Bosnia and Herzegovina: N1 Bosnia and Herzegovina

20260813 07:00 UTC · 00:31:00 · 538 transcript segments · GDELT Visual Explorer · plain-text transcript · Event Map

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Transcript

Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.

00:00:00The law on the internal agency is to further
00:00:03monitor homes, to monitor communications, to
00:00:06monitor the internal communication of Germans,
00:00:10in order to prevent certain
00:00:14crimes or certain attacks that could happen. This
00:00:17is mostly domestic terrorism, which is why they are doing this. They are doing this
00:00:21because in the past period they had several attacks in which they
00:00:24completely missed the mark, they absolutely had no
00:00:28information that it would happen.
00:00:31Um, this will perhaps be
00:00:34controversial in this German system
00:00:38for one reason, because we have already seen that such
00:00:40authorities, when given, were given, for example,
00:00:44to certain agencies within the United States after September
00:00:4811th, when the attacks happened, that citizens
00:00:51also sued the government, that there were mistakes and that there were
00:00:54misinterpreted information, but there were also situations
00:00:58in which, based precisely on such things, for example, some
00:01:02people who tried to carry out attacks within the United States
00:01:06were arrested and people like Bin Laden were discovered in some locations where
00:01:09it was thought they could not be found, so here the Germans
00:01:13now hope that with these changes they will create
00:01:17a better situation for themselves, of course, all to
00:01:20try, at least in the opinion of most intelligence agencies, they will not
00:01:24get close to the British James Bonds, i.e.,
00:01:27MI6, which was recently declared the best
00:01:31intelligence agency in the world. Yes, to
00:01:34conclude, the Iranian war, the events in the Middle East significantly affect the
00:01:38tourist image, but also the industry in Europe. The latest data show that
00:01:41passenger behavior has indeed
00:01:45here, guest of the new day, Dino Selimović, director
00:01:48of the International Sarajevo Airport, said that the structure of guests coming
00:01:52to Bosnia and Herzegovina has changed, that there are fewer
00:01:55travelers from the Gulf, and more from Europe.
00:01:59Well, that's what we're going to
00:02:02talk about right now, and the biggest
00:02:04uh
00:02:06that's the biggest change, and um the agency which is one of
00:02:09the biggest travel agencies in the world now says what is
00:02:13changing. Passengers wait until the last minute to decide
00:02:17on travel depending on
00:02:20how many available
00:02:23published by USKOK show that in tickets and flights and everything there are. We have already received information from
00:02:26the International Energy Agency that
00:02:30be, we will forget there is less oil on the market, which means less kerosene,
00:02:33which means it will be harder for flights,
00:02:35which um practically means
00:02:39that we have a situation where people will think, okay, where should
00:02:42I go? What has been noticed is that
00:02:46demand is growing for countries such as
00:02:49Turkey, Cyprus, Greece,
00:02:52and also our
00:02:54neighboring Croatia, but also some other
00:02:58countries such as Georgia, which was not
00:03:01so much on the map, but can be very
00:03:05interesting, and what is
00:03:08at least their information is that
00:03:11this has cost them 60 million euros so far, meaning we are talking about
00:03:15120 million marks in six months that they have
00:03:18lost on travel and the number
00:03:22of passengers is
00:03:25polluted soil that absorb these slightly smaller, about 3% less,
00:03:27uh, but that is
00:03:31a lot. Their profit before taxes is somewhere
00:03:34around 43% lower, which
00:03:37is huge, huge.
00:03:40And what will also be a big
00:03:43problem is that operational costs
00:03:47will rise, and the costs, or rather the profit they already
00:03:50expected, which they had already, so to speak, planned, will not
00:03:54be there. We saw this also in the example of the Middle East. Mr. Selimović is completely
00:03:58right, because people from this Gulf region
00:04:02the professor said, mostly on travel less, and there is also less travel
00:04:05from here to there, so that part of the world, which I will repeat again, and
00:04:09I have already said this, is not ordinary tourism, but high-end, luxury
00:04:13tourism, where, I don't know, for
00:04:16Egypt you spend 5,000 marks for two people
00:04:20in seven days, there you spend 5,000 marks for
00:04:23one night, the costs will, or rather
00:04:26How much waste do we import annually and in the damage will be huge, and all this because of something that
00:04:29has not yet... achieved the result that those who started this war were looking for
00:04:32and this only shows that it is not just one sector that is threatened,
00:04:36but all sectors are threatened. The effects will
00:04:39be very, very bad and only visible and will probably
00:04:43extend into next year. Esmir, thank you, please
00:04:46minala, we continue together in following world
00:04:49current events on our web portal n1info.ba as well as all
00:04:53other current events within the new day until 11 o'clock. It is exactly 9:00
00:04:56and 4 minutes for those of you who have just joined us. Welcome,
00:05:00those of you who have been with us from the beginning, stay with
00:05:04us.
