According to a recent interview by Drazen Hrastic with The Korea Times, Croatia is to open an embassy in South Korea this year.

The Croatian ambassador to Japan, Drazen Hrastic, announced the opening of the Croatian embassy in Seoul this year in order to intensify cooperation between the two countries in the field of business, trade, investment and tourist industry.

Hrastic also added that South Korea was the largest Asian market for Croatia's tourist industry and had great potential, ''Despite the fact that we have had an impressive increase in Korean tourists, Croatia is still less recognized here," explained the Croatian ambassador who covers South Korea from Tokyo.

According to data from The Korea Times around 33,000 Koreans visited Croatia in 2011, whilst that number jumped to 264,000 in 2014.

"We have a number of high-quality products we would like to offer on the Korean market, especially wine, olive oil, meat products and fish products," concluded Hrastic.

It was a weekend of glorious weather in Dubrovnik, rather unusual for the middle of February, and locals and tourist made the most of the warm sunshine.

The historic city centre was busy with people sightseeing, the Robin Hood crew constructing the set on the Stradun and al fresco coffee drinkers.

Check out our Sunday sunshine photo gallery by Zeljko Tutnjevic

The Dubrovnik region is in for a week of calm weather with rising temperatures, a week of sunshine. Blue skies and bright sunshine will dominate the week’s weather with temperatures between 13 and 16 degrees Celsius.

Monday is predicted to be the worst day of the week with scattered clouds and even the chance of a few drops of rain, temperatures will reach 12 degrees. However after this sticky start to the week the weather will improve on a daily basis and Thursday is predicted to be the best day of the week with highs of 16 degrees and bright sunshine all day.

The coming weekend should have a great start; Saturday will be warm and sunny, although on Sunday there might be a little rain in the afternoon.

Direct flights between Croatia and the United States are back in the realms of possibility after the Croatian Minister of Tourism, Gari Cappelli, announced that negotiations are underway.

Flights between the two countries were stopped 22 years ago and after years of speculation that they would be reintroduced it would appear that the new minister has brought negotiations back to the table. "We are in serious negotiations over the introduction of year-long flights from Croatia to New York, most likely from Zagreb and Dubrovnik, even from Split," commented the minister at the end of last week.

The most likely result is that direct flights would begin during the summer of 2018 and a year-round operation is planned. Both European and US airlines have been approached to operate these flights, however according to a report on the specialised website Ex-Yu Aviation both Delta and American Airlines have stated that they have no plans to start flights to Zagreb. According to the minister the Croatian Embassy in Washington is the lead partner in negotiations and is holding talks with potential operators.

Direct flights from the US to Croatia would certainly help the country’s tourism industry, as well as provide a link to the Croatian Diaspora living in the US. There were plans to operate flights to Dubrovnik Airport, an idea that the former Mayor of Dubrovnik was heavily backing. However so far nothing has come from these talks.

Following the recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO), which has been warning about the need to reduce daily salt intake to 5 g in order to preserve health, Podravka has presented Supisol – its own salt substitution with 35 percent less sodium.

The leading Croatian food processing company in Croatia and in the Adria region developed the new product with the Research and Development department and in cooperation with an external partner.

Supisol is a salt replacement ingredient with 35 percent less sodium compared to regular table salt. It is a completely safe product intended for diet of healthy people and all of those who wish or need to control sodium intake. Supisol is appropriate for vegetarians, vegans, and those who eat according to recommendations of halal and kosher diet. This non-GMO product is gluten-free, lactose-free with no flavour enhancers, no artificial colourings, no artificial aromas or preservatives.

The orientation week for foreign students who will, in the framework of the Erasmus + program and the Agreement with the University of Palermo, study in Dubrovnik this summer semester of the academic year 2016/2017 has been carried out by the University of Dubrovnik.

This summer 51 foreign students from 13 countries will study in the summer semester at three University departments: the Department of Economics and Business, the Department of Communication and the Department of Art and Restoration. These students come from Macedonia, Czech, Poland, Turkey, Germany, Greece, Albania, Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Romania, Slovakia and Latvia.

In total 108 foreign students from European countries will study at the University of Dubrovnik in this academic year. This is an increase of almost one hundred percent compared to the previous academic year, when 59 foreign students studied at the university.

Rays of warm sunshine cut their way through the February clouds and Dubrovnik was for a fleeting moment in summer time. The weekend in the city started with calm weather and temperatures reaching 15 degrees.

The Old City is unusually hectic for this time of the year, with Robin Hood movie sets, groups of Korean tourists and restaurants preparing for the summer mayhem. Locals and tourists made the most of the warmer weather yesterday and soaked up the rays.

Check out our gallery by Niksa Duper

It is a well known fact that Croatia is a land of wonderful natural beauty, from soaring snow-covered mountains to lush rolling hills and the crystal clear Adriatic Sea. Croatia has eight national parks, eleven protected nature parks and forests that occupy more than 34 percent of the country's surface area. However, one of the biggest threats to its landscape are fires. They represent a constant threat to the ecological systems, infrastructure and human lives. Apart from preventive measures, the only effective way to reduce damage caused by forest fires is their early detection and rapid response.

Therefore, Croatia Telecom has introduced an advanced technological system for early detection and monitoring of forest fires in several Croatian national parks and nature parks.

''iForestFire'' is an intelligent and integrated video based monitoring system for the early detection of forest fires that are detected in the initial stage using advanced image processing and image analysis methods. Intelligent fire recognition algorithms analyze images automatically, trying to find visual signs of forest fire, particularly forest fire smoke during the day and forest fire flames during the night. If something suspicious is found, a pre-alarm is generated and the appropriate image parts are visibly marked. The operator inspects suspicious image parts and decides if it is really a forest fire or not.

The introduction of this system is a vital early warning system for Croatia’s national parks and protected nature parks. Apart from providing help in preventing fires, iForestFire also reduces the financial damage caused by fires and at the same time increases the safety of citizens and tourists. Thanks to its modular design the iForestFire system can also be adaptable to other intended purposes that make it an interesting choice for all institutions and companies responsible for open areas.