Columns
TWO BALLS AND ONE FOR FREE
What are the odds that two convicted men from the same company, sentenced in the same trial, both avoid prison because they’ve each got a testicular hernia? The owner of “Durmo...
82 PROJECTS IN 72 HOURS
Politics is basically a dirty business. And it is to be expected that there’ll be dirty party plots and games, especially before an election. But if your campaign strategy is to...
HYBRID WORDLE
In just a couple of days, we had three huge toxic fires in the capital, endangering the health of half a million people, we had a double murder in Veles committed by a thug...
SMILING THROUGH THE POISON
If things have come to the point where the prime minister tells us that the air in Skopje is clean, while our noses sting from the stench and we fall asleep and wake up in smoke...
THE SMALL EAR
We might as well start taking collective dementia therapy. Or perhaps the Minister of Health, Azir Alium, could import a team of psychiatrists from abroad, just as he’s about to...
THE PRE-ORDER FAIR
Have you, by chance, heard of exclusive party stores where special prices are available only to members of VMRO-DPMNE and its coalition? If Prime Minister Mickoski and Minister...
BOGEYMAN
Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski claims that the local elections will be unsuccessful, pointing to the possibility of independent citizen lists being submitted with just two...
HEY, CHIEF
Biljana Ivanovska, a candidate for mayor of the Municipality of Centar supported by “Independent Together,” was fortunate that the chief of police in Skopje wasn’t as zealous as...
MONUMENT TO STUPIDITY
In the Republic of Absurdistan, a blind man was driving a van when he hit a woman with his wing mirror and killed her, and while the accident was still under investigation, the...
ARCHIVIST OFF TO THE BEACH
Next time you want to seek justice, when you want to file a complaint about something or report something to the inspectorates, make sure to first ask around whether the...
FOR YOU
I regret thinking back in high school: What’s the point of maths? Well, this is the point. So I’d be able to tell whether those two or three classmates who were good at maths...
BULGARIAN MILL
Prime Minister Mickoski announced in an interview with Kanal 5 Television that he’d propose to Bulgarian President Rumen Radev that, together with Bulgaria, we submit a joint...
TOP MARKS
Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski says we’ll show the European Union that “with reforms back home, we will prove to be the best student in the class and that the EU will want...
SOUL-CRUSHING
After Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski announced that the Government is seriously considering introducing an additional tax on unmarried people, I can’t help but wonder: what...
A BAG OF MONEY
Why is Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski boasting about laying new foundations on the rubble he inherited a year ago, when his own foundations rest on illegal construction?...
HIP, HIP, HOORAY
I believe the Ministry of Finance hasn’t granted approval for the employment of 26 kindergarten teachers in Kochani for over a month, but it has approved the employment of...
KOCHANI IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER
I listened to the charges regarding the fire in Kochani that claimed 62 lives, including six children. Almost everything that State Prosecutor Ljupcho Kocevski listed as part...
A HISTORIC DAY
Let’s grab some popcorn, crack open a beer, and sit back. Elon Musk and Donald Trump have started airing their dirty laundry, just like our very own Danela Arsovska, Vredi and...
THE DANELA AND VISAR SHOW
It’s time to let a bit of sunshine and fresh air into our dull Scandinavian everyday lives. Let’s tune in live, let’s watch another episode of “The Danela and Visar Show.”...
MATHEMATICS AND EMOTIONS
It’s sad that no one in this country seems willing to change the practice of everything being party-driven. Even sadder is the fact that no one seems to mind. Or perhaps we do...
MACEDONIA 2008
Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski told the President of the European Council, António Costa: “I can’t stand in front of the citizens and tell them that the Constitution will be...
FFS, YOU AGAIN?
Sorry Sweden, sorry Norway, and especially sorry Denmark, but Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski claims that “we have demonstrated European, Scandinavian-style management of...
SCANNER AND STAPLER
The fact that the MPs from the ruling parties didn’t even come out of Parliament during the protest in Skopje to hear our the parents of the children who died in the Kochani...
TATJANA’S TANGLES
All that’s left for us to do is laugh, isn’t it? That’s probably the easiest way to digest the news that the president of the Anti-Corruption Commission is under investigation...
STATE-SPONSORED MURDER
That’s what our state is. A large illegal construction without a permit. And the worst thing is that it doesn’t bother anyone. Even if it did, who would we complain to, since...