00:05:12We'll be back soon with current topics and guests. Friend
00:05:16of the show General Hospital Medicana
00:05:18Sarajevo.
00:05:21Aspirin Protect (100 mg) is recommended for people with
00:05:25high and very high risk of cardiovascular diseases to
00:05:29heart stroke. Before
00:05:32use, carefully read the package leaflet for information on indications, precautions, and adverse effects of the medicine.
00:05:36Consult a doctor or pharmacist.
00:05:37Bayer.
00:05:41Feel the energy of summer, catch the seasonal sale at
00:05:45Fis
00:05:46centers.
00:05:51G132 plus natural. Natural
00:05:55immune support. Synergistic action of carefully
00:05:58selected ingredients. Recommended with regular therapy
00:06:02for already existing diseases. Dietary supplement
00:06:04G132+ Natural available at your
00:06:08pharmacy. We care about the health of the whole
00:06:11family. International Health. Aspirin
00:06:15Protect 100 mg is recommended for people with
00:06:18high and very high risk of cardiovascular diseases, to
00:06:22reduce the risk of acute heart stroke. Before
00:06:25use, carefully read the package leaflet for information on indications and precautions, adverse effects of the medicine,
00:06:29consult a doctor or pharmacist.
00:06:31Bayer.
00:06:34We return to the show New Day. Friend of the show
00:06:37General Hospital Medicana
00:06:39Sarajevo.
00:06:50We continue with a new day and current topics. 37,000 tons of
00:06:54hazardous waste found in Gospić, a question that could
00:06:57open a Pandora's box regarding the same issue in Bosnia and
00:07:01Herzegovina. The subject of the investigation by Croatian authorities is a company that was
00:07:05mentioned 12 years ago in connection with the delivery of waste to Derventa.
00:07:08The outcomes are not known, but now questions like what kind of waste
00:07:12is being imported. What are the controls and how much is the health of citizens threatened, are
00:07:16increasingly echoing in the public.
00:07:19Illegal delivery and disposal of waste in Gospić began in
00:07:222021. According to the suspicions of the local investigative bodies,
00:07:25the criminal group was organized by Varaždin entrepreneur Josip
00:07:28Šincek. Although the waste was presented as plastic material intended
00:07:32for recycling, the results of the investigations and findings
00:07:36the investigated area, approximately 37 tons of mixed
00:07:39technogenic waste were estimated, including residues of electrical and
00:07:43electronic equipment, plastics, construction, mineral materials, and
00:07:46parts of medical waste. Although it has not been determined that the entire quantity
00:07:50is contaminated, representative samples show harmful
00:07:53properties. I must mention that it is known that the fund and the ministry were not
00:07:57legally responsible for such remediation. We promptly
00:08:01approached the amended waste management plan in the seventh month of last
00:08:04year, where the fund was given the task of securing funds. There were
00:08:07investigative processes when we got the opportunity to start
00:08:11remediation in November. Last year, the decision on remediation was made.
00:08:14The environmental affair, however, crosses the borders of Croatia and reaches Bosnia and Herzegovina
00:08:18in 2014. The company Tipos Resors, led by
00:08:22the Xincag spouses, delivered about a hundred tons of waste to a company in Derventa
00:08:26that was classified as mixed non-hazardous. However, the environmental
00:08:29inspection of the Republic of Srpska found medical waste in it, which is
00:08:33prohibited by regulations. Because of this, a certain amount was returned to the Croatian
00:08:36company, and the authorities there then explicitly claimed that there was no
00:08:39danger to people or the environment, stating that about
00:08:4340 tons had been returned to Croatia. Where that quantity ended up and what happened to the remaining
00:08:4760 tons is unknown. The Derventa case became even
00:08:51more serious due to the fact that the disputed shipment was not the only one.
