Nikola Gruevski

The former speaker of parliament in North Macedonia, Trajko Veljanoski, faces trial together with former transport minister Mile Janakieski, former education minister Spiro Risteski and former secret police chief Vladimir Atanasovski, after the Skopje Criminal Court on Thursday said it had accepted the charges pressed against them.

The high-profile trial in which former premier Nikola Gruevski is accused of ordering a political opponent's building to be demolished out of revenge may have to start all over again next year as the court failed to wrap it up by Tuesday before one of the judges retires, possibly rendering the entire process so far null and void.

The private national TV station 1TV ceased airing its signal on Wednesday, unofficially due to major financial problems that have piled up since its informal chief, Bojan Jovanovski, known by the stage name Boki 13, was arrested late in July.

The TV station's main entrance on Friday was padlocked and its frequency blank, although its web page stayed active.

Journalist Tomislav Kezarovski expressed unhappiness on Tuesday at the decision by the prosecution, saying that he had been denied the chance to overturn his conviction at a retrial.

"I want a chance to prove my innocence and be acquitted by the court," Kezarovski told a hearing in Skopje on Tuesday.

Unknown perpetrators in North Macedonia have removed or smashed plaques added to several statues and monuments in Skopje - which explained that they depict historical figures "belonging to the ancient Hellenic history and civilisation and to world cultural and historic heritage".

The action occurred just one day after the authorities put them up.

The main opposition party in North Macedonia has used publication of video footage that may further implicate the embattled head of the Special Prosecution, Katica Janeva, to demand early elections.

Katica Janeva, head of the Special Prosecution in North Macedonia, SJO, the body that has spearheaded the fight against high-level crime in the country, submitted her irrevocable resignation on Monday.

In geopolitical terms, unlike many other Balkan countries, especially Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia or Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia did not see North Macedonia as part of its immediate strategic interests in the region.

A court in Hungary has rejected a demand from North Macedonia for former prime minister Nikola Gruevski to be extradited to start serving his two-year prison sentence for illegally soliciting the secret purchase of a 580,000-euro Mercedes in 2012.

North Macedonia's Prime Minister and leader of its ruling Social Democratic Party, SDSM, Zoran Zaev, on Sunday said a promised "clean-up" launched after lower than expected results in recent presidential polls would not go without a mass cull of party officials - and will soon include ministers.