The history of the indipendent Macedonia is strongly linked to its first president, Kiro Gligorov, who led it during the difficult years of the Yugoslav crisis. Gligorov, still active and respected in his country, marked last week his ninetieth birthday in a Skopje restaurant
Alshar, an ancient mine located in the southern Balkans, in Macedonia, is said to contain minerals to be found nowhere else on the planet. The rarest of them all - the lorandite, is thought to have the potential to let us understand the work of the sun. Science-fiction or reality?
Monday, 16 April 2007 the trial against Macedonia's former Interior Minister from the time of the ethnic conflict in 2001, Ljube Boskovski, started at The Hague Criminal Tribunal. Together with him accused is also Johan Tarculovski, a police commander of the special police forces
Identifying the very low level of foreign direct investment as one of the serious causes of the slow growth of the local economy, the Macedonian government launched an aggressive campaign aimed at attracting foreign businesses to "Discover the New Business Heaven in Europe": Macedonia
The latest enlargement was greeted with not much fuss in Macedonia. Life goes on and very few politicians responded with statements or analyses. Bulgaria, being closer, receives more attention. Romania is already far away
Monospitovo is a village in the region of Strumica in the eastern part of the country. Known for its green house gardening. Over the last several years 50-60 families per year have been migrating, most of them to Italy
''Do not change people to make changes'' said recently the EU to Macedonia. Along with support and encouragement for the new government of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, the political leadership of the country has started to receive its first warnings and disapprovals from Europe
"Greater economic growth, investment, de-politicization and professionalism of the public administration, reduction of bureaucracy, and uncompromised fight against corruption", are the promises of the new Macedonian government to its citizens.
After the defeat in the national elections on 5 July, the leading opposition party in the Macedonian camp, the social democrats - SDSM, undergoes strife and divisions.
In 1999 Macedonia and Bulgaria signed a bilateral agreement, wherein they committed not to interfere with each other's internal affairs. Since then their relations have been quite friendly, in spite of the old quarrels about history and language, which have never been solved and keep re-emerging
Veles, formerly known as Titov Veles, population circa 50.000 is a city in central Macedonia, some 50 km south of the capital Skopje. In addition, it is one of the most polluted places in the Balkans
As election frenzy rises with the approaching of the general elections in Macedonia, one thing is clear - a lot depends on them. On 5 July voters will go to the polls to elect the new parliament. Things have to go smoothly this time
A last round of public disquiet over the border issue between Macedonia and Kosovo seems appeased with yesterday's visit to Skopje of Kosovo Prime Minister Mr. Agim Ceku. The border issue is of technical nature, they agreed, and it cannot disrupt neighborly relations
The biggest ever criminal proceedings in Macedonia started in April bringing to trial 28 people accused of human trafficking. They are accused to have been part of a well organized transnational network that has been smuggling migrants from Macedonia into Greece
Silence, desolation, houses in decay, lifelessness. This is a common sight from the Macedonian countryside. As odd as it may seem in a country as small in territory as Macedonia, its rural parts are dying out.It has started more than 50 years ago. But its consequences are more and more visible with time
Many towns and villages in Macedonia maintain carnival festivities, but two of them are particularly important - Vevcani and Strumica. It is said that the Vevcani carnival is as much as 1.400 years old, the one in Strumica is more recent but much bigger, and festivities last for 5 days
"At the Marshal's", a new place on the map of center-town Skopje, is a house of remembrance and nostalgia, and a unique memorial place which pays respect to Tito, all of this combined with the smell of traditional Balkan cuisine. A restaurant. Dedicated to the Marshal and his country
Two Macedonian citizens, who were kidnapped last week near Basra and held hostage, were released yesterday after ransom was paid.Faruk Ademi and Rasim Ramadani were kidnapped near Basra, where they worked for Ecolog, a multinational contractor of the British army
A citizen from Skopje climbed a telephone post last month and cut the wire. A final individual act of bitter resentment against the monopolistic behavior of Macedonian Telecom. This is but the most radical of citizens' outcries against the arrogant conduct of the Telecom over the past 4 years in Macedonia
On 9 November 2005, 19 months after the Macedonian government submitted the application for membership, and 9 months after the submission of the EU questionnaire to Brussels, the EU issued an opinion recommending candidate status for Macedonia
Since 1991, when declared its independence under the name "Republic of Macedonia", the young Balkan state has been struggling with Greece, which claims the name cannot be used, sinche is essential part of his historical heritage. After almost 15 years, the dispute is still unresolved
Macedonia marks four years of the Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA), the peace deal that brought an end to the armed conflict from 2001 that was threatening to throw the country into ethnic war. Still, only few celebrate it
There has been quite a lot of talk lately of re-branding the image of the Balkans by acknowledging that it is capable of producing not only wickedness and that it can contribute or be the home to also good things.This article is a small contribution in this direction
There are 54.000 Roma in Macedonia (a questionable piece of statistics as the identity declaration of Roma can be quite ambiguous). Of them, 17.000 are unemployed and 14.000 cannot afford the basic necessities. Another statistics says that 85% of the Roma in Macedonia receive social welfare
Polls carried throughout the Balkans repeatedly show that 50-70% of young people would leave their countries at the first given chance. The reasons are lack of perspective, poverty, unemployment. Usually youth unemployment rates are 2-4 times higher than the overall ones
The most traumatic case in Macedonian judicial history, the "Rastanski Lozja" case, came to an end. The senior members of the Macedonian intelligence and police, accused of murdering six Pakistani and one Indian in 2002, to present it as an act against international terrorism, have been all acquitted
On March 13 around 1.700.000 voters in Macedonia will go to the polls to elect mayors and councilors for 84 municipalities.This is will be the first test of the country's political maturity after the submission of the EU Questionnaire in Brussels earlier this month
The December 2004 Summit of the EU was marked by the historic decision to commence membership negotiations with Turkey; still the timeline implied for their completion goes quite beyond 2012. How about Macedonia then? When can she expect to join?
The Oasis of Peace - this how Macedonian politicians used to refer to their country earlier in the 90s. The conflict arrived in 2001, though Macedonia was lucky to have a more confined one than others around. Still, the country is a fair shareholder in the sad reality of a tormented region