”

The Bank announced plans to restart quantitative easing (QE) – sometimes called QE2 - injecting more money than most in the markets were expecting, as the governor, Sir Mervyn King, warned that Britain was in the grip of the world’s worst-ever financial crisis.

Dispute

Olympus: Paid $687 million to financial adviser

Australian beef exports to Brazil during the first nine months of 2011 jumped 381% year-on-year, to 969 tonnes

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cutting 1,000 jobs, has allocated $10bn – 44% of net revenue of $22.8bn - in the first nine months of the year to compensate staff, including bonuses that are paid at the end of the year. That compares with $13.1bn in the first nine months of last year.

02

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Japanese camera and precision instruments maker Olympus Corp. said mid of October, it paid a whopping $687 million to financial advisers for its purchase of a UK company

It was confirmation of a key allegation made by CEO Michael Woodford, who was fired on the 18th Ocotober after questioning the payment and other deals. The total payment is equal to more than a third of the $2 billion that Olympus paid in 2008 for Gyrus Group Plc. Fees to financial advisers are normally just a fraction of that level. The company’s statement contradicts its chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, who a day earlier said the payTsuyoshi Kikukawa and ment was about 30 billion yen ($390 million).

Michael Woodford Olympus Corp. should investigate payments made to advisers in connection with an acquisition, according to an external auditor’s report. The company may face scrutiny by regulatory and prosecuting authorities because of potential offenses, including false accounting, financial assistance and breaches of directors’ duties by the board, according to an Oct ‘11 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The report was commissioned by Michael Woodford. Chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa said the board fired Woodford, a 30-year veteran of the Japanese company, because he “wouldn’t listen.”

05

Sports

Heineken supports Rugby World Cup 2015

Dutch brewer Heineken has announced it is renewing its sponsorship of the Rugby World Cup (RWC), to cover the next tournament in England in 2015.

The firm has been backing rugby union, both the RWC and European club trophy, the Heineken Cup, for 16 years. The 2011 event hosted by New Zealand ended on October the 30th, and according to Mastercard, the final weekend will generate $62.8m (€36.4m) for the regional economy! Meanwhile, tournament organiser Rugby New Zealand 2011 said it has achieved its revenue. Revenue from ticket sales has surpassed the NZ$268.5 million (€155.2 million) target set by RNZ 2011 more than two years ago.

The Rugby World Cup in England 2015 will mark Heineken’s 20-year involvement in the sport.

“England 2015 will see Heineken focusing increasingly on digital initiatives to support their sponsorship,” said a spokesman. For Heineken it will be their fifth partnership with the event, having been a backer in 1995, 2003, 2007, and 2011. www.cordmagazine.com

Businessman Well, you know, I was a human being before I became a businessman.

– George Soros, Hungarian-American business magnate.

06

07

Tourism

MEDIA

Hotel prices News plunge in Vienna International to cut up to 200 staff International holiday platform Trivago, which manages the Trivago Hotel Price Index (THPI), announced that a double room in Vienna costs 133 euros this month, down by seven percent compared to last month. The average hotel price for all of the 50 cities across the continent in 35 locations dropped at exactly the same rate.

The October price decline could help Vienna in achieving a new annual overnight stay record. Around 1.18 million overnight stays were counted by the city’s hotels in August – more than ever before that month since statistics have been kept on the issue. Vienna’s tourism industry strongly benefited from increased interest by Chinese holidaymakers (up 50 percent compared to August 2010) and Russians (up 21 percent).

09

News International is to axe up to 200 editorial jobs at The Times and The Sunday Times newspapers

The business, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and also publishes The Sun, is reining in costs to help mitigate a 25% rise in the price of newsprint, a fall in advertising and slow progress in attracting new advertising revenues to its iPad edition.

Around 100 jobs will go from The Times newspaper, amounting to one in seven staff. The Sunday Times will lose up to 20 permanent staff and a third of all casuals, expected to add up to 50 to 100 job losses in total. The Sun will not be affected by the cut backs. sales

Sold $550 million worth of cotton in two days Uzbekistan is reporting sales of some $550 million worth of cotton and textiles at the two-day International Cotton and Textile Fair held in Tashkent Some 330 companies from 38 countries reportedly sent representatives to the fair and those representatives bought a reported 600,000 tons of Uzbek cotton and textile products in mid October.

The major purchasers at the fair were China’s Xinjiang Group of Agricultural Resources and Tianzhan Cotton Exchange, Elma Yarn of Bangladesh, Vinotex of Vietnam, Toeshima of Japan, Arta Tejarat Zamin of Iran, Falcon of Turkey, Miad General Trading of the United Arab Emirates, Tirotex of Moldova, Russia’s TransSpecProm, and Bellegprom of Belarus .

However, many international companies stayed away from the fair.

More than 60 worldwide companies have announced a boycott of Uzbek cotton, which rights groups say is often picked by children in violation of child-labour laws.

The campaign against purchasing Uzbek cotton has seen increased support among western companies in recent years with well-known brands such as Burberry, Levi’s, H&M, and others publicly vowing to avoid knowingly buy it.

08

Accounting

Watchdog orders auditors’ inquiry Britain's top accountants are to have their own books scrutinised after the consumer watchdog today referred the business of checking companies' figures for a full-scale competition inquiry The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said it had been concerned for some time that the audit market is highly concentrated with low levels of switching and substantial barriers to entry.

The watchdog estimates that in 2010 the “big four” firms, PwC, KPMG, Deloitte and Ernst & Young, earned 99% of audit fees paid by FTSE 100 companies, while between 2002 and 2010 only 2.3% of FTSE 100 firms changed their auditor.

The industry was also heavily criticised last year by a House of Lords committee over conflicts of interest and the quality of published accounts in the run-up to the credit crunch.

The decision to refer the industry to the Competition Commission, which was widely expected, followed meetings with the accountants, customers and regulatory bodies, the OFT said.

The watchdog estimates that in 2010 the "big four" firms, PwC, KPMG, Deloitte and Ernst & Young, earned 99% of audit fees paid by FTSE 100 companies John Fingleton, OFT chief executive, said: “Voluntary and industry-led efforts to increase competition and choice in this market have proved unsuccessful. Following extensive consultation, we have concluded that a reference to the Competition Commission is appropriate.”

Pressure on the “big four” accountancy firms has also been mounting in Europe, where the European Commission recently suggested a bar on auditors providing consulting services to audit clients.

The OFT added that one of the issues it had considered was the potential for overlap with the work going on in Europe, but had concluded there were enough UK-specific concerns to warrant a Competition Commission investigation.

The inquiry could run for two years, although the Commission will aim to complete its investigations in 18 months or less, today’s statement said.

The large accountancy firms argued today that the market for large audit work is competitive already.

David Sproul, UK chief executive at Deloitte, said: “We believe the audit market is highly competitive and is an important contributor to UK growth.”

He added that any changes to the market that come out of the inquiry must not hurt audit quality, the UK’s growth prospects or the country’s appeal as a business location.

Ernst & Young also said competition for audit work was “alive and well” but said it supported increased choice and a wider range of audit firms to choose from for the largest companies.

BDO, one of the smaller firms that stands to benefit from more work moving away for the “big four”, welcomed the OFT’s move and said it had long argued that market concentration should be addressed. cordeditorial@cma.rs

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87 November 2011 | 47

Business Dialogue

Now we are 7 bn!

Global food production will have to rise by about 70% between now and 2050 to feed 9 billion. But if the population stays flat, food production would have to rise by only a quarter — World Bank.

Rankings on the ease of doing business DB2012

Economies are ranked on their ease of doing business, from 1 – 183. A high ranking on the ease of doing business index means the regulatory environment is more conducive to the starting and operation of a local firm. This index averages the country’s percentile rankings on 10 topics, made up of a variety of indicators, giving equal weight to each topic. The rankings for all economies are benchmarked to June 2011.

DB2012

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Singapore Hong Kong, China New Zealand United States Denmark Norway United Kingdom Korea, Rep. Iceland Ireland Finland Saudi Arabia Canada Sweden Australia Georgia Thailand Malaysia Germany Japan Latvia Macedonia, FYR Mauritius Estonia Taiwan, China Switzerland Lithuania Belgium France Portugal Netherlands Austria UAE Israel South Africa Qatar Slovenia Bahrain Chile Cyprus Peru Colombia Puerto Rico (U.S.) Spain Rwanda Tunisia Kazakhstan Slovak Republic Oman Luxembourg Hungary St. Lucia Mexico Botswana Armenia Montenegro Antigua and Barbuda Tonga Bulgaria Samoa Panama

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Poland Ghana Czech Republic Dominica Azerbaijan Kuwait Trinidad & Tobago Belarus Kyrgyz Republic Turkey Romania Grenada Solomon Islands St. Vincent & the Grenadines Vanuatu Fiji Namibia Maldives Croatia Moldova Albania Brunei Darussalam Zambia Bahamas Mongolia Italy Jamaica Sri Lanka Uruguay China Serbia Belize Morocco St. Kitts and Nevis Jordan Guatemala Vietnam Yemen, Rep Greece Papua New Guinea Paraguay Seychelles Lebanon Pakistan Marshall Islands Nepal Dominican Rep. Kenya Egypt, Arab Rep. Ethiopia El Salvador Argentina Guyana Kiribati Palau Kosovo Nicaragua Cape Verde Russian Federation Costa Rica Bangladesh

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Uganda Swaziland BiH Brazil Tanzania Honduras Indonesia Ecuador West Bank & Gaza India Nigeria Syrian Arab Republic Sudan Philippines Madagascar Cambodia Mozambique Micronesia, Fed. Sts. Sierra Leone Bhutan Lesotho Iran, Islamic Rep. Malawi Mali Tajikistan Algeria Gambia Burkina Faso Liberia Ukraine Bolivia Senegal Equatorial Guinea Gabon Comoros Suriname Mauritania Afghanistan Cameroon Togo São Tomé and Príncipe Iraq Lao PDR Uzbekistan Côte d’Ivoire Timor-Leste Burundi Djibouti Zimbabwe Angola Niger Haiti Benin Guinea-Bissau Venezuela, RB Congo, Dem. Rep Guinea Eritrea Congo, Rep. Central African Rep Chad

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“Go International”

Greek Companies are Staying in Serbia In the framework of the ”Go International” campaign, a business forum called “Bilateral Trade & Regional Synergy between Greece and Serbia” took place in Belgrade, on the 24th and 25th October

T

he forum was organized under the patronage of the Greek Foreign Ministry and supported by the Serbian Chamber of Commerce and Greek – Serbian Business Council.

In collaboration with the three leading Greek business associations (PSE, SEVE and SEK), EFG Eurobank Belgrade has organized this important event. The forum’s aim was to promote and develop business contacts and cooperation between Greek / Cypriot companies and similar enterprises in Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary and Russia with the goal of advancing the regional trading potential.

Greece is one of the biggest investors in Serbia, with over 2.2 billion euros worth of investments made – Serbian Economy and Regional Development Minister, Nebojša Ćirić said at the Forum and added that not a single Greek company has withdrawn from Serbia yet.

“Greek banks in Serbia have around a 15% market share, and Greece is an important factor in the Serbian economy,” Ćirić said to journalists gathered at the “Bilateral Trade & Regional Synergy between Greece and Serbia” forum that was organized by Eurobank EFG and was held in Belgrade over a period of two days.