00:08:54The results of the investigation are also unknown. Waste management
00:08:57is again in the public spotlight. The only waste that is legally imported
00:09:01to us is actually processed
00:09:04waste converted into fuel, that is what is
00:09:07imported for the needs of two cement plants in this in
00:09:11Bosnia and Herzegovina. That is RDF, as far as I know,
00:09:14about 60,000 tons have been imported. In Bosnia and
00:09:17Herzegovina, illegal waste is certainly imported as well, but these flows are
00:09:21almost impossible to track, says Lemeš. Such cases
00:09:24certainly exist in Bosnia and Herzegovina given the porous
00:09:28borders and given the lack of capacity of our
00:09:32institutions to carry out control, especially
00:09:35laboratory control.
00:09:39what way are controls carried out? We also asked the Indirect Taxation Authority of Bosnia
00:09:42and Herzegovina, but with extensive documentation on cross-border
00:09:46waste traffic and competencies in accordance with this issue, we did not
00:09:50receive concrete answers. In the meantime, the number of ecological
00:09:54hotspots in Bosnia and Herzegovina is growing, and the first map was published by UNDP. Through
00:09:57a review of more than a hundred potentially contaminated locations in Bosnia and
00:10:01Herzegovina, 48 priority locations were selected
00:10:04for sampling. Based on more than 700 analyses of soil,
00:10:08water, and sediment samples, the results showed significant
00:10:11ecological risks at 34 locations, so
00:10:14primarily we have a problem that has been going on for several decades
00:10:17with the tar apple in Modriča. This is a type
00:10:21of hazardous waste that has been stored there.
00:10:25which has already created, so to speak,
00:10:28problems whose magnitude is not at all known today for the local
00:10:32population. We remind you that houses were built there,
00:10:35settlements were developed and expanded. This
00:10:39hazardous waste has remained there
00:10:42to stand. A similar situation is with Piralen in the Incel business zone
00:10:46in Banja Luka. Today we have the opportunity to see that a residential
00:10:50area has been built there, which is another problem, but
00:10:54it is evident that after several decades, that
00:10:58problem, that area has not been remediated and that problem has not been solved. And as long as
00:11:02the state does not have a clear plan on how to deal with this challenge, the potential
00:11:05dangers to the health of citizens are growing every
00:11:09day. At the same time, waste trafficking is becoming an attractive activity
00:11:13for criminal structures, which, as they are aware, could not operate
00:11:16without a political connection. Tatjana Drljić,
00:11:19N1.
00:11:23The affair involving tens of thousands of tons of illegally disposed waste, which has shaken
00:11:26Croatia in recent days, seems to be connected with Bosnia and Herzegovina. During
00:11:302014, the company, as we heard, Pramat Plast, imported
00:11:3423 shipments with a total of about 358 tons
00:11:37of waste with disputed
00:11:40documentation into Bosnia and Herzegovina. The company had documentation for cross-border import
00:11:43of non-hazardous waste. It imported medical waste, about 40
00:11:47tons returned to Croatia and placed under customs supervision. What about
00:11:51the rest? In the new day, we continue with Samir Lemeš, before
00:11:56Zenica. Good morning and welcome to the new day. Good morning, thank you for the
00:11:59invitation. Thank you, Igor Kalaba from the Center for Environmental Protection
00:12:03who is waiting for us in Banja Luka. Mr. Kalaba, good
00:12:06morning to you. Good morning, greetings to your
00:12:09viewers and a big hello to Professor Lemeš.
00:12:13Let's start with the latest story, or rather the scandal,
00:12:16as Mr. Lemeš has already called it. How much do you
00:12:20believe it is likely that the waste we are talking about
00:12:24in Lika is waste that was once
00:12:27in Bosnia and Herzegovina? Well, those are, those are purely
00:12:31speculations. It doesn't matter at all whether it's that waste,
00:12:34whether those are those specific quantities. The thing is
00:12:37that here we don't have investigations to determine,
00:12:41except for this project that UNDP did, where they tried
00:12:44to map these hotspots,
00:12:48there is no, no action to discover these
00:12:52hotspots, to discover perpetrators, especially not
00:12:55their prosecution. Here the question is perhaps for
00:12:58the Prosecutor's Office of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, because
00:13:02according to the waste management law, whoever illegally
00:13:06imports hazardous waste,
00:13:09is exposed to the risk of a prison sentence of one to five years
00:13:13in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since environmental laws exist,
00:13:17since the crime of environmental pollution was included
00:13:20in the criminal code, we have only one,
00:13:24one case where the prosecutor's office
00:13:26prosecuted such a crime.
