Novi Sad

NOVI SAD - Serbian faculties of technical sciences will enrol 700 more students this year, PM Aleksandar Vucic announced Monday, noting the government would secure money for startups and support for the IT sector.

A Blic front-page story listing the names of 15 former state officials and businessmen arrested in the police anti-corruption operation on Friday "violates the presumption of innocence and the protection of individual rights", Vukasin Obradovic, the president of the Independent Association of Serbian Journalists, NUNS, told BIRN. 

Serbian Parliament Speaker Maja Gojkovic is visiting Iran where she chose to wear a black hijab during her meetings with Iranian officials.

Playwright and activist Biljana Srbljanovic has commented on this "choice of wardrobe", the Novi Sad-based website 021.rs is reporting:

Studio B, a symbol of media freedom in the era of Slobodan Milosevic, has been sold for just over half a million euros.

The station is the largest media outlet in Serbia to be sold so far under the recent media privatisation programme.

The sales of two other major media companies, Tanjug news agency and the Novi Sad-based daily, Dnevnik, failed due to the lack of bidders.

After privatization of the state-owned media in Serbia started last week, the opposition Democratic Party has accused the ruling Progressive Party of trying to buy up some media outlets, hiding behind "front" companies to do so.

The Novi Sad-based 021.rs website is reporting that hate graffiti have appeared in Novi Sad's streets targeting the leader of the DS party Bojan Pajtic.

Pajtic also heads the provincial government in Vojvodina.

Serbia said the sale of 47 state-owned media outlets will be completed by October - although around 30 had not applied for sale after the deadline set by the government to do so had passed.

Shares in those media outlets that have not applied for sale but are not in negative financial state will be divided among the employees.

Dragan Djukic, owner of Novi Sad-based TV station Delta, has been found dead in his apartment, the daily Blic said.

Djukic was known for recently applying for the position of director of the state broadcaster RTS, and for this purpose "submitting as many as 1,200 pages of documentation," said the report.

The settlement of legal relations in connection to the hydro-power plant Gazvode "is an important moment for of the start of EU membership negotiations."

This is what MP from the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians and Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on EU Integration Laszlo Varga told the Novi Sad-based Hungarian language daily Magyar Szo.

NOVI SAD - Novi Sad is one of five candidate cities shortlisted for the title of European Youth Capital 2018, Exit Foundation announced on Wednesday.

The remaining four candidates still in the running are Manchester, Perugia, Kecskemet and Cascais.

Novi Sad is the only non-EU city among the last five, which makes its success even more impressive.