He pointed out that 100 Greek companies and 150, which are partners to Serbian companies are operational in Serbia, and that they had a total of 25,000 employees here.

According to the economy minister, his ministry gave its support to the two-day-conference in Belgrade which assembled companies and businessmen from neighbouring countries with the aim of establishing direct contacts between them and banks with the purpose of launching a regional initiative for enhancing investment volume in Serbia. Ćirić outlined that Serbian authorities were carefully monitoring the Greek sovereign debt crisis, since many Greek banks are operational in Serbia, and added that the amount of placements and loans granted to Serbian businesses and citizens by these banks hasn’t changed and that he was certain that it wouldn’t change in the future either.

“For now, not a single Greek company has withdrawn from Serbia. The only thing that can happen is for the companies who

Filippos Karamanolis (left), President of the Executive Board of Eurobank EFG Serbia, Demetri Dolis, Deputy Greek Foreign Minister, Gikas A. Hardouvelis, Chief Economist and Head of Economic Research at Eurobank EFG Group, Giorgio Pradelli, General Manager of the International Activities Division, Teodoros Karakasis, Deputy General Director, Foreign affairs Eurobank EFG Group

planned expansion to postpone that for better times,” the Minister explains.

Chairman of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce (PKS), Miloš Bugarin pointed out that, in the last eight months, foreign trade between Serbia and Greece grew by 13%, with Serbian exports growing by 16% and imports by 10%.

“This year’s deficit will be much lower than the one from 2008, which means that, crisis aside, compatible economies always find a way to advance their collaboration even during difficult times,” Bugarin said.

Chairman of EFG Bank’s Managing Board in Serbia, Filippos Karamanolis pointed out that Serbia was important to Greece due to

Greek banks in Serbia have around a 15% market share, and Greece is an important factor in the Serbian economy the country’s bright economic future, the EU membership aspirations and an unlimited approach to the Russian market.

He also underlined that Eurobank EFG was amongst the top five banks in Serbia and the 12th biggest foreign investor in the country.

Greek Deputy Foreign Minister, Dimitri Dollis said that, for quite some time, Serbia had been a stable partner to Greece, adding that Greece strongly supported Serbia’s EU aspirations.

He also relayed a message from Greek Prime Minister Giorgos Papandreou while reminding of the prime minister’s efforts in making the Balkan countries a part of the EU, as well as his statement that it was important for Serbia to understand that once the country completed structural and economic reforms, it deserved the right to become a member of the EU family. ■ cordeditorial@cma.rs

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87 November 2011 | 49

after work German Economic Delegation in Serbia

Oktoberfest 2011 The German Economic Delegation in Serbia organized the second “Oktoberfest” in Serbia, in the premises of MercedesBenz in New Belgrade. This cheerful event was attended by over 1000 guests from the world’s economy, which is double from the previous year. The event was opened by German Ambassador to Serbia H.E. Volfram Mas, President of the Association and Ernst Bode.

Volfram Mas (2nd left) and Ernst Bode Jones Lang LaSalle d.o.o Belgrade

Client Party Following the global merger of two leading real estate advisors, the local Belgrade office of King Sturge d.o.o.

Belgrade, officially changed its name into Jones Lang LaSalle d.o.o Belgrade. At the Client Party, held on Rige od Fere raft on the 29th of September, Jones Lang LaSalle company celebrated the tenth anniversary of the successful work on Serbian market with colleagues and friends. bmr

Celebrating 25 years Austrian-Serbian company BMR from Sabac and Italian company SIM from Syracuse, 30th September, presented a consortium engaged in the business of making and installation of pipelines within a large project of modernization of NIS Oil Refinery Pancevo. Marked at the same time was the 25th anniversary of BMR Group. Promotion was attended by the Minister of Agriculture and Trade in the Government of Serbia Dusan Petrovic, Italian Ambassador to Serbia Armando Varikjo, Gvido Kaporale, CEO and owner of the SIM, director and general manager of BMR Aleksandar Jaksic, Peter Despotovic and numerous other guests from the public, cultural and political life of Belgrade and Sabac.

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feature

The 10 world’s most powerful woman Every year, Forbes releases a list of the world’s most powerful woman, influential in everything from politics to technology to culture. The list includes obvious choices, such as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but also includes unexpected choices, such as Lady Gaga (No. 11 this year). Here are the 10 most powerful women: 1. Angela Merkel, German Chancellor Chancellor Merkel is not only the most powerful woman in the world, according to Forbes, but the sixth most powerful person when men are included on the list. She is head of Europe’s “one real global economy” and the “undisputed” leader of the European Union during one of the EU’s most turbulent periods. As the leader of the only European country with a booming economy, her support has been critical to stabilizing the union’s debt and keeping it unified, and bailing out other countries.

6. Melinda Gates, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Bill and

2. Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State

Ms. Gandhi is not just one of the world’s most powerful women, but one of the world’s most powerful people. Gandhi was re-elected to an unprecedented fourth term as head of the Indian National Congress Party, which won national elections in both 2004 and 2009. In light of India’s emergence in the last couple years as a burgeoning economic power, she’s become more important than ever.

Mrs. Clinton’s global stature has steadily climbed the last couple years. This year alone, she moved from the No. 5 spot on Forbes’ list to No. 2, and she is No. 20 on the list that includes both genders. Clinton’s year has been a busy one, between WikiLeaks and the Arab world’s uprisings, her handling of the situations, while sometimes criticized, have received mostly praise.

3. Dilma Roussef, President of Brazil Ms. Rousseff may be Brazil’s first female president, but her election in 2010 was not a surprise. She had long been the obvious successor to former President Lula da Silva, for whom she served as chief of staff. Brazil is South America’s largest economy and as its head, Rousseff’s decisions may cause financial ripples around the world.

4. Indra Nooyi, CEO, Pepsi Co. Ms. Nooyi is head of Pepsi Co., the U.S.’ largest food company and one of the largest in the world. Pepsi Co. generated about $60 billion (€43.1 billion) in revenue last year. Nooyi will more than double the company’s nutritional portfolio by 2020 and has devoted significant funding to develop a zero-calorie soda as good as current products.

5. Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook 11% of the world’s population is now on Facebook, where Ms. Sandberg is second-in-command. Her position at the top of the company has made her not only the world’s fifth most powerful woman, but the most powerful woman in the technology world. The total value of Facebook is not yet public, but experts estimate it could be as high as $100 billion (€71 billion).

Melinda Gates Foundation

Mrs. Gates and her husband, Bill, are at the head of the world’s wealthiest private foundation, which invests in a wide variety of charitable projects targeting poverty, public health, and education. In 2010 alone, the foundation donated $2.5 billion (€1.7 billion) to various projects.

7. Sonia Gandhi, President of the Indian National

Congress Party

8. Michelle Obama, First Lady of the United States Mrs. Obama is enjoying much better approval ratings than her husband, Forbes reports - hers hovered at around 70%, while President Barack Obama’s are below 40%. She has used her high profile image to champion her pet cause of ending childhood obesity and this year, in tandem with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, she unveiled MyPlate, which revamps the way people assess the nutritional standards of a meal.

9. Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the

International Monetary Fund

Ms. Lagarde, appointed the IMF managing director in June, is the first woman to hold the position. She’ll be presiding over the IMF at a challenging time – the organization has had to bail out numerous countries in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and may have to do so again.

10. Irene Rosenfeld, CEO of Kraft Foods Ms. Rosenfeld is the head of the world’s second-largest food maker. The company brought in close to $50 billion (€35.9 billion) in revenue in 2010, spurred by some of Rosenfeld’s risky business moves that turned out to be good ones, such as acquiring Cadbury in 2010. Warren Buffet called the move “dumb,” according to Forbes, but Rosenfeld boosted revenues by 25 % that quarter. cordeditorial@cma.rs

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faces & places

27. 09. 2011

At a ceremony at the business centre of Grand Motors, the U.S. Ambassador to Serbia, H.E. Mary Warlick, handed over the keys to six vehicles for the emergency room, a gift of the European U.S. Army Command, equipped by Grand Motors. The vehicles were donated to the Military Medical Academy, Clinical Centre Dr Dragisa Misovic, Institute for Mother and Child in Belgrade, the City hospital in Krusevac and the Emergency Department at the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

29. 09. 2011

On the occasion of the national day of the Peoples Republic of China, New Chinese Ambassador to Serbia H.E. Zhang Wanxue organized a reception for the representatives of Serbian media.

28.09.2011

On the occasion of the French-speaking group of ambassadors in Serbia, outstanding names in the Serbian and international music scene including: Sanja Kerkez-Tomasev, Dubravka Arsic, Janko Sinadinović, Gjorgjije Cuckovski, John Tomašev and Dragoljub Bajic and others gathered at the residence of the French Embassy. Professor Miljaković Olivera and her students donated their fees to the "Home for the high school and university students”.

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29. 09. 2011

The American Chamber of Commerce in Serbia has marked its 10th anniversary with media representatives, and presented the most significant accomplishments in the last decade. In addition, the new President of AmCham in Serbia, Mr Miloš Đurković, CEO of Hewlett Packard Serbia, was elected. The event was attended by Serbian President Boris Tadić.

03. 10. 2011.

30. 09. 2011

A summit of 100 business leaders in Southeast Europe -“The agreement for a new era” - organized in Arandjelovac, brought together business leaders from Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro. The summit was attended by Serbian President Boris Tadić.

On the occasion of the 21st Anniversary of the unification of Germany, at the residence of the German Ambassador, a party was organized attended by members of the diplomatic core and the highest representatives of Serbian political, business and public life.

German Ambassador to Serbia, H.E. Wolfram Maas and Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetković, cut the birthday cake.

11. 10. 2011.

10.10.2011.

In Belgrade on the 10th October the "Week of Iraqi culture" officially started. It was opened by the Ambassador of Iraq, and Iraqi culture, to Serbia, H.E. Dr. Falah A. Abdulsada, in the House of the Serbian Army Minister, Dragan Sutanovac, where he received gifts which marked the traditional friendship between the two countries.

Their Royal Highnesses, Crown Prince Alexander and Princess Katherine, attended a charity luncheon organized by the charity “Lifeline New York”, which operates under the patronage of HRH Princess Katherine, in the restaurant "Le Serko" in New York, to help orphans in Serbia. The Royal couple with opera singer Jadranka Jovanovic (right).

11. 10. 2011.

Minister Dragan Sutanovac and Mr. Alexander Konuzin Russian Ambassador to Serbia.

The Embassy of Sweden and the Museum of Science and Technology opened an exhibition in Belgrade under the title “Creative Women - Innovation in Sweden” by presenting the project “Creative Society - creative ideas”. Guests were addressed by H.E. Christer Asp, Swedish Ambassador to Serbia. The exhibition was opened by Predrag Markovic, Serbian Minister of Culture and Annika Rimbaud, CEO of the Swedish Institute. cordeditorial@cma.rs

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faces & places

14. 10. 2011.

12. 10. 2011.

On the occasion of the National Day of Spain, Ambassador Inigo de Palacio Espana organized a reception attended by many guests in the political, business, diplomatic and public life of Serbia.

Italian Ambassador Mr. Armando Varikio (left), Spanish Ambassador Mr. Espana and members of the Spanish Embasy.

