Macedonian protests

Nine people were injured at the Sunday night protest staged by Macedonian right-wingers in Skopje, including seven policemen and two women; some 25 people were arrested.

The protest, organised by sports fan groups on social media and joined by nationalists and other right-wingers, turned violent at around 11pm.

The Macedonian Interior Ministry said the demonstrators - opposed to the deal reached by Athens and Skopje to end a dispute over the country's name - used pyrotechnics and tried to force their way into the Assembly, to which the police responded by using tear gas.

Hundreds of protesters joined a rally Sunday in the city of Bitola - near the border of Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) with Greece - to protest an agreement resolving the two countries' dispute over FYROM's official name.

The citizens who gathered in front of the Macedonian Assembly blocked a boulevard and several nearby streets, while the police was deployed to guard the building, MIA agency reported.

Plusinfo website said that a Molotov cocktail that did not cause a fire was thrown at the police, as well as several bottles, while a stun grenade was also activated.

The meeting on Wednesday lasted two minutes, the cabinet of President Gjorge Ivanov said in a press release.

According to this, Ivanov "stood up and left the meeting after two minutes with no desire to learn more about the content of the agreement."

The presidential cabinet also announced that Ivanov would address the public on Wednesday.

While leaders in Brussels, Washington and the region have showered praise on the agreement between neighbouring Macedonia and Greece over Macedonia's name, the deal has met a cold response from opposition parties back home.

And the new name of the Republic of Macedonia will be - the Republic of North Macedonia.

Macedonian PM Zoran Zaev announced this at a news conference late on Tuesday, which he attended with his entire cabinet, and added that the solution "guarantees the country's national identity and progress."

Neighbouring Macedonia and Greece announced on Tuesday they have reached a historic compromise solution to their decades-long name dispute, agreeing that Macedonia will use the composite name 'Republic of North Macedonia'.

"The chance is here and it must be seized, bravely, as this is the only patriotic way," Macedonian Prime Minisrter Zoran Zaev told a press conference in Skopje.

A host of political parties in Macedonia are calling on Prime Minister Zoran Zaev to make good on a promise to scrap the country's six electoral units, making it easier for smaller parties to pick up seats in parliament.

A judge who sentenced the former prime minister of Macedonia, Nikola Gruevski, to two years in jail last month has been under 24-hour police protection for the past two weeks due to threats made against her, Interior Minister Oliver Spasovski said on Friday.