00:13:30It is about Gikil Lukavac where the main perpetrator left
00:13:34the country, all other criminal acts are actually just
00:13:37those forest thefts, and Mr. Kalava, how many
00:13:41such places, landfills, areas that
00:13:44the professor talks about, which surely could or should have been
00:13:48under scrutiny by the prosecutor's office
00:13:50long ago?
00:13:53Well, I think, here's a relatively simple example: how many
00:13:57times have you seen, while traveling, wooden sleepers piled up
00:14:00along the tracks, old, this
00:14:03replaced ones? They are, for example,
00:14:05treated with very, very toxic chemicals, which are
00:14:09already banned in the European Union, maybe even here now, so it's very difficult
00:14:13to trace. What was done through this
00:14:16UNDP project, which Professor Lemeš mentioned, is
00:14:20that some of the largest ones were located, with
00:14:23one piece of information that is... semi- information, I got it unofficially,
00:14:27even for a larger location there was an option
00:14:30to secure funds for remediation,
00:14:33but from the institutions that should have reacted,
00:14:37there was not enough interest, so we are talking not
00:14:40only about crime, we are sometimes talking about
00:14:44incompetence or disinterest of institutions,
00:14:48uh, we have a terrible lot of generally illegal landfills, that's
00:14:51true, we have most of the official landfills.
00:14:55landfills that are legal, they are not sanitary as such and that's where
00:14:58anything ends up, from animal waste, which is the least
00:15:02problem in this context, this, but
00:15:05certainly a problem, this, even medical
00:15:08and other types of waste, this, there are also, as the professor
00:15:12said in the video before, very porous borders which are very questionable,
00:15:16I mean, they are smuggled, this, we see that people from various
00:15:19clans enter and leave the country as they please, so
00:15:23this waste should not be a big problem and also the mentioned
00:15:26incinerators that are opening, that is incineration
00:15:30currently for now we just hope that it will remain that way, for now only in
00:15:34cement plants we have this RDF refuse derived fuel, that is.
00:15:37pellets from processed waste, uh,
00:15:41they are very, they are very potentially problematic
00:15:43because not every RDF is the same and it is very questionable
00:15:47what the ingredient is there, and how declarations,
00:15:51labels are made, how this works between importers,
00:15:55exporters, freight forwarders at the borders and so on,
00:15:58again the porosity of borders is a very big problem. That's exactly why
00:16:02I asked the professor this question,
00:16:05so what if the waste on the street was waste from Bosnia and Herzegovina,
00:16:09actually focusing on cross-border
00:16:13cooperation, or rather the porosity of borders, so let's try to
00:16:16clarify that cyclical path and how it
00:16:20actually looks, how
00:16:22the procedure looks when waste from Croatia enters Bosnia and Herzegovina, and
00:16:26who must give permission, who, among other things, controls what is in
00:16:30the truck, how does that go? Uh,
00:16:33I don't know what the situation is in the Republic of Srpska and Brčko District, I assume it's
00:16:36similar. I know that according to federal regulations,
00:16:40hazardous waste cannot pass, meaning
00:16:43it legally shouldn't be able to pass, so it is then
00:16:46probably hidden in, packaged
00:16:49into some other some other waste
00:16:53packaging. Is every shipment physically inspected or does everything
00:16:57come down to documentation? Well, it's impossible to physically inspect everything, so it's mostly
00:17:00about documentation, possibly sampling if something is suspected
00:17:04to be wrong, mhm. So it's very
00:17:08difficult. Otherwise, that documentation is
00:17:10so strictly controlled. We recently had
00:17:14an example where through a project we provided humanitarian
00:17:18aid, i.e., a donation from Slovakia
00:17:21of devices for purifying drinking water, mhm. That
00:17:24shipment had to be returned to the European Union, meaning
00:17:27we paid double transport costs just because
00:17:30one sentence on the export declaration was not correct. Meaning
00:17:34instead of returning the declaration, the entire
00:17:38shipment was returned. So those customs regulations are extremely
00:17:41strict, mhm. In some cases, we can say
00:17:44that things go wrong, as in this case where there should be something of general
00:17:48interest, but where you have, that's probably when
00:17:52corruption is involved, that someone is bribed to turn a blind eye so that
00:17:56such shipments pass even through these legal border
00:17:59crossings. Is the situation the same, Mr. Kalava,
00:18:02in the Republic of Srpska? How much knowledge do you have about the Brčko
00:18:06District and has the responsibility
00:18:09of those who failed to
00:18:12determine the content of a
00:18:15truck ever been established?
