Balkanalysis.com

(Balkanalysis.com Research Service)- At a special press conference at 4pm today in Skopje, Macedonian Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Milososki announced that the government has opened a case against Greece at the International Court of Justice in the Hague. At issue is Greece’s blocking of Macedonian NATO membership at the alliance’s April summit, which occurred [...]

By Christopher Deliso The tense ordeal of four Macedonian journalists detained by police in a northern Greek village on Monday is gaining wider attention, and has caused an international outcry against the perceived heavy-handedness of Greek authorities- and what their apparent contempt for the free press may be covering for. For their part, the Greeks [...]

By Christopher Deliso Macedonia, and indeed the entire Balkans, were transfixed last night by an event much larger than its confines in Skopje’s City Stadium. The massive humanitarian concert for Tose Proeski, held on the one-year anniversary of what would sadly prove to be the 26-year-old singer’s last concert, left tears in the eyes of [...]

By Christopher Deliso Two Macedonian Army representatives were among the chosen expert speakers at a conference last week in Bulgaria devoted to peacekeeping issues involving the former conflict in Bosnia and the Balkan security situation today. The conference was organized by the Bulgarian General Staff and NATO, and held at the prestigious G.S. Rakovski Defense [...]

By Christopher Deliso It’s a clear warm spring day high on a barren, charred plateau in Macedonia, and Mike Goldstein is holding a Hebrew prayer book in his hands, with a row of tiny saplings decorating the freshly-turned earth at his feet. A retired general in the Vermont National Guard, Mike has been asked by [...]

By Christopher Deliso You wouldn’t think they’d have time for it, but amidst all the domestic and international political turbulence surrounding their country these days, Macedonians managed to plant over 2 million trees — symbolizing one for each citizen in the nation — on Wednesday, March 12, in 43 locations across Macedonia. In a surprisingly [...]

(Balkanalysis.com Research Service) – When government officials in Macedonia recently proposed rebuilding a church that once stood on the city’s central square, they received an abrupt warning: for the Islamic Community (IVZ), the recreation of Sveti Konstanin & Elena, destroyed in the 1963 earthquake, should guarantee them their own right to build a mosque in [...]

By Christopher Deliso Both tourists and academic experts will want to take note of some intriguing developments in the upper Mediterranean this year. According to Pasko Kuzman, archaeologist and Director of Cultural Heritage Protection in the Macedonian Ministry of Culture, 2008 will be an exciting year for the continued unearthing of unknown treasures from several [...]

By Christopher Deliso When they report on Kosovo, foreign media bodies often reiterate that the province is the “spiritual cradle’ of Serbia- without going into much detail about what this means, or what it might entail for the situation there today. And so, while the press has devoted considerable attention to the implications of Kosovo’s [...]

By Christopher Deliso Bitola, Macedonia’s lively southern second city, is bursting with cafes and bars, most centered around its central pedestrian thoroughfare, the Sirok Sokak, lined with neoclassical buildings and foreign flags hearkening back to Bitola’s heyday as the “city of consuls’ in the Ottoman Empire. Today, however, most of the town’s cafes are more [...]