Vik Jensen (right), from The Young Diplomats Association (YDA) welcomes staff from the Embassy of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar to the "Welcome to Belgrade Cocktail", held at Belgrade Art Hotel on the 28th September, an annual event held by The YDA to welcome new diplomatic staff to Belgrade and Serbia.

18. 10. 2011.

Marking the 66th anniversary of the Indonesian Army, the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia and the offices of the Indonesian military attaché in Belgrade organized a shooting tournament at the shooting club "Partizan".

The participants of the tournament were members of the diplomatic corps, representatives of foreign military attaches accredited to Serbia, and representatives of the Serbian Government and military industry.

12. 10. 2011.

On the ocasion of the "Serbian Business Angels Network" in Serbia, the Serbian British Business Club organized a presentation for the members of Serbian business society.

HM British Ambassador Michael Davenport (left), Mark Harrison from Harrisons Solicitors and James Thornley from KPMG.

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Mark Harrison (left), Vladimir Milovanovic from Energoprojekt and Srdjan Šaper, McCann Grupa.

20. 10. 2011.

Nina Bulatović, KPMG and Branislav Novčić, aim.

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On the occasion of the National Day of Hungary, the Hungarian Ambassador to Belgrade, H.E. Oszkar Nikowitz (middle), organized a reception at the Hyatt Hotel, Belgrade, which was attended by members of the diplomatic corps and representatives of political parties, business and public life in Serbia.

25. 10. 2011.

On the occasion of the National Day of the Czech Republic, the Ambasador of Czech Republic H.E. Ms. Hana Hubačkova has organized a reception.

20. 10. 2011.

At a reception at the Embassy of France, the French Ambassador to Serbia, Francois-Xavier Denio, Ambassador of the EU Delegation in Serbia, Vincent Degert and Serbian Defence Minister, Dragan Sutanovac, welcomed two officers and new crewmembers of the future frigate "Floreal". They will be the first members of the Serbian Army in a European Union peacekeeping mission.

German Ambasador H.E. Wolfram Mass (left), Norwegian Ambassador H.E. Nils Ragner Kamsvaag and French Ambassador H.E. FrancoisXavier Denio.

24. 10. 2011.

On the 24th October, in the ceremonial hall of the University of Belgrade, Ambassador of Japan to Serbia H.E. Toshio Tsunozai (right) and Rector of Belgrade University Prof. Dr. Branko Kovačević invited guests to attend the lecture, “In Search for Peace: Europe, Asia and Japan“ by Mr. Yasushi Akashi, senior Japanese diplomat.

H.E. Hana Hubačkova (left) and U.S. Ambassador H.E. Marry Warlick.

18. 10. 2011.

26. 10. 2011.

On the 26th of October, the Ambassador of the People’s Democratic of Algeria to Serbia, H.E. Abdelkader Mesdoua, invited select members of the Serbian press to a working lunch, at the Algerian Embassy in Belgrade, in order to establish connections and provide an opportunity for an informal discussion. Guests left content and full of praise for their “Excellent” host.

The Serbian Association of Managers together with Karanovic & Nikolic organized a working breakfast for the new Company Law. Jelena Vuckovic, Partner, outlined the dramatic changes introduced by the Company Law on the 4th June this year, and provided an overview of the new obligations placed on companies, as well as the timeframe within which all companies are to harmonize their operations in order to be in line with the new law. cordeditorial@cma.rs

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music

Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra

Fridays at Eight ■ By Sonja Ćirić

Tasovac, the youngest and, according to many, the most successful director of the Belgrade Philharmonic ever. During the last few seasons, the orhcestra has collaborated with renowned conductors and soloists like Zubin Mehta, Sara Chang, Krzysztof Penderecki, ocal journalists say that there is always someting to Sir Neville Marriner, Ivry Gitlis, Barry Douglas, Sol Gabetta etc. write about the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra even Also, in the last few years, the Orchestra had outstanding tour when there isn’t anything news worthy to report. Forperformances and guest appearances in Italy, Austria, Sweden, eign media say that the orchestra is the one of the leadFrance, and Slovenia. It took part in the Ravello Festival, pering European orchestras (The Independent), Serbia’s formed in Strasbourg at a celebration apropos Serbia’s presidency cult orchestra (The Financial Times), the over the Council of Europe, while its tour most successful cultural institution in This year’s concert season began in Sweden was the longest tour of any Serbia, (Jutarnji List) and the most powphilharmonic orchestra in that country. with the news that almost all erful PR weapon of Serbia (Kvällsposten, In Belgrade, you can listen to the orupcoming concerts are sold out chestra Malmö). Local cultural experts and pubat the central hall of the Ilija M. lic say that the Belgrade Philharmonic is one of the most imporKolarac Endowment every Friday, at 8 o’clock. tant pillars of Serbian cultural life, while foreign critics are talking LATEST NEWS: This year’s concert season began with the about the Orchestra in superlatives. news that almost all upcoming concerts are sold out. That is no coThe Orchestra was founded 88 years ago, and, in the last ten incidence since the same thing has happened in the past few years. years, has been the leading national ensemble. Each of its 98 muThis year’s interest for tickets was probably sparked following the sicians should be credited for that, as should its conductor Ivan Orchestra’s huge success in Dubrovnik last summer, where, on the

They say it is the pillar of Serbian cultural reality and our best export product

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■ Photo by R. Gordon

which they are going to hold five concerts with the same conductors, soloists and programmes. Each orchestra will perform in its hometown with its chief conductor, as well as give guest performances in the other two cities. During these guest performances, the Belgrade Philharmonic will be directed by Muhai Tang, the Zagreb Philharmonic by Dmitri Kitayenko, and the Slovenian Philharmonic by Emmanuel Villaume. At the remaining two concerts, the Slovenian, Zagreb and Belgrade philharmonics will be directed by American conductors Andrew Grams and Jonathan Schiffman. Nevena Šinka says that “this unique programme has been carefully selected based on the subscribers ’preferences and experiences of all three orchestras.” They will be performing the works of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Ravel, Rachmaninoff, Mendelssohn, Stravinsky, Saint-Saëns, Copland, Glass, Hanson and Schoenfield. Four world-class pianists - Andrei Gavrilov, Alexei Volodin, Andrew von Oeyen and Andreas Boyde - and violoncellist Monika Leskovar, will participate in the project.

This September saw the beginning of a concert cycle called ’Five New Years’ with the Philharmonic celebrating New Year according to the Hebrew, Islamic, Gregorian, Julian and Chinese calendar. Bearing in mind the huge popularity of these concerts last year, the Philharmonic has decided to include this New Year’s Cycle in the regular concert season in the future. The Zubin Mehta Foundation has received support from the EU for this five-concertcycle. Chairman of the Foundation’s Managing Board, Igor Jecl says that they got the inspiration for the project from different 27th August, it performed with Zubin Mehta at the opening of the cultures and traditions celebrating the New Year according to calJulian Rachlin & Friends Festival. The Držić Poljana was packed endars different to the Gregorian. He adds that New Year celebraand the Belgrade Philharmonic performed an overture and arias tions in those cultures is very often recognized as an important elfrom Mozart’s opera The Marriage ement of the cultural, religious and of Figaro, Mendelssohn’s Violin The Zubin Mehta Foundation announced even national identity.

Concerto and Brahms’ Second SymIn October, the Belgrade Philthat the acclaimed architect Santiago phony. Croatian media called the harmonics has had three premieres Calatrava would design the building that that will be also presented at the Belgrade Philharmonics’ concert would house the Belgrade Philharmonic two-week tour of 13 towns in Italy ‘the Festival’s biggest sensation’.

“Zubin Mehta conducted the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra four times in the last ten years, and the last concert was held in February,” PR of the Belgrade Philharmonic, Nevena Šinka says. “The entire proceeds from the two galas were donated to the Belgrade Philharmonic Foundation Zubin Mehta. The famous conductor has been the Foundation’s honorary president for the past five years. He spoke about his dream of building a brand new concert hall for the Belgrade Philharmonic and said that “An orchestra of such high quality is the best ambassador of Serbia’s culture.”

In September, the three regional philharmonic orchestras – Slovenian, Zagreb and Belgrade – launched the project called Pika-Točka-Tačka, which is the first culture project of such scale. The project had been instigated by the direcSantiago Calatrava’s, drawing dedicated to the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra tors of the three national philharmonic orchestras and is endorsed by the respective countries’ presidents, prime ministers, in December. Our renowned violinist Stefan Milenković will culture ministers, mayors and the U.S. embassies. As of next year, perform the works of Wagner, Paganini, Saint-Saens and Liszt the Slovenian, Zagreb and Belgrade philharmonic orchestras will with conductor Charles Olivieri Munroe from Canada. At the have a special subscription programme - Pika-Točka-Tačka, during same time, the media reported about a contract signed with Opus cordeditorial@cma.rs

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3 agency that will organize a U.S. tour for the Belgrade PhilharAs one of the close followers of Hans Swarowsky and the former monic, which will take place in early 2014. The Philharmonic will assistant to Karajan, maestro Rahbari worked with over 120 orperform at the most prestigious concert halls of New York, Washchestras. During his first guest appearance with the Belgrade Philington, Chicago, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. harmonic, he formed a special bond with the orchestra, calling it FOUNDATION: The Belgrade Philharmonic Zubin Mehta “Young, fresh and motivated.” It is worthy to note that Rahbari Foundation was formed in 2004 with the aim of “Purchasing good conducts without using any partitur. quality instruments for the orchestra and providing funds for hirTHE BUILDING: In February, the Zubin Mehta Foundation ing famous conductors,” as Ivan Tasovac put it. The Foundation’s announced that the acclaimed architect Santiago Calatrava would main goals are finding the location and drafting the project for design the new building that would house the Belgrade Philharthe new concert hall, developing cultural projects in cooperation monic. Despite the current hall being an appealing concert venue, with philharmonics from neighbouring countries, as well as prowith excellent soundproofing, it only has 201 seats, which is why moting classical music amongst younger generations. Zubin Meit is usually used for chamber and solo concerts, rehearsals and hta has conducted the Belgrade Philharmonic on three occasions audio-video recordings. The Belgrade Philharmonic holds its conwithout charging a fee. To illustrate just how close Mehta is with certs in the Kolarac University Hall, which is the only real conthe Belgrade Philharmonic, let us just cert hall in Belgrade. “It say that, apart from his concert fees, The three regional philharmonic orchestras – is of utmost importance he transferred the copyright to his au- Slovenian, Zagreb and Belgrade – launched the for this project to be tobiography to the Foundation as his implemented,” architect project called Pika-Točka-Tačka, which is the publisher.

Calatrava said during “The Foundation’s aim is to set first culture project of such scale his stay in Belgrade. “It is so important because of the young and ambitious people who make the Belgrade Philharmonic and are working on a project which is immensely important both for the city and the country. Building a new concert hall for the Belgrade Philharmonic undoubtedly implies investing in new generations. The project, that is realized on the Danube Zubin Mehta, Conductor Muhai Tang, Conductor River banks, is also very imporup a long-term strategic collaboration with domestic and foreign tant, since the river is one of Europe’s most significant cultural companies, and with international institutions and citizens themtrails. The link that will be established with Central Europe, i.e. selves. We want us and our partners to improve through this partGermany, Austria and Hungary, will make Belgrade the cultural nership, as, aside from all modesty, we want Serbia to benefit from capital of the Balkan area,” Calatrava added. it too,” Ivan Tasovac said.

