Authorities in Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Croatia say several dozen others taken to hospital with disease At least five people in the Balkans have died from West Nile virus and several dozen others have been taken to hospital in the past four weeks, according to health authorities in Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Croatia. West Nile virus is a mosquito-borne disease usually found in temperate and...
Balkan state attempts to lay claim to neighbour's ancient warrior hero by erecting giant bronze in Skopje Macedonia has begun to assemble a controversial bronze statue of Alexander the Great, a monument seen as a towering challenge to neighbouring Greece's claim on the ancient hero. The statue, designed by sculptor Valentina Stevkovska, will be 12 metres tall and will be placed on a 10-metre fountain...
A statue of Alexander the Great in Skopje has irritated Greece and reignited the debate about the naming of Macedonia There was a cultural event in Skopje that would not for a moment draw the world's attention from much more important events such as the uprisings in Syria and Libya, for example if it did not have such an intense political background, connotation and reaction. A giant statue of an ancient...
Three daily newspapers in Macedonia - Shpic, Vreme and Koha e Re - have been forced to close down after falling into debt. But the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) believes they are victims of a government policy to reduce media outlets critical of prime minister Nikola Gruevski. ...
Male giraffe called Orka, who was star attraction at Skopje zoo, is found dead with no obvious injuries Zoo officials in Macedonia's capital are investigating the unexplained demise of their star captive, a young male giraffe named Orka that was particularly popular with visiting children. Skopje zoo officials told local media that Orka was found dead late on Thursday and had displayed no earlier...
s trial in Skopje claimed his article allowed the murder trial defendants to discover the identity of the protected witness and influenced him to change his testimony. Kezarovski, who pleaded not guilty, has appealed against his conviction. But he has spent five months in jail awaiting trial and was remanded in custody pending the appeal. The sentence has alarmed press freedom bodies. Dunja Mijatovic,...
George Papadopoulos, who has died aged 87, was a leading international figure in education for half a century, associated particularly with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (the OECD), but also with the Council of Europe and Unesco, and with specific initiatives in south-east Europe. He was also my mentor and dear friend. He left his village of Palechori in Cyprus for Britain...
s "war on terror" also came under scrutiny in Congress on Thursday. The US Senate's select committee on intelligence was expected to vote on whether to approve a mammoth review it has undertaken into the controversial practices that included waterboarding, stress positions, forced nudity, beatings and sleep and sensory deprivation. The report, that runs to almost 6,000 pages based on a three-year review...
s rendition program. Khaled El-Masri, a German national, was seized by Macedonian security officers on 31 December 2003 , at a border crossing, because he had been mistaken for an al-Qaida suspect. He was held incommunicado and abused in Macedonian custody for 23 days, after which he was handcuffed, blindfolded, and driven to Skopje airport, where he was handed over to the CIA and severely beaten....
s ethnic Albanian minority. "At the stadium, we fight with words," he says. "On the street, we fight with fists. We defend our national identity with our blood." Nikola, also 17, belongs to the Komiti, a group of hardcore football supporters – ultras – whose members come from Skopje's Macedonian majority. "When will they stop dishonouring us?" he asks of the ethnic Albanians who blocked an attempt...
s supporters point out that since his public break with Seselj in 2008, he has trodden a resolutely pro-European path and discarded the uncompromising nationalism of his earlier career. Nonetheless, though Bosnia-Herzegovina is a political mess it would look even worse if the winds of nationalism started blowing from its neighbour. Equally, Kosovo's independence remains contested, backed by the key...
s human rights court began hearing the first case arising from the US's post-9/11 rendition programme on Wednesday, when the government of Macedonia went on trial accused of multiple human rights abuses of a German citizen. Khaled el-Masri, 48, a car salesman of Lebanese descent, was detained in Macedonia in December 2003 and held for more than three weeks in Skopje, before being handed to CIA officers...
s callous contribution in CIA's extraordinary rendition programme to be judged in Strasbourg Judges at Europe's top human rights court will on Wednesday May 16 hear the first case to come before them arising from the US CIA's program of "extraordinary rendition", the campaign of covert cross-border transfers of terror suspects launched by the agency after the attacks of September 11, 2001. The case...
People around the world mark the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, honouring the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis during the second world war ...
s Macedonia, along with Bosnia and Herzegovina, tried to steer a middle course between Serbia, which under President Slobodan Milosevic was bent on recentralising the fragmenting federation under Belgrade's control, and the increasingly pro-independence endeavours of Croatia and Slovenia. Macedonia and Bosnia put forward a compromise proposal that would have left in place a loosely knit confederation...
s economic and political ills that he had successfully employed in business. Yet by the time he bowed out of office in December 1991, Yugoslavia had disintegrated. Three of the six republics, Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia, had broken away; Markovic's own republic, Croatia, was in flames, waging a war of independence; and the economy had collapsed, weighed down by physical destruction, trade...
s hopes of joining Nato and the EU have received a diplomatic boost following a judgment in the international court of justice (ICJ) that may help resolve the row over the state's name. By a 15 to one majority, judges in The Hague rebuked Greece for preventing its Balkan neighbour from joining the western military alliance three years ago and "violating its obligations" through overzealous pursuit...
Qatar-based network hopes venture will provide objective news in a region where media is heavily influenced by politics The pan-Arab news network al-Jazeera is launching its Balkans operation that is expected to reconnect people divided by the wars in the former Yugoslavia and offer them new perspectives of each other. Officials of al-Jazeera Balkans say they are starting on Friday evening and plan...
s Eve were prohibited. The issue was picked up in 2003 by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention , which raised alarm over the dangers of falling bullets discharged during new year celebrations in Puerto Rico in 2003/4. They logged 19 injuries, including one death, over two days. The perils of falling bullets are not confined to war zones and inner cities. In 2008, American chef Paul Prudhomme...
s capital. Seated upon his favourite steed, the classical hero surveys the capital from the vantage point of Plostad Makedonija, Skopje's central square. At 22 metres, or eight storeys high, the statue dwarfs its surroundings. But, then, that is the idea. Amid great clouds of dust, giant bulldozers perpetually gnaw at the ground as the former Yugoslav republic undergoes one of Europe's biggest urban...