Skopje

The Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, hoisted a Turkish flag on Monday to mark the third anniversary of the failed coup in Turkey, just a week after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the country, when he urged the authorities to extradite suspected followers of the exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen - who Ankara blames for the coup attempt.

Bulgaria's Council of Ministers has approved the minutes of the first meeting of the joint intergovernmental commission between Bulgaria and Northern Macedonia held on 10 June in Sofia. The commission was established under Article 12 of the treaty of friendship between Bulgaria and Northern Macedonia, signed on 1 August 2017 in Skopje, said the government press office.

"Oh, my heart's going to burst!" exclaims Ljubica Bubuleska as she returns to her birthplace, the North Macedonian village of Radusha, for the first time in many years.

"There's nothing left of my home, not a single photo of my parents, not a piece of furniture that was bought over the years," Bubuleska laments.

On the same day, just a few hundred meters away, a group called the "Alliance for Life" is staging a counter-march, it said, in defence of "traditional family values".

Some of this march's supporters have called people on social networks to resist what they call a "gender ideology" that they call "the work of Satan".

Parallel marches with different audiences:

North Macedonia President Stevo Pendarovski has warned against delaying EU membership talks with Skopje, expressing fears that the political context in the Balkan region could change in the coming months and endanger the process.

"It is a good opportunity to see how both smaller and bigger European cities are doing, and how we are actually on the same page for how we want to introduce citizens to decision-making," Radomir Lazovic, one of the founders of Ne Davimo Beograd, said.

We must speed up the construction of pan-European corridor № 8, said Bulgaria's Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva after the first meeting of the inter-governmental commission for the implementation review of the Treaty of Friendship, Good neighbourhood and Cooperation with North Macedonia.

Turkey's cultural institute director in North Macedonia's capital Skopje said that approximately 4,000 people have attended Turkish language courses over the past 10 years.

Macedonians gathered at Skopje airport on Monday to serenade the victorious male handball team following its sensational victory on Sunday in Germany.

Thousands of others took to the streets to cheer their heroes as the team mounted an open-topped double-decker bus that journeyed from the airport to the city's main Macedonia Square for the main celebration.

Founded in 1982, the Skopje Jazz Festival is one of the biggest cultural events in North Macedonia.

With performing legends like Al Di Meola, Chick Corea, Ray Charles, Maria Joao, Herbie Hancock, Youssou N'Dour and Tito Puente, to name just a few, its significance far surpasses the confines of the small Balkan country.