VOICE FROM THE ORCHESTRA: The Belgrade PhilharmonCONDUCTOR GUEST APPEARANCE: Chinese conductor ic would not be what it is today if it weren’t for musicians of excepMuhai Tang will be the Belgrade Philharmonic Chief Conductor tional virtuosity. The head of the violoncello section and a member during the 2010 / 2011 season. “I am enjoying the first season very of the Philharmonic’s Managing Board, Aleksandar Latković says much. We have worked really well together and have already had that he is “Playing with musicians who can be compared to cats – several truly unforgettable evenings. We also need to work on a while juggling the most demanding works of classical music, they different style and level of performance. We should start to work always manage to land on their feet.” “My inspirational colleagues hard on the international tour,” Muhai Tang said about his first are sinking their teeth into the most demanding symphonic masconcert season in Belgrade terpieces this season like Gustav Mahler’s Fifth, Sixth and Ninth As of next season, the famed Austrian – Iranian conductor Symphony. Their sharp senses react to the slightest tremble of the Alexander Rahbari will perform as a guest conductor. “That pracsoul of the soloists they are accompanying. Regardless of which tically means that, as of next season, the Belgrade Philharmonic conductor or soloist stands before them, whether renowned or will have the privilege of working with yet another music aunew, they play every piece like it was composed only them, even in thority who adds to the orchestra’s quality – maestro Rahbari – in the case of the most performed masterpieces of Beethoven, Tchaikaddition to chief conductor Muhai Tang. Since his first encounovsky and Brahms. Since 2003, when I joined this rejuvenated ter with the orchestra, maestro Rahbari has managed to form a group of artists ready to quickly adapt and become soul mates to trusted relationship with the musicians. The result of this was four every guest virtuoso, I have become a part of tradition – each Frifantastic concerts in the last nine months. To top it all, Rahabari day, at 8 o’clock, in the packed Kolarac Hall, we are serving a prodwas appointed the standing guest conductor,” Nevena Šinka adds. uct which freshness is guaranteed,” Latković says. ■ 58 |

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www.business-dialogue.eu

feature what jobs left behind and what happens next

Apple Not

So Sweet

■ By Max williams

Steve Jobs, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur who reinvented the world’s computing, music and mobile phone industries and changed the daily habits of millions around the globe, died on 05/10/11, at the age of 56. His death after years-long battle with pancreatic cancer sparked an immediate outpouring of tributes as business rivals, world leaders and admirers alike lamented the tragedy of his premature ending and celebrated his monumental achievements

F

acebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page: “Steve, thank you for being a mentor and a friend. Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world. I will miss you.”

U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement, “The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented.”

“For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honour,” said Microsoft’s Bill Gates.

Apple faces challenges in the absence of the man who was its chief product designer, marketing guru and salesman nonpareil. Phones running Google’s Android software are gaining shares in the smartphone market, and there are questions over what the next big thing is in Apple’s product line.

Steve Jobs changed the technology world in the late 1970s, when the Apple II became the first personal computer to gain a wide following and he did it again in 1984 with the Macintosh.

The rebel streak that’s central to his persona got him tossed out

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of the company in 1985, but he returned in 1997 and after a few years began the rollout of products - the iPod, the MacBook and the iPad - that again upended the established order in major industries. Jobs’ death came just one day after Cook presented a new iPhone at the kind of gala event that became Jobs’ trademark. Perhaps coincidentally, the new device got lukewarm reviews, with many saying that it wasn’t a big enough improvement over the existing version of the iPhone 4.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life,” Jobs said during a Stanford commencement ceremony in 2005.

Jobs transformed the music industry with iPod players and

Rivals

Success

Future

Samsung produces the closest competitors by sales. The two companies are scrapping for the top position.

Jobs reinvented the music business model. iTunes became the most successful music retailer on the planet.

The California-based company recorded revenues of €20.4bn - short of many analysts expectations.

the iTunes online shop, where people could buy digitized music and guided Apple from the brink of financial ruin to a lofty place amongst the world’s most valuable companies before his death. However, thinking of Jobs merely as the man behind Apple’s resurrection would be on par with thinking of Elvis Presley as just a man that made cool music. As did Elvis, Jobs altered the rhythm of modern life. “His legacy goes way beyond Apple,” Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg said after Jobs ceded the company helm to chief operating officer Tim Cook in August for health reasons.

Jobs reinvented the music business model. Not only did he have a consumer electronics hit with iPod, but iTunes became the most successful music retailer on the planet. With the launch of the iPhone, Jobs set in motion a shift to mobile computing on handheld gadgets that Internet giants such as Google and Facebook have embraced as the future.

He also had marketing magic so potent that people camp out in the streets to be the first to get their hands on Apple’s new creations.

“Apple no longer has someone as creative and ambitious as Jobs that they can rely on,” said Simon Liu, of Polaris Group’s fund unit.

Apple faces challenges in the absence of the man who was its chief product designer, marketing guru and salesman nonpareil In a sign of stiffening competition, Amazon.com took the wraps off its Kindle Fire tablet that analysts said poses a serious threat to the dominance of the two-year-old iPad. In Asia, the fortunes of Samsung are more closely tied to Apple. Analysts have said Samsung is one of the best-placed companies to deliver something fresh and exciting to rival Apple. Samsung produces the closest competitor by sales to Apple’s iPad tablet – the Galaxy tablet. The two companies are scrapping for the top position in the smartphone market, having overtaken Nokia, the market leader for the past decade, in the second quarter of 2011.

Apple is also Samsung’s biggest customer through the sale of mobile chips and display screens. The relationship and rivalry has helped Samsung become a top global brand over the past decade with a stock market value of around €118 billion - still modest compared with Apple’s €349 billion. However, the relationship has also produced tensions over mobile devices. The two companies have sued each other in 10 countries involving more than 20 cases since April.

“Steve Jobs was particularly passionate about the enforcement of Apple’s intellectual property,” said Florian Mueller,

an intellectual property expert. “From a strategic point of view, Mr Jobs’ successor doesn’t have a choice other than to fight equally hard.”

Jobs had few kind words for his competitors. Rivals were “flummoxed” by the iPad, he declared in March. “They went back to the drawing boards. They tore up their designs because they weren’t competitive,” Jobs said. Lee Seung-woo, technology analyst at Shinyoung Securities, said Apple had transformed the industry, but its influence would wane without Jobs at the helm of the company. “Under Jobs, Apple consolidated segmented IT sectors into one big consumer market and claimed so many victims,” Lee said. “Without Jobs, Apple’s rivals now have some time to step up and majors such as Google, Samsung, Microsoft

Jobs guided Apple from the brink of financial ruin to a lofty place amongst the most valuable companies in the world before his death and Facebook will try to fill the gap.” Jan Dawson, chief telecoms analyst at research consultancy Ovum, said Apple would do well in the short term as the company would roll out products Jobs had a hand in. “The question is whether it can continue to launch iconic and successful products without him... In the longer term, Apple risks becoming a more ordinary company without him.”

Howard Stringer, the CEO of Sony Corp said: “The digital age has lost its leading light, but Steve’s innovation and creativity will inspire dreamers and thinkers for generations.”

Apple recently posted their first set of financial results since the death of co-founder Steve Jobs. The California-based company recorded revenues of €20.4bn (£18bn) - short of many analysts expectations. Most analysts, however, agree that this is a mere temporary blip and that Apple will continue, for the foreseeable future, to remain the financial powerhouse it has become thanks to Steve Jobs. The ‘Mac Daddy’ is dead. Long live the king. ■ cordeditorial@cma.rs

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culture calendar CONCERTS MONTSERRAT CABALLE Belgrade Arena, 06 November @ 20.00 The Spanish opera diva Montserrat Caballe will perform in Belgrade Arena on 6th November as part of her farewell tour. Famous Spanish conductor Jose Collado will accompany Ms Caballe on tour, while Haris Dzinović and Snežana Savičić Sekulić will be special guests on Belgrade concert.

This is the last chance to hear live Montserrat Caballe because at the beginning of the year she announced it is time to retire after this tour, after turning 80. During this tour she will perform at all the places where she used to have concerts in the past.

Ms Caballe said about the tour “I think it will be a very nice way of rounding off musical career spanning 56 years”.

Event not to be missed.

TORSTEN GOODS QUARTET Serbian National Theatre Novi Sad, 16 November @ 20.00 Torsten Goods, guitarist and singer of GermanIrish descent, voted by international critics as emerging new force in the jazz scene will held his first concert in Novi Sad on 16th November. Torsten and his quartet will open the Jazz Festival in Novi Sad. This concert was made possible by Goethe Institut.

CLASSICAL MUSIC

DIVNA LJUBOJEVIĆ and MELODY Kolarac Foundation Hall, 5 November @ 20.00 „Smile of Eternity on the Face of the Time“ Guests: Orchestra of the School of Musical Talets – Ćuprija with professor Vladimir Nikolić FIDDLE EVENING Kolarac Foundation Hall, November @ 20.00 Events organised by Fiddle Association Student

87 November 2011

PIANO CONCERT OF STUDENTS FROM BELGRADE UNIVERSITY OF MUSIC Kolarac Foundation Hall, 9 November @ 18.00 Concert is organised by Center for Music and the entrance is free.

STRING ORCHESTRA ST.GEORGE Kolarac Foundation Hall, 10 November @ 20.00 St George String Orchestra will be accompanied by Jože Kotar on clarinet and Lev Pups on saxophone.

Concert id organised

by Jugokoncert.

BELGRADE PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA Kolarac Foundation Hall, 11 November @ 20.00 Conductor: Daniel Rajskin Solist: Julien Stekel, violonchello Program: Ljadov, Dvorszak, Šostakovič PRINCESSES AND HEROES Belgrade Arena, 18-20 November

BELGRADE PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA Kolarac Foundation Hall, 4 November @ 20.00 Conductor: Andrew Greams Solist: Andrei Gavrilov, piano Program: Stravinski, Sen Sans, Henson

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NIKOLAI LUGANSKY Kolarac Foundation Hall, 8 November @ 20.00 Piano concerto performed by Nikolai Lugansky will be held on 8th November in Kolarac Foundation Hall.

Program: Sopen Nokturno op.15. no.1, Barkarola Prelid op.45, Skerco no.4 Nokturno op.27 no.2, Ballad no.4 F, Liszt Vallee d’Oberman, Jeu d’eaux a la villa d’Este Sposaliyio, Transcedental Etide no.12, no.10

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Through artistic skating and graceful acrobatics, Disney on Ice presents “Princesses and Heroes” depicting the wonderful moments of seven Disney princesses and their princes. From 18th to 20th November in Belgrade Arena, Tinker Bell will take visitors through the inspiring stories of Ariel, the beauty, Cinderella, Tiana, Jasmine and Snow White.

Performances will have held as follows: Friday 18 November at 19:00; Saturday 19th November at 12:00, 15:30, 19:00; Sunday 20th November at 12:00, 15:30, 19:00 www.cordmagazine.com

CHAMBER ORCHESTRA OF ZEMUN Kolarac Foundation Hall, 13 November @ 11.00 STRING ORCHESTRA ST.GEORGE Kolarac Foundation Hall, 15 November @ 20.00 Solist: Roman Simović, violin Program: Beethowen

PIANO DUET Kolarac Foundation Hall, 27 November @ 11.00 Pianists Olivera Jovanović and Maja Mihić will perform in Kolarac Foundation Hall on 27th November as a part of Chamber music cycle.