IN THE PERIMETER
If, until last week, I had at least some hope that the 61 victims of the fire at the Kocani nightclub might serve as a wake-up call and a catalyst for change in the behaviour of...
A WAKE-UP CALL
A banal video of a Porsche parked incorrectly in the heart of Debar Maalo in Skopje gives me hope that citizens, especially young people, are waking up from their lethargy. We...
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
Here’s the opportunity for the Government to make radical changes to the system. However, they shouldn’t expect us to praise them simply for initiating inspections, which they...
EVACUATION PLAN
We need to build two monuments in memory of the tragedy at the “Pulse” nightclub in Kochani, where a fire on 16th March killed 59 people and injured almost 200 young people,...
EAGER FOR JUSTICE
Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski warns that the people will self-organise and the situation will escalate if the five members of the Judicial Council, who were subject to an...
THE OLD NORMAL
“If you are trying to find a way to attack the Government for something that never happened, we might as well just make things up,” said Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski,...
GO GIVE BIRTH
We’ve heard just about everything from the Assembly rostrum, yet it’s difficult to recall anything more inhumane than the remarks made by Gordana Dimitrieska-Kochoska, the...
ALICE AND THE BEARS
While Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski is in America, talking about the frustrations of Macedonian citizens with the EU’s hypocrisy, First Deputy Prime Minister Izet Mexhiti is...
FUKARA IS FUKARA
An idle mind is the devils’ playground. Do people in the government really have so little to do that they’re bringing up the issue of changing the national coat of arms? Why...
A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY
It makes me sick to see that yet another tragedy, this time the death of the 22-year-old girl who was run over on one of the busiest boulevards in Skopje, is being used for...
GREEN ISN’T GREEN
Even before I started letting my children walk to school on their own, I repeated the same instructions to them a hundred times every time we went out: you’ll cross the street...
A STUNT WITH TRUMP
“There are no instant results,” says Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski after returning from Washington, where he attended the inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the...
A PYRAMID MAZNIK
I’ve been watching both the Government and the opposition posing for photos at the Kumanovo-Beljakovce railway line, which was under construction for 28 years, along with other...
FIRE ZONE
Fire experts, based on their analyses and risk assessments, had predicted the disaster caused by the wildfires in Los Angeles as early as 2018. “Entirely foreseeable,” said Char...
BEAR ON THE ROAD
The deputy director of “Macedonia Road,” Sasho Drango, proudly posed for a photo with a dead bear, and the case will be taken up by the Anti-Corruption Commission. Why should...
TO HELL WITH IT
Diplomatic passports are the real problem. If all members of the Anti-Corruption Commission had diplomatic passports like President Tatjana Dimitrovska, perhaps even Cveta...
OPEN BORDERS
Is there any other country with more high-profile individuals on the U.S. blacklist than ours? Among those the State Department has designated for significant corruption, we...
ACTING ON A TIP
Did you catch how U.S. Ambassador Angela Aggeler put it, after the U.S. Department designated formed Deputy Prime Minister Artan Grubi and Appellate Court Judge Enver Bexheti...
SUPERMAN VS NEWTON
The broken arms and legs will heal, and thankfully, none of the eleven children who ended up in hospital were seriously injured while doing the “Superman Challenge” on TikTok. I...
A CELEBRATION LIKE NO OTHER
How much brain power does it take to both condemn and justify the desecration of the Macedonian national flag during the celebration of Albanian Flag Day? The opposition DUI...
HOLD ON FOR DEAR LIFE
How will we wash our name clean after bringing the incompetent Danela Arsovska into power as mayor of Skopje? By putting citizens through so much trouble that they’ll think...
MAINTAINING THE STYROFOAM
Our lives in are stuck in a vicious circle of seasonal topics. They’re always the same. It's November, so, of course, we'll start talking about pollution. Once the ski seasons...
OPTIMISM ON THE SIDELINES
Gosh, just listen to the optimism Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski is spreading after meeting French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the European Political...
LET’S GO TO THE DISCO
“Sanja Bozhinovska is a greater Macedonian than all of you combined,” Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said from the parliamentary rostrum when asked whether he knew that the...
BARON AND LADY
The New Year is just around the corner, followed closely by Christmas, and with the holidays comes another round of pardons from President Gordana Siljanovska – Davkova. Let’s...