00:18:20Uh, basically, I think the laws are, if you take them literally, then
00:18:2499% harmonized. Uh, I mean, I
00:18:27can speak from my personal example, since I spent three, about three or four
00:18:31months when I was finishing
00:18:34university, I spent working in a shipping company, that's
00:18:38in Gradiška. The crossing in Gradiška is one of the most significant in the country
00:18:41and busiest.
00:18:42This,
00:18:45I mean, it was all like that, and
00:18:49instead of studying
00:18:52psychology. But on the other hand, it was a very sobering moment for me
00:18:55to see how things work in this country, how
00:18:58borders work. Uh, so basically,
00:19:01I mean, we live where we live and
00:19:05everything is very flexible. If the right people
00:19:08and enough capital, unfortunately, it is still like that, you have cases, for example,
00:19:12I mean, CIN and other
00:19:16investigative portals constantly write about
00:19:18some people who have been suspended and then reinstated.
00:19:22You have people, you have sanitary inspectors,
00:19:25for example, who open a truck, among other things, not only because
00:19:29of corruption, but simply because of the nature of the job, in terms of the amount
00:19:31of material, the truck is opened, the first
00:19:35bale is checked, and things are not pulled out. and so on, it's done, as
00:19:40paper. This, I mean, one of the most
00:19:42amusing situations was when an older
00:19:45freight forwarder told me: "You see that guy in the black jumpsuit from the anti-smuggling
00:19:49team?" I said, "Yes." "Well, he used to be
00:19:52a customs officer here and was suspended for smuggling. Now they've put him back in that
00:19:55team." Everything is clear.
00:19:58And
00:20:02did you do anything about that? Can, can
00:20:06one actually, when, well, you're in the system,
00:20:09someone who is on an internship or is trying
00:20:13to learn how these flows
00:20:16work, can anything be
00:20:18done?
00:20:22Well, generally, my rule is not to end statements or addresses
00:20:25pessimistically. So, yes, it can definitely
00:20:29be done, a lot can be done, but people have to be very
00:20:31united. Again, something that can be done
00:20:35is the fight against future incinerators. Yes, that is,
00:20:38importing
00:20:40actually opens the door for manipulations, for importing
00:20:44all sorts of things, and of course, to defend as much as
00:20:47possible the ban on the import of hazardous waste. That
00:20:50for now, from a technical perspective, there is still a lot to be done,
00:20:54definitely, and it is necessary to do something with this hazardous
00:20:58waste.
00:21:00Uh, so it is not excluded that sometime some processing facilities will have to be
00:21:04built, but that would have to be done because, for example, one of the things I
00:21:08talk about, uh, whatever is done related to waste must
00:21:12be very close to larger administrative centers.
00:21:15I say this half-jokingly, it must be in the center of Banja Luka,
00:21:19this, because, well, we have seen all these cases, they were mostly,
00:21:22most of them were, this Drvar, Bosnian
00:21:25Grahovo, this, okay, Derventa is more populated and relatively
00:21:29close, so that's why they reacted relatively quickly. So,
00:21:32obviously, there is a tendency to exploit those places that
00:21:36are experiencing depopulation, which somehow overlap with perhaps some of the
00:21:39most valuable natural resources, this,
00:21:42so it is possible, but many, many people need to work harder on it, many
00:21:46people, I mean, political awareness as such, this, we
00:21:50had cases where the local community fought against either a mine or
00:21:54something else, and then they still voted for the same people who did it, so that political
00:21:57maturity must be at a much higher level,
00:22:00this, and the fight must not stop, no matter
00:22:03what, even if it seems futile. What about
00:22:07subsequent checks? Here, in this specific case, we are talking about
00:22:1023 shipments, 358
00:22:13tons, so waste. Uh, if
00:22:16one shipment, Professor Lemeš, was returned,
00:22:20does there exist any system for subsequent checking of what happened to
00:22:23the other shipments, whether they are even tracked? Well, if you say that they
00:22:27enter the country based on valid documentation, uh,
00:22:30is it tracked where they end up? Logically, someone should
00:22:33conduct an additional control.