DEJAN PETROVIĆ BIG BAND Sava Center, 10 November @ 20.00

Master of the trumpet and the first trumpet of the world, Dejan Petrović, will held his first solo concert at the Centre Sava on 10th November. After a number of awards won at the Trumpet Festival in Guča, as well as at the various trumpet councils around the world, Dejan Petrović made last year a further step in his career. He published CD “Breathe Deep”, containing 14 tracks, including the song “American” which became a hit not only in Serbia, but also outside our borders. Petrović’s Big Bend that accompany him on concerts is made of twelve excellent musicians, most of which came from the trumpet school of Dejans’ BELGRADE PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA Kolarac Foundation Hall, 18 November @ 20.00 Conductor: Muhai Tang Program: Mokranjac, Maler BESTER QUARTET Kolarac Foundation Hall, 22 November @ 20.00 Concert is organised by Music Center in association with Polish Embassy. Performers: Jaroslav Bester, accordion; Oleg Diiak, accordion, clarinet; Mikolaj Pospješalski, cotrabass BELGRADE PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA Kolarac Foundation Hall, 25 November @ 20.00 Conductor: Muhai Tang Solist: Aveng Sibei, flute and Milica Pašić, harph.

Program: Mozart, Maler

late father Mića Petrović, and the rest of the band amplified guitars and drums.

In addition to many of Dejan Petrović’s big hits such as “American”, “Mećavnik rumba” (music from the film “Promise Me” by Emir Kusturica), “Coton”, “BalkanChe”, “Dubočanka”, he will perform interpretations of traditional folk songs like “Nana said”, “Stop, stop Ibar water”, “Kolo” and many more. Surprise guests are promised as well as good music and entertainment.

THEATRE GLORIA Terazije Theatre, 1 November @ 20.00 One of the essential elements of the musical Gloria is original music written by acknowledged Serbian composer Kornelije Kovač. The use of colour reminiscent of the Mediterran as the setting of this unusual love story between priest and nun.

2050 – One day in November Bitef Theatre, 19 November @ 20.00 Theatre play by author Lorenz Hippe ‘2050One day in November’ (2050 – ein Tag im November) will take place in Belgrades Bitef Theatre on 19th November. It is organized

by Goethe Institut and will be performed in Serbian language.

culture news BALLET Ko To Tamo Peva National Theatre, 1 November @19.30 DANCE TANGO FESIVAL Kolarac Foundation Hall, 3 November @ 20.00 Tango Festival to be held in Kolarac Foundation Hall on 3rd November is prganised by the Tango Association.

Turkish Film Festival Museum of Yugoslav Film Archive 19-22 October The first Turkish Film Festival in Belgrade was open on Wendsday 19th of October at the Museum of Yugoslav Film Archive with the screening of a romantic drama entitled Love in Another Language (Başka Dilde Aşk ).

ART 110 YEARS OF ETHNOGRAPHY MUSEUM Ethnographic Museum, throughout November Celebrationg 110 years since the opening of Ethnigraphic Museum in Belgrade, three exhibitions were opened simulatiously in this museum of long tradition - Child Costume, In search of textile and Clothers in Serbia during 20th Century.

From 19th until 22nd October, the Turkish cinema lovers were able to enjoy the magic of contemporary Turkish artists. The program included seven movie works of Turkish directors lksen Basarir, Yüksel Aksu, Abdullah Oguz, Çagan Irmak, Yusuf Kurçenli, Reha Erdem and Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

Blues Stock Festival Dom Omladine 20-21 October

FILM 10th FESTIVAL OF ITALIAN CONTEMPORARY FILM, Jugoslovenska Kinoteka, 23 -27 November Tenth Festival of Contemporary Italian Films will offer this year the best selection of Italian film production, representing Belgrade audience also movies that competed on Venice and Cane Film Festivals. This Festival of Italian Conteporary Film was made possible by colaboration between Italian Cultural Centre and Italian Federation of Kino Clubs.

Oktoberfest in Belgrade Mercedes Benz Show Room 30 September-1 October

German Ambassador Wolfram Maas opened the second “Oktoberfest”, which took part in Belgrade on 30th September and 1st October.

“German businessmen who are coming here, easily get to know Serbian way of enjoying the life and with the Oktoberfest, we want to show how we in Germany spend our after work time and how we have fun,” Maas told reporters during the opening.

This year’s Blues Stock Festival celebrated two important jubilees: thirty years of Belgrade blues scene and the festival’s tenth anniversary.

From the first VoxStock in 2002 until Blues Stock Festival 2011 we have enjoyed the performances of the representatives of blues scenes of Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Croatia,

Hungary, Romania, Greece, Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Great Britain, Russia, a few performers from the cradle of blues – the USA as well as almost all active Serbian blues musicians.

This year, during two festival evenings there were performances by the legends of Serbian blues - Blues Trio, Raw Hide, Point Blank, Di Luna Blues Band, Blue Family and from the younger generation: Nenad Zlatanović (from Texas Flood). Also guests from the USA and Germany performed -Terry Evans with his bend and Todor Todorovic’s Blues Company.

PAINTING AND GRAPHICS Singidunum Gallery 18-20 October ULUPUDSs (Association of Applied Artists and Designers of Serbia) exhibition of paintings and graphic is held since 2007 in over thirty cities in Balkan Congress of Magicians Dečiji Kulturni Centar 8-9 October

The eighth Balkan congress of magician was held in Belgrade on 8th and 9th of October where more than 50 magicians from Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Slovenia, Turkey, Croatia and Serbia performed.

They competed in the manipulation, general magic, comedy magic, close-up magic, card magic and illusion.

Magicians from Japan, Hungary and Poland will also perform as guests.

In addition, seminars were organized for the presentation of new tricks and tips. Potential new magicians were also able to buy props with instructions for performing tricks.

member’s paintings and graphics.

For the past three years, the exhibition has become a representative, an educational show on display to all pupils and students in a particular city. Also, since year 2008, the audiences in all the cities were asked to choose the work they most like. This is one of the largest art jury of over 6000 members each year.

From 18th to 20th October this exhibition was held at Singidunum Gallery in Belgrade.

56th BELGRADE BOOK FAIR Belgrade Fair 22 – 30 October The Guest of Honour for 2011, title for the first time at the Belgrade Book Fair – the title that has been reserved for countries alone, is the Portuguese language. Instead of simply bringing one country into the spotlight, the focus has been shifted to language itself.

Portuguese is the sixth most spoken language worldwide, used by about 200 million people in eight Lusophone countries. In addition to an elaborate exhibition of books in Portuguese, visitors will be presented a large number of literary works translated from this language especially for this occasion.

Moreover, many major contemporary authors from Portuguese-speaking countries have accepted the invitation to be the guests of this year’s Belgrade Book Fair.

The 56th International Belgrade Book Fair will host a joint presentation of four cultural institutes from EU countries in Belgrade – the Austrian Cultural Forum, Centre culturel français, GoetheInstitut, and Instituto Cervantes.

NEW YEAR’S BAZAART LADA Art Gallery

Serbia. The idea behind exhibition is that the audiences outside Belgrade also get the opportunity to see the latest annual works of ULUPUDS

He pointed out that the “Oktoberfest” is a good way to complete the economy development and collaboration between Serbia and Germany in that field. According to HE Maas, these relationships become even better if people know each other.

During two days of this event, organizers welcomed around 1,200 guests, mostly business people and served 2,000 liters of beer.

The venue of this event was show room space of Mercedes-Benz in New Belgrade.

cordeditorial@cma.rs

27 November @12.00 A newly opened LADA Art Gallery invites you to the first New Year’s Bazaart and to the special presentation of abstract works of art by several young and talented Serbian contemporary artists. The Bazaart will last throughout December 2011. www.galerijalada.rs |

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restaurant

Winner Winner Any Dinner ■ By Max WilliamS

Sceptical. Yes, that is the right word for what I expected from a restaurant in a casino. If I was reviewing a restaurant in Las Vegas I would be less so, but one in the Balkans... I was sceptical to say the least. On reflection, my doubts were completely unfounded.

The following review is in no way influenced my Rain Man like abilities at the blackjack tables in the casino after my meal

G

rand Casino has built a reputation on high quality. There is no better way in the region to lose considerable amounts of money, unless you are a naturally gifted money making machine like myself, in such pleasant surroundings. Arriving at the restaurant, situated in New Belgrade at Hotel Jugoslavia, my date, Rakel, and I were slightly disapThere is a mix of cuisine from across pointed. I would be lying if I said I was a regular ca- the world at Diva, and the only trouble sino goer, but I have seen I had was in deciding what to eat enough films and TV sethis compariries to know that there should be a door attendant to greet you. son is exclusiveHowever, this slight oversight by Grand Casino was the only ly based on the error that particularly annoyed me. way it looks. A I am now a member of casino. Only certain eateries in the suspended ceilcasino require one to be a member, but both my date and I ing, warm colknew that she was planning to lose a considerable amount of ours and the unorthodox layout are very elegantly done and her trust fund and thus it wasn’t a major hassle to go through came as a real surprise. I had been expecting something more the form and photograph process. For some strange reason, or vulgar, but the design team have got the decor spot on. maybe because I have fantasies of being James Bond, I liked Given the choice of sitting on the comfortable looking sofas the security aspect of it all. I like that it makes you feel apart of or at a table, we chose the latter option. I find it slightly odd that something exclusive, although anyone who looks relatively deyou would want to dine sat on a sofa – I am not eating at home cent and is over-18 can become a member of the casino.

– but I do understand that for a snack and a cocktail or two What everyone cannot do on the other hand is eat at Diva it makes sense. The gold and frosted glass tabletop could look restaurant. Diva, refurbished in October, is the best restaurant gaudy in a different setting, but at Diva, being in a casino after in the casino and, in my opinion, by some distance. Although

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across the chef that will fulfil this wildest of requests, but I must all, it looked the part. As did the cuttlery and everything else on admit that I was extremely happy with the circular mound of, the table, particularly my date. Correction, plate. At around 9.30 slightly undercooked, beef. The accompanying vegetables were pm you would expect a restaurant to be well occupied. Diva very small and if I had the choice I would have added a few was not. At 10.00 pm though, it was close to bursting point. The more to the plate. All that being said, it does not take away swing music that had welcomed us was replaced by a, thankfulfrom the first-rate cooking and texture of the beef. ly, good live band. Every chair, and sofa, was filled.

For an aperitif, we had a glass of delicious sparkling wine, brought to us by what turned out to be our exceptional waiter for the evening. Relaxed and mightily surprised by the cool atmosphere, we settled in to look over the curious menu. Curious is not meant in a negative context, rather it is meant as a compliment. There is a mix of cuisine from across the world at Diva, and the only trouble I had was in deciding what to eat. There is the choice of taRakels dish was equally, if not better prepas, pasta, meats and salads.

