Divided regions

Conventional wisdom has it that the Macedonia dispute is an issue of national importance for Greece. But what kind of issue is it exactly? And how is Greece performing?

There is normal traffic on all border checkpoints, Border Police said. As of 6.00 am, traffic is normal on the borders with Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey and Romania.

Greece has asked the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) to purge history schoolbooks in the neighboring Baklan country of revisionist and irredentist elements, including misleading maps and references to ancient Greek civilization, the Athens-Macedonian news agency reports.

Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos has called on the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) to shed any irredentist ambitions.

During a visit to a military outpost near the Greek-FYROM border on Wednesday, Kammenos said that Greece wanted to maintain peaceful ties with its Balkan neighbor.

Timing could not be more perfect for Nicosia Mall, as it opens its doors Wednesday morning, just two days before Black Friday and a month before Christmas holidays.

The referendum this Sunday on in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) on its name deal with Greece is seen as pivotal for the country's future and the involvement of NATO and the European Union in the western Balkans.

A 23-year-old Greek doing his military service in Cyprus has been arrested in Nicosia as part of an ongoing investigation by authorities in Athens into the so-called "revolutionary fund," which is believed to have bankrolled a series of letter-bomb attacks last year.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will visit Turkish Cypriots in north Nicosia on July 9, marking his first trip overseas following his victory in a watershed election.

The ex-prime minister of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Nikola Gruevski, has dismissed the name deal reached by Athens and Skopje as "much worse" than the one his government rejected in 2009.

The Romanian foreign ministry expressed concern on Tuesday about the rights of the Romanian community in Ukraine after a raid by the Ukrainian security service the previous day on a Romanian cultural centre in Chernivtsi, Northern Bukovina.

The raid has sparked new tensions between Kiev and Bucharest over Romanian minority rights in the former Soviet state.