Laid-back station attendant prevents robbery with chair (VIDEO)

A laid-back gas station attendant has warded off an attempted robbery with a chair and an easygoing attitude.

The 29-year-old Ivo Gulin was working at the Tromilja Benz gas station near the Dalmatian town of Sibenik when two armed robbers entered the store around 4am on Friday morning.

Gulin greeted the first would-be attacker comfortably seated in his chair. After he explained to him that the register was not worth the trouble, the second robber entered the store, took the metal rod that his friend was wielding and started approaching Gulin.

Gulin deflected the attack with a chair, after which both attackers fled, the daily Jutarnji List writes.

Protests in 15 Croatian Cities

Anti-government protesters in a peaceful march through Zagreb

Some 10.000 people rallied in the Croatian capital on Saturday to demand the government resign, AFP reports.  ”Everyone, on the streets!”, “We are Croatia!”, shouted the protesters amid the noise of whistles as they marched from a central Zagreb square to the headquarters of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party. 

Since February 22 similar protests, first called through social networking site Facebook, have been organised every other day in the capital, but other towns followed. ”Jaco, just go!” protesters shouted referring to Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor as they approached the HDZ seat, secured by a heavy anti-riot police presence.  The protestors marched for three hours, blocking the traffic in the city centre and stopped briefly in front of the agriculture ministry in a sign of support to the country’s farmers who for days have rallied in several regions to demand state subsidies. 

Police said around 1,000 policemen had been deployed throughout the capital. Students, pensioners, workers and young people took part in the march, demanding early elections to be held and threatening a general strike.  Similar protests were held in several other Croatian towns. ”I hope more people will join us to send a clear message to the corrupt government that it is time to leave,” Zdenka Bosnic, a 62-year-old pensioner, told AFP.

Zeljko, a 34-year-old translator who did not want to give his last name, said he only wanted “the government to quit”.  Elections are due later this year or in early 2012. Kosor has pledged to hold them by the end of this year but says calling polls now would jeopardise Croatia’s bid to join the European Union, with talks in the final stages.

Croatia won independence from communist Yugoslavia in a 1991-1995 war that, with fraudulent privatisations in the 1990s, deeply hurt its economy. It was later hit hard by the global downturn, with unemployment now at an eight-year high of around 20 percent.  Revelations of corruption reaching the top levels in politics, including Kosor’s predeces

Croatian Police Ties up an Epileptic!

This Saturday (March 19th), police in Zagreb apprehended one of the supporters of the football club Dinamo (Bad Blue Boys) and tied up his hands and feet. They ignored the pleas of a girl who claimed the boy had epilepsy and could have a seizure.


The boy pleaded to the policemen to allow him to stand on his feet instead of carrying him, claiming he had no part in the football riots earlier. Ignoring that, they left him lying on the floor, where he started having a seizure (thrashing on the floor).


During the seizure the police SWAT team proved incompetent while simply standing around the young man and exchanging puzzled glances. The only form of "assistance" they could think of was putting up a live wall to prevent filming and photographing (YouTube link in the bottom of the post) and waiting for an officer in charge.

In the meantime, the epileptic was helped by a passer-by and a doctor who happened to be close. It took the ambulance 20 minutes to arrive.

During the evening the police apprehended 17 supporters, 11 Torcida and 6 Bad Blue Boys, mostly for intoxication and harassment of policemen.