Republic of Macedonia

BELGRADE - The Serbian-German Association stated on Wednesday on the occasion of Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic's visit to Germany that this organization will work towards fostering and developing the friendship between the Serbian and German peoples.

Macedonia's Network of NGOs Against Discrimination - which includes the Macedonian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights - on Tuesday condemned the establishment of an "Institute of Family Studies" at the country's main university.

A Serbian prosecutor ordered the arrest of a 40-year-old Greek national on Monday after Serbian border police stationed at the Presevo border crossing between Serbia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) allegedly discovered 56 kilos of marijuana in his vehicle.

Gruevski’s most trusted ministers will retain their posts, judging by the list of candidate-ministers that the Macedonian premier officially submitted to parliament on Sunday together with his platform for government.

Construction works were launched on Thursday aiming to transform the city's Macedonia Square in line with the grand government revamp called Skopje 2014.

First on the agenda is construction of a large ground-level "jumping-jet" fountain, which will be 10 x 20 metres wide.

Macedonia's journalists union is taking the case of the expulsion of reporters from parliament in December 2012 to the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg.

It decided on this move after the top court in Macedonia ruled that their expulsion from the chamber by police had been done “for their own safety”.

In an interview for state run MIA news Agency, Nikola Gruevski for the first time has denied involvement in a bank sale that the opposition revealed in late April.

“I have never taken a million-and-a-half euros in cash, nor have I in any other way  taken any other sum for the sale of Makedonska Banka. All the other accusations that come out of this are also untrue,” Gruevski said.

The coalition has launched a campaign called ‘Census Now’, saying that Macedonia must not be held hostage by political elites that interrupted the last census because of the sensitive issue of how many ethnic Macedonians and Albanians live in the country.

Macedonia's main Sts Cyril and Methodius University has decided to establish a new "Institute for Family Studies" that will teach courses such as “Family Values and Morality”, “ Family and Social Deviations”, “Family and Religion” and “Family in Antiquity”.

The opposition led by the Social Democratic Party, SDSM, whose MPs submitted written resignations to parliament last week after alleging fraud at April's elections, is seriously considering setting up a ‘shadow government’, a high-ranking party source told Balkan Insight on Monday.