Skopje

North Macedonia took over the chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Sunday and will lead it for the next 12 months. The foreign minister of the country, Bujar Osmani, became the chairman of the OSCE and defined the restoration of mutual trust and the need to resume the dialogue on security issues as the main tasks for the current year.

The Prime Ministers of Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia, Galab Donev and Dimitar Kovachevski, launched the construction of the railway line from Kumanovo to Beljakovce in our southwestern neighbor. The line should reach the border with Bulgaria and is part of the trans-European corridor number 8 - a project more than two decades old.

Vui presented the president of the EC with a bouquet of flowers upon greeting her at the airport.
Serbian President and Von der Leyen then went to tour together the works on the construction of the Serbia-Bulgaria gas interconnector in the town of Jelanica.

It is expected that she will discuss energy, Serbia's alignment with the EU's foreign and security policy and the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina with Serbian officials.

According to her, the European Union has prepared a support package for the entire Western Balkans to help it deal with the energy crisis.

Von der Leyen will start the tour in Skopje on October 26, continue on October 27 in Pristina and Tirana, then on October 28 stay in Belgrade and Sarajevo and finally on October 29 in Podgorica, as part of the Balkan tour, it has been announced on the website of European Commission.

Slovenian energy company GEN-I has constructed the largest solar plant in North Macedonia, which will generate 25,000 megawatt hours of green energy to meet the needs of more than 5,500 households, GEN-I said in a statement on Tuesday. The plant was connected to the Macedonian grid in September but the inauguration event was held in the capital of Skopje on Tuesday.

Several hundred people blow vuvuzelas and chant: "Bulgarians - Tatars and fascists" in Ohrid in front of the building where the Bulgarian club "Tsar Boris III" is to be officially opened, BGNES reports.

Some of the protesters also carry posters with inscriptions against Bulgaria and appeals against the European Union, which supported the "fascist demands of Bulgaria".

The VMRO DPMNE opposition party launched a campaign for a referendum against the 2017 Skopje-Sofia friendship treaty, which it claims is fuelling Bulgaria's push for concessions from North Macedonia in return for unblocking its path towards the EU.

Satellite footage on Google Earth from August suggest North Macedonia's four Sukhoi Su-25 ground attack jets are no longer in Skopje.