The very large shrimps on top of pared. The very large shrimps on top of the Whilst not overly extensive, the vivid orangey red sauce looked vivid orangey red sauce looked marvellous the menu is well thought out and the dishes complimarvellous and tasted even better and tasted even better. This time I had absolutely no criticisms and ment each other nicely. neither did she. It can As anyone who is a regular reader of CorD will know, I am be very disappointing to stickler for presentation. Luckily for my nerves, and my dates order shrimp and then ears, the presentation of the meal was spot on. To start I chose what gets served looks two tapas dishes and Rakel the ravioli. My first tapas dish was more like a cashew nut the filet mignon with herbed butter. To say it was “well done” swimming in an olymwould be confusingly accurate. The fine strips of high quality pic sized pool. This is tenderloin were slightly rare and perfectly tender. The second not the case at Diva. To of my two dishes were the Peking duck rolls. I have had a cravdrink with the meal we ing for duck for the last few months and I was treated to one both had a glass of white of the best examples I have ever eaten. Generally, I do not like wine, her the chardonthe plum sauce that accompanies this dish, however chef Jovica nay, me the sauvignon Neskovic has nailed it. Sticky but un-glue like, a lovely colour blanc. Clearly when I orand sweet without being overpowering, I am sure he has some dered the wine, I forgot Chinese relatives in his family tree. My date had the ravioli I was having the steak, stuffed with prawns in lobster sauce. The two large squares of (please ignore this amafilled pasta were beautifully presented (all the dishes arrived on teurish oversight on my part). Despite my stupidity, my selecseparate plates to the two preset on the table) and tasted divine tion was a good one. Serbian wines can be a bit hit and miss, with finely chopped prawns and just the right amount of sauce. hence the decision to go French, but my dates chardonnay was My initial starvation now somewhat subdued, we waited one of the better Serbian wines I have tried. patiently for the mains. The live band now in full swing, on Diva is a restaurant that I would put up there with the best the permanent stage, and the bald female singer doing her own Belgrade has to offer. Not only is the food wonderful, the attake on the classics, we were getting in the right mood to hit mosphere fantastic and the service brilliant, there is also the the casino floor. But not before I ate the beefsteak with glazed chance to win back the money you have paid for a great meal. vegetables, croutons and a chicken spread, and my date her The prices at Diva are realistic for what is on offer (mains are shrimp with ouzo and feta cheese. all around the 1700 rsd mark) so you don’t need to be a high I like my steak medium to well done, however I am yet roller to eat there. What you also definitely don’t need is luck. to encounter a chef that understands that this means I do not Diva is probably the only place inside Grand Casino that is anwant it more rare done than well done. Note to chefs: you do ything but a gamble. ■ know best, but I know what I want. Alas, I still have not come cordeditorial@cma.rs

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sport Rugby World Cup 2011

Risk Pays Off

The decision by New Zealand to bid was a calculated gamble but one that has paid off and will continue to do so in the years ahead. A hosting fee of NZ$150m (€86.3m) was paid to the International Rugby Board (IRB) just for the privilege to stage the event

17,000-seater Rugby Park in Invercargill, NZ. The sport also suffers from a lower profile in England and, as a result, the organisers face a huge task to retain the inclusivity that has made this tournament so special. They inherit a World Cup richer for New Zealand’s handling of the honour.

Even before the kickoff for the final on Sunday 23rd October, television advertising in the Rugby World Cup was being written off as a creative dead zone. The games made fantastic television, ■ By Max Williams but few TV commercials around them had been entertaining. he sport’s governing body also keeping all commer“Ads have been interruptions that do not bring any added value cial revenue including that generated from the lucrafor viewers,” said advertising commentator Martin Gillman. The tive broadcasting and sponsorship deals. In addition, ad spaces between the national anthems and haka at the start of NZ spent in the region of NZ$300m (€172m) readythe game - created by the International Rugby Board to boost reving itself with the construction of the Otago Stadium, a shinenue - had been particularly disappointing, “There’s been no sense ing example of the results of that exlike with the Superbowl in the United Even before the kickoff for the final, States that these prime spots should be penditure. Rugby New Zealand 2011 television advertising in the Rugby the showcase for advertising,” Gillman (RNZ 2011), formed by the New Zealand Government and the New ZeaWorld Cup was being written off as said. “I thought retailers would have land Rugby Union (NZRU) in 2006 done something special.” Other ad peoa creative dead zone to deliver the tournament, set about ple blamed the restrictions around the recouping that substantial outlay with tickets sales their only event by the IRB. “I think some advertisers just did not want to means of balancing the books. make the investment because of the restrictions,” said DDB AdverIn many ways, England (2015 hosts) cannot hope to replicate tising executive creative director Toby Talbot. this tournament, even if they wanted to. The proposed scale of “When I look at the local official sponsors for the broadcasting RWC’15 will dwarf this one with a target of 2.8m tickets sales coverage - Telecom, Bunnings, The Warehouse and Harvey Norcompared to 1.35m for RWC’11. Stadiums like the 76,000 caman - I wonder why they bothered paying twice the normal rate pacity Old Trafford replacing much smaller venues such as the to be included in the RWC package,” Gillman said. He went on

T

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to predict advertisers would think twice about big future sports the government’s part of that tab, and the investments in stadiums packages, because of the heavy policing and ambush campaigns. and other infrastructure has created legacy assets. He says the big“Everyone will take stock on what happened.” ger picture is that people are going to go home after the event and Heineken though has extended its sponsorship of the Rugsay they had a magnificent time in New Zealand.

by World Cup to remain its official beer supplier and worldAn independent study commissioned by MasterCard durwide partner for the 2015 tournament in England. The deal ing the tournament indicated that the event was due to deliver gives Heineken a package of worldwide rights, including use NZ$750 million (€433.3m) in direct economic benefits for New of Rugby World Cup 2015 event marks and designations in Zealand and over NZD$2 billion (€1.1b) in long-term benefits. promotional tie-ins, pouring rights in Revenues from the Rugby World Cup stadia at all official Rugby World Cup 2011 commercial programme, includoutlets and digital content rights to use ing broadcast, sponsorship and travel across social media platforms. Heineken and hospitality in the end delivered an has been sponsoring the Rugby World estimated £80 billion (€91.1 billion) net Cup since 1995 and said its sponsorship surplus boost to the Game. of the 2011 tournament in New Zealand The Rugby World Cup has been lahad been very successful. Chief commerbelled as the third biggest sporting event cial officer Alexis Nasard said: “As the world’s most international premium beer brand, we are delighted again to be an integral part of the world’s premier rugby tournament for 2015.”

Worldwide, more than four billion people watched the Rugby World Cup this year, but Heineken said digital media had also been an integral part of its sponsorship campaign. With digital content on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, the brand doubled its followers on Twitter and got more than a million views on YouTube.

A daunting revenue target of NZ$268.5 m (€154m) was set by NZ, however it was passed at the end The decision by New Zealand to bid was a of the tournament, even before calculated gamble but one that has paid off and the third place will continue to do so in the years ahead game after the final. It is almost laughable that a World Cup as successful as this in the world by the International Rugby Board. The original precould still generate substantial losses in the region of NZ$40m diction of the economic impact in 2005 was a NZ$408m (€235m) (€23m). Revenue from ticket sales surpassed the $268.5 million boost to the nation’s gross domestic product. This figure was retarget set by RNZ 2011 more than two years ago. After the World vised upwards in June 2006 to NZ$507m (€292m). A 2008 Deloitte Cup fever has died down, money generated by the huge amount report suggested a potential NZ$550m (€52m) boost to GDP. of visitors will offer far more significant returns.

The true costs and profits of the Rugby World Cup are Rugby New Zealand 2011 Chairman Brian Roche said over 87 something of a mystery. There have been no publicly released percent of the available tickets had been sold during the course of figures as to the total cost of the tournament by the country to the tournament. “Ticket revenue eclipsed, by more than 11 times, date. An estimate from the New Zealand Herald in mid-2010 the previous largest grossing event in New Zealand’s history; the was NZ$500m (€288.8) and that figure has steadily climbed 2005 British & Irish Lions. The sold-out final alone generated more since then. In comparison to the world’s biggest sporting event, than NZ$50 million (€28.8m) in revenue, twice that of the Lions’ the FIFA World Cup, which will cost the Brazilian GovernTour,” Roche said. “Significantly, we have achieved this against the ment billions, on everything from infrastructure to marketing, backdrop of a challenging economic environment and the tragic the Rugby World Cup seems something of a bargain. New ZeaChristchurch earthquakes.” land made the right decision.

Prime Minister John Key believes the Rugby World Cup was With Serbia, currently ranked at 68th best (or worst, dependant good value for money. He said the loss was always expected to be on how you look at it) in the world, it doesn’t seem very likely that around 39 million NZ dollars (€22m), that ticket sales would cover the Rugby World Cup will be coming here in the near future. ■ cordeditorial@cma.rs

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chill out

Hitler Survived WWII

rensic tests, challenges this. “We didn’t want to re-write history, but the evidence we’ve discovered about the escape of Adolf Hitler is just too overwhelming to ignore,” he said. It is alleged Hitler lived in the country for 17 years, until his death in 1962. Williams said he and Dunstan conducted intensive field research in Argentina, including interviews with many eyewitnesses.

Journalist Gerrard Williams has said he and his co-author have found an “overwhelming amount of evidence” to suggest Hitler died an old man in South America. Many historians say the Nazi leader died in his Berlin bunker in 1945 but Williams claims his research, looking at newly de-classified documents and fo-

Need for Speed

Chatty Piranhas

Planes travelling at five times the speed of sound and passenger aircraft flying in formation could be a reality in the near future, a report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME) has said. Looking towards 2075 and beyond, the report talked of: • “Scramjet” planes able to fly at around five times the speed of sound (around 4,000mph).

• Commercial aircraft flying in a V-shaped formation to save power by taking advantage of the airflow generated by the plane in front.

• The “aircraft carrier” system in which a large aircraft carries individual units that can float down to where the passenger needs to go.

• A “flying fuel station” so future planes do not have to take off with full tanks.

Despite a nasty reputation, piranhas seem to bark more often than bite. Scientists have discovered that the fearsome fish use sounds to communicate - often intimidating their rivals rather than attacking. By using underwater microphones, scientists recorded the sounds the fish made when they confronted one another both in the wild and in laboratories. They reported that each of these three sounds appeared to contain a different “message”. With animals, it’s less expensive [in terms of energy] to make a lot of noise to impress the other guys, rather than fight.” Lead researcher Eric Parmentier, from the University of Liege. Piranhas produce sounds by vibrating their swim bladders that help regulate their buoyancy.

Killers Not So Clever The language of psychopathic murderers provides a window to their souls, new research shows. The words they use “match their personalities, which reflect selfishness, detachment from their crimes and emotional flatness,” says Jeff Hancock, a professor of computing and information science at New York State’s Cornell University.

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He conducted the study with colleagues at the University of British Columbia. Their findings appear in the journal Legal and Criminological Psychology. Psychopaths were more likely to use the past tense, suggesting a detachment from their crimes, say the researchers. They tended to be less fluent in their speech, using more “ums” and “uhs.” Hannibal Lector may beg to differ... somewhat violently no doubt.

Warmer = Smaller Plants and animals are shrinking because of warmer temperatures and a lack of water researchers have found, warning it could have profound implications for food production in the not too distant future. “The worst-case scenarios... are that food crops and animals will shrink enough to have real implications

for food security,” assistant professor David Bickford, of the National University of Singapore’s biological sciences department, said. Bickford trawled through fossil records, which showed that many species of plants and creatures have shrunk over time in relation to climate change. Each degree of warming reduces the body size of marine invertebrates by 0.5 to 4% and 6 to 22% of fish.

