Skopje

Government to publish agreement with Etihad

BELGRADE -- The government has received the approval of Etihad to publish the deal on strategic partnership with Air Serbia, says an advisor to Deputy PM Aleksandar Vučić.

The agreement will be made public soon, Siniša Mali said on Wednesday.

Dozens of Turks and Bosnians celebrated Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s victory in Sunday’s local elections by gathering to celebrate in Ilidza in Sarajevo and driving through the city honking their car horns and waving AK (Justice and Development) Party flags alongside those of Turkey and Bosnia.

Macedonia's main ethnic Albanian party, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, has launched a campaign for a new presidential election model in Macedonia.

The campaign slogan, “No to a One-sided President”, advocates scrapping direct elections for the post of President - and the main Albanian and Macedonian parties in parliament agreeing on a consensus candidate.

The candidate of the main ruling VMRO DPMNE party, incumbent President Gjorge Ivanov, launches his campaign with a rally in the town of Ohrid, the party’s traditional election launch venue.

Ivanov, who is competing for a secound five-year term in office, is running under the election slogan “The State Above All”, positioning himself as a proven defender of the country's interests.

BELGRADE – Belgrade-based cultural organization Mikser, in association with the Croatian Design Association and Public Room from Skopje, announced results of the Young Balkan Designers 2014 competition on Thursday.

By Ilias Bellos

Trainose is set to expand its cargo services even further following the success of its Athens-Thessaloniki route by launching a second daily service on that line and planning routes to Skopje and Belgrade twice a week.

Experts from Russian state-owned Gazprom are to visit Macedonia's capital Skopje for talks over the construction of a South Stream gas pipeline section.

Prosecutor Marko Zvrlevski says he will soon launch an ex-officio probe, even if the two institutions who he says are primarily in charge of such cases, the Financial Intelligence Agency and the Financial Police, decline to do so.

“We have not received a notice from these two institutions, although legally they should react first, before we do,” Zvrlevski told Faktor news portal.

BELGRADE - Serbia will present its offer at eight international book fairs this year and seven Serbian writers will present their works at the first fair, the International Book Fair in Leipzig from March 13 to 16.

In the course of the year, the works of Serbian contemporary authors will be presented in Skopje, Sarajevo, Thessaloniki, Moscow, Frankfurt, Zagreb and Sofia.

The new archaeological museum of Skopje will display wax figures of Alexander the Great, his father Philip II, his mother Olympia, and other alleged Macedonians.

Among them will also be the Greek philosopher Aristotle, the Byzantine emperor Justinian, the Balkan folk hero Krali Marko and the Bulgarian king Samuil.