00:22:37However, usually, in our country, those who engage in such
00:22:41crime are very connected with political structures,
00:22:44so it's simply a phone call away,
00:22:48"Let it go, don't, put it in the drawer."
00:22:52I mean, unfortunately, we live in a country where corruption has
00:22:55turned from an incident into a way of life, and it seems that
00:22:59the wider public accepts corruption as, "Oh, we know
00:23:03there's corruption, let's see how I can fit in."
00:23:06I think we need to completely change our way
00:23:09of thinking. We once had an illusion, "Look, we
00:23:13will be candidates for joining the EU, and when we join
00:23:17the EU, everything will be perfect, everything will
00:23:20about corruption." There is corruption in the European Union. 15
00:23:23years ago, at a conference, I heard information that
00:23:27the Italian mafia, well, Italy is in the European Union,
00:23:31the Italian mafia has reoriented itself from
00:23:35human trafficking, arms trafficking, and drug trafficking to waste trafficking,
00:23:38because it is more profitable for them, simply the profit is greater.
00:23:42Northern Italy generates huge quantities of waste, it is very
00:23:46expensive according to EU regulations, very expensive to dispose of that
00:23:50waste. Companies are paid to dispose of it,
00:23:53then it is taken and dumped in the south of Italy, the soil is polluted,
00:23:57the land is polluted, cheaply
00:24:00bought agricultural estates are destroyed. Now you have
00:24:03huge plantations with
00:24:07greenhouses in southern Italy. We probably eat those
00:24:10tomatoes, tomato plantations that are on
00:24:15heavy metals and all those toxins from the soil. Migrants
00:24:19who flee from Africa work on those
00:24:21plantations, so it's everything is tied to crime and
00:24:25that crime is European, so we
00:24:28somehow have an illusion that when we enter Europe, there will be no crime
00:24:32or corruption, there will, we must change ourselves, but yes, but it's interesting what
00:24:36you're saying, well, even when we talk about imports, I somehow always mention
00:24:39imports because the last affair speaks most about it,
00:24:43but, uh, if someone, professor, declares cheaper
00:24:46non-dangerous plastic waste and actually imports med...
00:24:50medical or dangerous, where is the potential profit, where is that
00:24:53logic, or is it actually
00:24:55uh that large profits are made in these
00:24:59cases precisely because the disposal of hazardous waste is
00:25:03much more expensive than the disposal of non-hazardous waste, is that the
00:25:07logic, so yes, that's pure logic, pure greed
00:25:10where people see an opportunity, look, I
00:25:13this is expensive to pay, I will
00:25:16take it and I will not dispose of it at all, no one will
00:25:20control it, if someone controls me, I will somehow
00:25:23cover it from the profit I make, so
00:25:26that somehow this sounds
00:25:30like an open invitation to people to engage in crime because there is
00:25:33really a big profit, but it is not
00:25:36actually an invitation to institutions to act, to prevent that crime, to
00:25:40cut it off, to strictly punish it, I will repeat
00:25:43that there have been no convictions for the criminal offense
00:25:46of environmental pollution, I call on the prosecutor's offices
00:25:50to roll up their sleeves a bit, to look a bit, at least to
00:25:53look at what investigative journalism is doing, to listen to what
00:25:57is being said in the media, that's enough work for them, they can put that in their
00:26:01plans for next year. For the prosecutor's offices to start
00:26:05prosecuting that crime, for the courts
00:26:08to finally make decisions, for someone
00:26:11to end up in jail for polluting the environment, for
00:26:14destroying nature and endangering the health of citizens, how difficult it is to follow
00:26:18now, we are talking about those 40 tons that may have ended up in Lika, maybe
00:26:22not, we have a lot of such examples, not only
00:26:26of imported waste, but of those that are already in Bosnia
00:26:30and Herzegovina, that was 10 years ago. today
00:26:33is the 26th. um, how
00:26:37can this be monitored, are these missed opportunities, cases where
00:26:40we have already, therefore, lost that chance.