Reincarnation More people would rather come back as Audrey Hepburn than any other popular figure if they had a second shot, an OnePoll survey for HarperCollins found.

The Breakfast at Tiffany’s star proved that beauty beats brains by leaving Albert Einstein and Sir Winston Churchill trailing in second and third. She also outshone actresses Dame Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe. The poll also found more people would come back as a cat than a dog. The top 10 stars in the poll were: 1. Audrey Hepburn; 2. Albert Einstein; 3. Sir Winston Churchill; 4.

Dame Elizabeth Taylor; 5. Julius Caesar; 6. Marilyn Monroe; 7. Diana, Princess of Wales; 8. Cleopatra; 9. John Lennon; 10.

Florence Nightingale.

Updown (Finally) Sold It was the ultimate statement of the UK property boom. Yet, despite a slick marketing campaign and coverage across the national press, no one bought it. For more than six years billionaires turned their noses up at the opulence. With grounds larger than Buckingham Palace’s and everything an oligarch or oil baron could desire, Updown Court - which developers spent at least £50 million on - just couldn’t be sold, not even at the height of the housing boom and certainly not as the property market fell apart. In fact, it’s taken 6 years and a massive £35 million knocked off the asking price of £70 million, down to £35 million, before anyone was prepared to part with cash for what was billed as “the first 21st century stately home in Britain”.

7,000,000,000,000 & Counting Just 12 years after the arrival of the 6th billionth individual on the planet in 1999, humanity was greeted by the 7th billionth arrival at the end of October. The world’s population is continuing its rapid ascent, with roughly 75 million more births than deaths each year. The consequences of a world crowded with over 7 billion people are

enormous. And unless the world population stabilizes during the 21st century, the consequences for humanity could be grim. A rising population puts enormous pressures on a planet already plunging into environmental catastrophe and the economic challenges are equally huge. Two centuries ago, the British thinker Thomas Robert Malthus famously warned that of the coming problems of excessive population growth. cordeditorial@cma.rs

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87 November 2011 | 69

travel The 10 Best Private Islands

Treasured Islands

N

ormally on the travel pages, CorD offers you a guide of the most interesting places to visit, a travel itinerary for the world grand tourer, the most luxurious spa destinations on earth and everyother travel offering considered relatively normal and affordable.

In this issue, we have decided to cater for the select few amongst our beloved readers who have the confidence, the will and above all the means to take on such an impressive investment. All of which comes nowhere near the gravity of being able to say you own your own island. For the rest of us who aren’t Bond villains, and are mere financial mortals, it makes a good read and opens the window to the most exclusive of clubs. Here are our ten best picks of private islands currently for sale.

1/10

Craro Island, Scotland €69,000

This enchanting 8 acre private island is located just off the SW coast of the Isle of Gigha, Inner Hebrides. The surrounding waters are home to seals and much bird life, with dolphins passing by regularly. The island is virtually untouched by people, yet an important part of local folklore.

The Isle of Gigha is a history-rich part of the Inner Hebrides, and the most southerly of the island chain. Influenced by warm ocean currents, the area around Gigha is relatively dry and temperate, and the scenic bays, green meadows and lochs are a perfect expression of the beauty of the Scottish Isles. The 8-acre isle of Craro itself is in a pristine state and waiting to be appreciated by its future owner.

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2/10

Plitvice Island, Croatia €350,000

Located in the backcountry of Croatia, the Plitvice Lakes are one in one of the most famous national parks in the world. The national park consists of 16 wonderful lakes separated by natural travertine dams, which have been deposited by the carbonate-encrustation of moss, algae and bacteria.

The only island at Plitvice Lakes National Park is situated in the park’s biggest lake, Lake Kozjak. The island is embedded in an incomparably well-preserved natural environment, inhabited by brown bears, wolves, eagles and wild cats. This amazing territory has also been the set for the movie “Treasure of Silver Lake”, a film based on Karl May’s adventure-stories with its protagonists Winnetou and Old Shatterhand.

3/10

Ram Island – Maine, USA €582,588 Several miles from shore in the mouth of Maine’s Machias Bay, Ram Island is unspoiled and raw, with an elemental feel to its brilliant green meadows and windswept hills. Viewed from the air, a patina of rust-hued lichens covers the rocky shore of Ram Island in an unexpected explosion of colour.

Ram Island is the last (north easternmost) island on the Maine Island trail. The trail goes from Casco Bay to Machias Bay and includes over 90 private and state owned islands.

4/10

Haapsalu Island, Estonia €1.2 million This amazing fish-shaped island is located in the Baltic Sea, 1.5km from the coastal line near well-known resort town Haapsalu (1h drive from Tallinn), the most romantic seaside area with its virgin nature, where the old legends and rich historical heritage meet the present.

Haapsalu lagoon is perfect for those whose preference is flat-water. It also prides itself on having the first specially equipped kite park in Estonia.

It is easy to fall in love with Haapsalu. Writers, artists, composers and musicians from different parts of the world have discovered Haapsalu for themselves and have left their recognizable impact on the cultural life of the town and are still creating something new on the daily basis.

5/10

Half Crown Island, Canada €1.27 million The perfect family island, just a 90-minute drive north from Ottawa, Half Crown Island sits on a pristine thirty-one mile lake. There are not shortage of private islands resorts, however it is rare to have the opportunity to purchase a unique private island resort in North America.

Half Crown’s current owners started visiting in 1979 and rented until 1993. When their predecessors got older and decided to sell, these summer tenants immediately snapped up the 3.86-acre lake isle and now spend up to five months of the year there.

They describe it as the perfect antidote to Houston’s blazing summer temperatures.

With its stands of spruce, cedar, maple, oak and birch, Half Crown Island’s autumn colours are spectacular.

cordeditorial@cma.rs

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6/10

St. Athanasios Island, Greece €1.5 million

In the Gulf of Corinth, 1.5 miles from the city of Itea and only a short distance from Delphi, the skiing resort of Parnassos and the historic port of Galaxidi, lies this beautiful island. St. Athanasios island is a small, private island, nearly knoll, of 10,811 sq. m.

Pine and olive trees are scattered all over the ground and a small sandy beach is located on the northwestern region of the island. The environment is natural and quiet, as far as internally, and the seawater that douses the seaboard is crystal-clear and rich in sea life.

St. Athanasios island is an ideal place for calm and unique natural living conditions in combination with the modern conception of a comfortable residence.

7/10

Scott Island - British Columbia, Canada €3.1 million

It’s not exactly the tropics, but this 5.26-acre island in British Columbia’s Stuart Channel is not without its charms. The price tag for Scott Island includes both a 4,500-square-foot residence and a caretaker’s cottage, both with wraparound decks and second floor balconies.

The island is accessible by boat, sea plane or helicopter, and offers views of Vancouver Island and the Pacific Ocean. The large patios and decks off the rear of the home enjoy outstanding water views. This is an extremely rare and exceptional offering.

8/10

King’s Island, Denmark €6.8 million

King’s Island is perfect in size, structure, and location to be utilized for conferences, seminars or team-building exercises. It could be a jewel in the crown of a large corporation, or several smaller companies could unite to own it jointly.

The private island purchase process for non-Danes is straightforward: The foreign buyer simply establishes a Danish company, which can in turn buy the island without any complications. For such a culturally important and ideally located property, King’s Island is priced extremely attractively and is located between Copenhagen and the Swedish city of Malmö.

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9/10

Petra Island - N.Y., USA €10 million

You probably thought all private islands were covered in coconut groves and soft white beaches (not that we don’t love those!), and then along comes Petra Island. There are currently two homes on Petra Island. The smaller of the two is a 1,200-square-foot cottage designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1950.

Petra Island has been on the market as of February 2011, but the asking price was not publicly available for sometime. Current owner Joseph Masarro bought the island and the cottage in 1991 for a reported €513,000.

10/10

Great Hans Lollik Island, U.S. Virgin Islands €32.9 million

Great Hans Lollik Island sits just 1.5 miles north of St. Thomas in the beautiful U.S. Virgin Islands. This 510-acre paradise features white sand beaches, clear turquoise waters and lush palm forests, as well as spectacular 360-degree views from elevations as high as 713 feet (217.3 meters).

The island is currently undeveloped and uninhabited, although its zoning would permit the construction of a small resort and up to 150 private residences, as well as independent utilities and a heliport. What more could you possibly need..? Lots of money!

cordeditorial@cma.rs

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techno talk gadgetry tHat you WaNt and proBaBly DoN’t NEED

PReSeNT T

here is something primevally satisfying in getting your hands on a new tool. The following products are not only technically fantastic; they are beautiful from a design standpoint. Technology is here to make life simpler, but it also, despite some opinions, can add to the ‘real-life’experience. Not many people can argue with the fact that the Internet, as possibly the best example of human advancement in technological, has helped the world (and its numerous connoisseurs of a quite popular genre) massively. Now you can search the World Wide Web from the comfort of your couch on a phone, ipod, tablet, laptop, netbook, television... the list goes on. Technology has not yet reached its peak. Take a look, on this primitive paper, of how to make your life that little bit more, shall we say, superior.

& FuTuRe gadget design ■ By Max WilliamS

Pure Twilight Price: €149.99 The Pure Twilight is not only your standard alarm clock with DAB and FM radio, it’s also a wake-up light, helping you rise and shine using a range of visual and aural effects. Dreading those cold, dark winter mornings?

The twilight can simulate dawn with a fake sunrise and wind chime sound effects making you feel like you’re waking in the countryside in spring rather than Belgrade in January. If you’re feeling a bit more lively, just plug in your iPod and use it as a standard dock. Hey presto: from pooped to party in seconds.

LeMond Revolution

Price: €450

A realistic ride on an indoor bike trainer is harder to obtain than a clean urine sample on the Tour de France. That's because rollers lack the friction necessary for calf-swelling power cadences. This pro-proven trainer uses a large flywheel in place of the back wheel to match the inertia of a rolling bike. Sure enough, as you ease off the pedals you can feel the resistence. Above everything, the design is killer.

Dyson Digital Slim DC35 Price: €235 This vacuum is Dyson through and through. Not only does it look like the kind of thing Han Solo would use to clean up the Millennium Falcon, it has tech where it counts. The head pivots swivel through 180 degrees, so it never loses contact with the floor, meaning you won’t miss a spot, and you can detach the long-reach wand to get at those awkward nooks and crannies. With one-button emptying, your days of getting dust everywhere as you struggle to fill a bin bag are long gone.

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Sharp Steamwave Price: €285 The 900 Watt AX-100SLM oven from Sharp lets you steam your way to a healthier life, with less fat and more nutrients. A grill and microwave are also built in, so you can choose your cooking method depending on your mood, what ingredients you have to hand and how virtuous you are feeling. The operations are touch sensitive and the LCD display lets you see how long is left.

Bang & Olufsen Beosound 8

Price: €1000

Aimed straight at the audiophiles, this system, like most gadgetry from B&O, brings in technology and innovation, which is barely rivaled in the audio industry. The 8 system gives its users the option to dock with either a PC or Mac. Music on a docked or USB linked device can be controlled via the dedicated round remote control or of course your existing Beo4 or Beo6 remote controls.

Google TV Price: €450 & Up Others may have dabbled with TV apps, but this is the real deal – full web browsing on your television, so you can check your email, read the news, check Twitter, watch YouTube and more from the comfort of your lounge.

