BOSNIAN MOVIE "SNOW" WINS CANNES CRITICS' GRAND PRIX

CANNES, France (May 26,2008) - The Bosnia co-production with Iran,Germany and France “Snow” won the Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prix, the International Critics’ Week of the Cannes Film Festival announced.

The Critics’ Week Grand Prix is awarded by Cinepolis to a feature film voted by journalists and film critics after each screening.

Directed by Bosnian film director Aida Begic, “Snow” is set in the small isolated Bosnian village of Slavno four years after the 1992-1995 Serbian,Montenegrin and Croatian aggressions against Bosnia.

A government delegation comes to Slavno, offering the villagers money to leave the village. But, the villagers mostly are women find it hard to abandon their home and decide to fight for their freedom and the survival of Slavno.

Prizes at the Cannes Film Festival were announced yesterday.The French film "The Class" has won top honors.

Directed by Laurent Cantet, "The Class" ("Entre les Murs") was the first French film to win the main prize, the Palme d'Or, at Cannes since "Under Satan's Sun" in 1987. The film was shot in a raw, improvisational style to chronicle the drama that unfolds over one school year.

The win was a unanimous decision among the nine-member Cannes jury, said American director and actor Sean Penn, who headed the panel.

"The movie that we wanted to make had to resemble French society, had to be multifaceted, a bit teeming, complex, and had to sometimes portray frictions that the film didn't try to erase," Cantet said.
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BOSNIA SIGNS AGREEMENT WITH WORLD BANK WORTH 25 MILLION USD

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (May 26,2008) - Bosnia signed the financial agreement with the World Bank, for the road infrastructure and safety project in the amount of 25 million US Dollars.The loan will be used for improvement of the road network in Bosnia and improvement of institutional capacities concerning road safety.

This is the first loan approved by the World Bank within a four year strategy of partnership with Bosnia under IDA conditions – payment deadline is 20 years, with grace period of 10 years servicing expenses of 0.75 annually.

Assets will be used to finance reconstruction of 240 kilometers of regional and main roads in Bosnia and there will also be a strategy for improvement of road safety in the country.

The world Bank financing is a part of a wider program of roads reconstruction in Bosnia, finaced also by the Bosnian government ,the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

This project is a response to the demands of the Bosnian authorities to improve safety of the main road infrastructure, stated the Bosnian Ministry of Finance and Treasury.
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BOSNIAN STATE COURT SENTENCED SERBIAN WAR CRIMINAL ZELJKO LELEK TO SHAMEFULLY LOW SENTENCE OF 13 YEARS OF IMPRISONMENT

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (May 26,2008) – Serbian war criminal Zeljko Lelek was found guilty on Friday for the crimes against humanity and the Bosnian State Court sentenced him to the shamefully low sentence of 13 years of imprisonment with calculated time he spent in detention during the criminal proceeding since May 5 2006.

Serbian war criminal Zeljko Lelek,46, was found guilty under the indictment that,as a member of the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor's formations, committed the acts of murder, torture and rape against Bosnian civilian population of the Visegrad municipality in the period of May, April and June of 1992,during the Serbian aggression against Bosnia.

At the beginning of June 1992, Serbian war criminals Zeljko Lelek and Milan Lukic, raped a Bosnian woman. The indictment further stated that this Bosnian woman was raped on daily basis and physically and mentally mistreated by Serbian war criminal Lelek and other Serbian fascists over a period of ten days during which she was held captive.

“I cannot believe the Bosnian State Court ruled like this”, stated the president of the Bosnian Association “Women-Victims of War” Bakira Hasecic commenting on the shamefully low sentence in Serbian war criminal Zeljko Lelek’s case.

“The real question is,what is actually happening with the Bosnian State Court”, she added.
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AVERAGE GROSS SALARY IN BOSNIA IN MARCH WAS 1,120 BOSNIAN MARKS

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (May 26,2008) - Head of the Bosnian Central Statistics Bureau Zdenko Milinovic said that the average monthly salary for March per employee in Bosnia amounted to 726 Bosnian Marks (577 USD), which shows a nominal growth of 6.6 percent regarding December last year.

The biggest average salaries were in the sector of financial mediation and amounted to 1,222 Bosnian Marks (971 USD).

They are followed by the public administration, defence and mandatory social insurance ( 1,004 Bosnian Marks), and electricity, gas and water supply ( 995 Bosnian Marks), etc.

According to Milinovic, the average gross salary per employee in the first quarter of this year amounted to 1,120 Bosnian Marks (890 USD), which is 13.2 percent more than in the same period last year.
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BOSNIAN MINISTER OF FINANCE SIGNED FINANCIAL AGREEMENTS WORTH 14 MILLION EUROS

VIENNA, Austria (May 26,2008) - The Bosnian Minister of Finance and Treasury Dragan Vrankic signed a financial agreement with members of the Management Board of Austrian bank BAVAG P.S.K. for the realisation of a project of modernisation of two hospitals and health centres in Mostar worth EUR 8,968,155.41.

The report of the Bosnian Ministry of Finance and Treasury states that Vrankic signed a financial agreement with Director of export finances of Austrian Raiffeisen bank for the realisation of the project of modernisation of the University of Zenica worth EUR 4,975,020. The repayment deadline for these non-interest credits is 12 years with a grace period of 4 and a half years.
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