00:26:44I will mention here the international
00:26:46convention that Bosnia and Herzegovina signed, ratified,
00:26:50incorporated into its laws, that is the Arhus
00:26:52Convention. Um, with that convention, all citizens of Bosnia and
00:26:56Herzegovina gained, among other things, the right to access
00:26:59environmental information and the right to participate. The public in
00:27:03making decisions concerning the environment,
00:27:06the public, in order to participate in decision-making, such as the decision
00:27:10whether there will be an incinerator or not, where the landfill
00:27:13will be located, how waste will be managed, such
00:27:17decisions the public can influence
00:27:21exclusively if it is informed, meaning the first
00:27:24prerequisite is that we have information, so give us
00:27:27those reports, we have civil society organizations that are very
00:27:31active. "If you give us information, if you
00:27:34provide us with information, these databases that must be publicly
00:27:38available, we will then through these databases
00:27:41look for where the problems are, point them
00:27:45out, alarm institutions, we have a lot of institutions,
00:27:48inspections, and agencies,
00:27:51prosecutor's offices, courts, meaning all of them should do their
00:27:54job, and someone needs to
00:27:57encourage them, civil society will encourage them, but give us information, and
00:28:01they are hidden like." And they are very often hidden.
00:28:05Igor, based on the currently available information,
00:28:08documentation that you have access to, both as a center for
00:28:12environmental protection and in cooperation with your
00:28:15colleagues, you have mentioned incinerators several times, what
00:28:19are the biggest hotspots, the biggest points,
00:28:22well, Professor Lemeš talked about the south of Italy, I believe we
00:28:26have enough of our own examples that should make us very
00:28:29concerned. Yes.
00:28:32Yes, we have, well, we have this situation here in Incel, which is relatively
00:28:36close to the city center and which simply hasn't been
00:28:39adequately dealt with for a long time, part
00:28:43of the land, part of the land is contaminated has been removed, but
00:28:46that's only one part, uh, a big problem with that
00:28:50situation was that there was concealment of information, that there were
00:28:53pressures on inspection services and so on and that we have video recordings
00:28:57of some land being removed which uh, we simply don't
00:29:01know how much... mined from that area in Mostar
00:29:04we also have a situation related to sludge from
00:29:08a plant, I can't remember the situation,
00:29:11this Zenica and Tuzla also have their hotspots, so
00:29:14I mean, I don't have the exact information
00:29:18of which compounds are involved, but again I will refer
00:29:21to this UNDP study
00:29:25where they are listed and they are listed, which is sad, we
00:29:29lost a lot of time, they were listed... a lot
00:29:32before some incidents occurred including the fire in
00:29:36Incel, so these are things that could have been prevented
00:29:39in time, it was known, but it was also known that
00:29:43these actions were being done, like the theft of these oils which involves
00:29:47this
00:29:49metal cutting where sparks can cause
00:29:53a fire, so all of this could have been avoided, this
00:29:56is perhaps the greatest tragedy of our time, all of this was relatively easy
00:30:00to prevent, yes... medical waste in
00:30:03unregulated landfills, what are the consequences, Mr.
00:30:07Kalaba, on the environment,
00:30:11on people, on land, on groundwater,
00:30:14will we feel the consequences of this negligence regarding waste
00:30:17only in the years to
00:30:20come, well, yes, that's where this
00:30:23uh bioaccumulation aspect comes in, of course,
00:30:27it all depends on the type of medical waste, if it is
00:30:31something that is... biohazardous, in fact,
00:30:34if it's bacteria or viruses and so on, we have that
00:30:38problem, if it's about accumulation, I don't know, for example,
00:30:41expired uh, accumulation
00:30:45of drugs, among other things, if they are antibiotics, there is a
00:30:48possibility of creating some resistance and so on, if it's about, for example,
00:30:52radioactive materials, there is also that, we know what
00:30:55radioactivity does, whether it will now be carried by the wind, whether
00:30:59wild animals will come.
Data courtesy of The GDELT Project (gdeltproject.org), from the Internet Archive TV News Archive. Film strip and transcript are GDELT's, rehosted here under their terms of use, which permit it with this citation.