It’s had initial teething problems in the US, but partnering with Sony and Logitech, big things are expected when it hits Europe hard.

Parrot ZIKMU Speakers

Price: €1150

As well as offering top music freeing via a topmounted iPod dock, its own internet radio app, streaming via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and amazing sound quality, these Philippe Starck-designed speakers look just as striking as they ever have.

cordeditorial@cma.rs

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techno talk

Virtual Views Price: On Application Sky V is the illusion of real sky, a virtual skylight displaying the essence of nature's sky events in vivid, hours-long, UltraHD sequences. Sky V is a ceiling-mounted system of precision monitors integrated into a faux skylight framework. Not everyone is blessed with a pay packet big enough to have an apartment or home with stunning views but now you can have any view you want — anywhere.

Dyson Hot Price: €400 The Dyson Hot fan heater uses air multiplier technology for long-range heat projection to heat any room evenly. There are no fast-spinning blades or visible heating elements, so it’s easy to clean and lends it a “Jetsons” look.

There is also an automatic cut out that switches off the unit if it’s tipped over.

Hetating has never been so cool.

SupreMe Wardrobe Price: On Application This over-the-top, opulent, high-tech SupreME wardrobe by Italian architect Vudafieri Saverino & furniture design company Saporiti is essentially a container that is partitioned/organized into sections for various items and accessories. It is also equipped with a biometric and gesture recognition ‘meta mirror’ that enables the user to enjoy a multi-media experience while dressing. Did you ever imagine that an everyday activity such as dressing up could be so intelligent and exciting?

Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 4 (85 inch) Price: €69,000 It is no surprise that Bang & Olufsen's first 3D TV also happens to be one of the most expensive sets ever produced. Perhaps it's just the size of the screen that creates such enveloping intensity, but a run-through of 3D Blu-ray delivers some of the most convincing 3D pictures I have ever seen. A fine way to spend (gulp) €69,000.

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Where is it

HeAdING

D

espite the impending global crises - floods, famine, asteroids etc. the future is looking extremely bright in terms of design. There may be a contentious argument to say that things designed now will not possibly look that way in the future, but it does give us a very good idea of the direction in design, materials and processes of the gadgets in the future. Cast your terminator red-eye over these soon to be in your home, and teenagers bedrooms everywhere, future beauties.

Corning Glass Table & Mirror Can you imagine organizing your daily schedule with a few touches on your bathroom mirror? Chatting with far-away relatives through interactive video on your kitchen counter? Reading a classic novel on a whafer-thin piece of flexible glass? Corning is not only imagining those scenarios – the company is engaged in research that could bring them alive in the not-too-distant future.

Eclipse If every home had workspaces like the Eclipse partition system, I might not be so terrified of becoming a work-at-home writer. Designer Marcus Curran came up with this, and the central idea behind this contraption is versatility.

Its retractable hood allows for various levels of privacy and access to accommodate to the changing work flow of one's daily job... not to mention room for a few shiny gadgets.

Sony’s Apple Remote Control Is there any place for innovation when it comes to the design of remote controls? Apparently, there is. This Sony ”apple” allows users to perform basic functions like changing channels, volume etc. with simple motion gestures.

Once “apples” are placed on the bowl, the remote control is being recharged.

Neither price nor production dates are known.

Change It! Called simply “Change it!” this is basically a big wall of small triangle panels, which can be rotated to get the color of your choice. Each triangle carries white, black, and rainbow shades. This design is suitable for those of us who are easily bored, because you can change to the colour you prefer. You do not need to be confused choosing liquid paint to beautify your home interior design anymore.

Future Kitchen The future kitchen may be almost unrecognizable by today’s ideas for modern kitchen design. The future of kitchen design will be driven by the need to be environmentally friendly, efficient, and durable but at the same time elegant and sophisticated. In thirty years time, the kitchen will be so technologically advanced that it will almost be alive. cordeditorial@cma.rs

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fashion

Autumn Trench Coats

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A good choice that will never go out of style. A trench coat, or trenchcoat, is a raincoat made of a waterproof heavy-duty cotton drill or poplin, wool gabardine, or leather. Burberry basically invented the trench, and they still do it very nicely. The feeling is that a good raincoat serves as a mildweather overcoat and you can wear it just about any time there’s enough chill in the air. Our suggestion would be to tie the belt in front, because then it gives you a noticeable waist (women particularly should use it), which accounts for a lot of the charm of the trench. You could use the buckle, but that looks a little buttoned-up, or even anal.

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A

u tumn is possibly the most difficult time of year to dress stylishly. The main factor in the style problem is how to dress appropriately cool in this tricky season. Layers are the key so you do not over commit to either winter or summer wear. To be well-dressed is a must for anyonewho values their appearance, therefore follow our autumn style guide and blow, rain and shine the fashion faux pas away.

For those who want to add a little movie-star glamour to their winter wardrobe, a camel coat could be the answer. This sumptuous colour suits most skin tones and is a softer alternative to black.

Choose a three-quarter length, belted style if you want glamour, or opt for a classic crombie to smarten up your office look.

Camel Coats

If you had to organize your wardrobe by season, you would probably put your turtlenecks in the winter section. And although it is unlikely that you’ll be strolling down to the beach in a wool pullover and your boardshorts, turtlenecks can be more than just a chunky sweater for the cold winter months.

Men’s turtlenecks particularly are a great item for cool days, but fine-knit luxurious fabrics and slim-fitting styles make them equally suitable for a night at the bar or a day on the slopes.

cordeditorial@cma.rs

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Tweed

Tweed is back, but take care in how you wear it. The tweed jacket can be refreshing and cool, but it needs to be done right. Tweed gets a bad rap from old school professors who wear it with patches on the elbows. It can be worn with style. People tend to think of tweed as “country” wear, where sophisticates sip on cognac and smoke pipe tobacco while wearing a fine tweed jacket, however If you want to do tweed in the city at night, you may be able to pull it off with the right fit and complementary clothes.

The style for this non-committed season should be worn in a casual way and look young. These coats are to be worn over a suit, and more and more a topcoat can be a cool thing to wear on the weekend. If you won’t try the double-breasted suit, the doublebreasted coat is a cool thing because once you button it up, it keeps you twice as warm. The important thing for a double-breasted coat is it has to fit, it has to fit slim and that actually keeps you warmer because it prevents the wind from coming up. With tweeds, camel, cashmere and solids the choice is yours.

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Double-breasted Coat

These are not your typical cardigans. At the point of maturity in an adult’s wardrobe, one should have cardigans. This is a chance for you to buy something that makes a nod to that varsity jacket. These are collegiate, that’s a cool thing. It doesn’t mean go back to university, it means you can look like a cool, young, hip-thing. They add robustness and colour. They are graphic and, again, slimcut. They are strong enough to wear on their own. Do not hiding these underneath a coat.

Run, don’t walk, to your favourite style shop and put down some cash for a black leather bomber jacket. The bomber jacket has just the right style: It was popularized by fighter pilots during World War II and gave the Army-Navy a style edge (not that it was probably needed during a war, but plenty of lonely housewives in the 50s would probably disagree). The 2011 version is any colour (ditch the Indiana Jones look though!) with just enough military details to keep the macho mojo going. Women can also look unspeakably sexy in this male orientated piece.

cordeditorial@cma.rs

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profile

Nothing is as Strong as Team Spirit When I was thinking about which faculty to choose in the middle of 90s, in Serbia, I was sure that I wanted to experience something that little bit different Vuk koSoVaC, Director of Strategy and Marketing, Societe Generale Serbia

I

had been searching for opportunities in the US, but somehow I was feeling that Belgrade was the town where I should be in the difficult moments. Then I heard about FON, probthough with the huge challenge ably the most modern faculty of Belgrade University in those and certain obligation for contimes. FON was (and still is) a school that provides you with a stant improvement. wide area business education, applying modern techniques and Apart from the business side of things, the most important giving you the opportunity to discover your specialisation during your time there by exploring and learning throughout your aspect was the opportunity to meet new people and to establish new friendships. Being Serbian in France gives you an opportubusiness education.

After the school, I was ready to find a job in the booming nity to bond with people easier, bearing in mind the traditionalbanking industry of the post 5th of October period in Serbia. ly good relationship between the two countries. I will never forWhen I saw the vacancy for a job in Societe Generale I knew get the farewell message engraved on a present that I received from my dear colleagues before my departure from Paris - Vuk it was an opportunity that I must take. I started to work in the project and organisation team of Societe Generale Serbia will never walk alone. This strong message reflects the key value (SGYB at the time) in which I succeeded in gaining a manage- of our group - team spirit.

Moreover, the very same value defines SG Serbia Bank. ment position. After several years of work in the development of the Bank from a project perspective and cooperation with my Starting from September this year, I came back to Serbia, to Parisian peers in the Head office of Societe Generale in France, Societe Generale as director for strategic development and in 2008, I received an invitation to join the Head Office team marketing. I’ve have the opportunity to manage a young and dyin Paris. Being just 29 and having in my head the words of my namic team of marketing professionals focused on combining faculty professor, Ranko Orlic, that we cannot think about leav- their innovative skills, financial understanding of the banking ing our country for good, but rather have the mission of go- environment and of project efficiency into creative work aimed ing abroad, obtaining know how that we should bring back and at producing new value for our clients. Each company is valued built it in our society (said to a bunch of youngsters dreaming only in as much as it is worth in the eyes of its customers. In of an escape to a brighter future) I left with the idea to take on our marketing team, we focus on listening to our clients, to unthe challenge, but to come back. Uncertainty of my future position, and an opportunity ‘to Three years spent within the organizational arm swim with the sharks’ between the walls of of the international retail banking sector of Societe La Defense made me motivated to look up Generale in Paris brought me many rewards, which at the sky, ready to explore my personal and included having the opportunity to be involved in the professional capabilities.

Three years spent within the organization- ‘hot topics’ of European banking and to meet many top al arm of the international retail banking sec- managers across the world. However, the best reward tor of Societe Generale in Paris brought me was in feeling like a ‘citizen of the world’ many rewards, which included having the opportunity to be involved in the ‘hot topics’ of European banking derstand their needs and to transform them into a meaningful and to meet many top managers across the world. However, the set of banking services distributed through socially responsible best reward was in feeling like a ‘citizen of the world’. I had the business behaviour. Transparency and a customer centric apopportunity to work in half of the CE European countries (thanks proach define the mission of our development, because we play to SGs huge European network), to meet many interesting peo- in the same team.

It is a pleasure to be back and to contribute together with the ple, but the bottom line for me was the personal acknowledgment that the Serbian educational system, business practices and life- whole of Societe Generale’s Serbia team in our role as being a referstyle are completely in line with what is happening in Europe, ence bank for all our clients and prospects in the Serbian market. ■

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up to

HOME EXHIBITION from 12.11 to 30.11.2011.

NEW COLLECTION 2012

promotional discount for collection 2011 until December 18th

-30

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BELGRADE, Hadži Nikole Živkovića 6 at the Central bus station NOVI SAD, Bulevar Oslobođenja 31 NIŠ, Bulevar Zorana Đinđića 17

A famous artist once said that all good music resembles something. To us, it looks like finely designed furniture pieces.

Just to prove this, we incorporated a state of the art sound system in our sofas. Now you can enjoy two passions at once – experience your favorite melodies through direct contact.

Visit us and feel the comfort of sound.

And the sound of comfort. It’s all good.

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