Columns
LICENCE TO STEAL
The consistent policy of rewarding bandits and punishing taxpayers continues in Macedonia. The European Commission demands that the state return 2.2 million euros within 30 to...
SORRY FOR UPSETTING YOU
The most interesting part in the televised leadership duel between Dimitar Kovachevski and Hristijan Mickoski occurred when the lottery girl Marjana Stanojkovska appeared on...
A BATTLE FOR LOOSE PRODUCTS
I don’t know if it’s because Macedonia is small, so we all seem to know each other in some way, or if it’s because of the fatigue from the three-decade-long transition and the...
AN ABSURD TURN OF EVENTS
The U.S. State Department blacklisted the mayor of Karposh and presidential candidate Stevcho Jakimovski because “he was involved in corrupt acts, including using his official...
TOMORROW HAS COME
The Registry Office apologised to the mayor of Karposh municipality, Stevcho Jakimovski, for issuing a death certificate to his son and daughter-in-law instead of a marriage...
ANOTHER NIGHT, ANOTHER CRITERION DOWN
In the presidential and parliamentary elections on 24 April and 8 May, people will be able to vote with an expired ID card or passport, provided that their validity has expired...
DOWN THE DRAIN
The pre-election campaign has kicked off with parties sowing fear. SDSM is scaring us that VMRO might return. VMRO is scaring us that SDSM would stay in power. DUI doesn’t see...
A PASSPORT SANDWICH
The additional Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Mitko Bojmacliev, embarked on a journey to the Bogorodica border crossing in the middle of the night to personally welcome the...
AT THE READY
The highlight of my week was a photo from the Macedonian embassy in Brussels. Technical Prime Minister Talat Xhaferi visited the EU headquarters. To strengthen the country’s...
“DONKEY DESK” DETENTION
The elections are approaching. The parties are commissioning polls about their popularity, they’re lifting their own spirits, they’re bidding on the number of voters and...
STATE ARREST
The judicial precautionary measure – confiscating the travel documents of suspects and those accused of a crime – has started to lose its meaning. Starting from 13 February,...
DEFEAT AS A VICTORY
Twenty-four elementary students and 26 high school students from Shtip didn’t show up at school in the second semester. They moved abroad with their parents. It’s not that the...
THE TIME IS COMING
The fact VMRO-DPMNE states it will participate with ministers in the technocratic government but won’t vote for the Government, as stupid as it may sound, is not inexplicable...
DOUBLE EXPENSE
In reference to the attack of eight thugs on MNAV, led by the head of the DUI branch in Chair, Bekim Neziri, the director Fahrudin Hamidi said it was just a tiny case of...
HAVE A SAFE FLIGHT
When you read the statement of the Ministry of Internal Affairs about the storming of the state company M-NAV at Skopje Airport, you’d think that it’s an everyday announcement...
JUSTICE FOR KJOSETO
2023 ends the same way it started, not very optimistically. With the same news that serves as a testament to the ongoing disaster in the judiciary, justice, impunity, corruption, the tool for equity...
NEW YEAR’S BULL
The 350,000 euros government campaign, titled “European future, closer than ever,” has started, and I still haven’t been able to attend a policy presentation to finally...
ORBÁN’S COFFEE
So, Ukraine, which is at war with Russia, and Moldova, which doesn’t have full control over its territory, can start unconditional negotiations with the EU, but Macedonia cannot...
IMPUNITY NOW HAS A FACE AND A NAME
Ljupcho Palevski Palcho, accused of the murders of 14-year-old Vanja Gjorchevska from Skopje and 74-year-old Panche Zhezhovski from Veles, is not a rookie in the game. He has...
PINE TREES RUSTLE
So, it could be done after all. It turns out it wasn’t that complicated to mow the grass and trim the bushes along the road from the Skopje Airport to the “Boris Trajkovski”...
DRIVEN AWAY
I happened to meet Macedonians abroad who left home in the last decade. These are people that I know had very successful careers in Macedonia, yet chose to leave. We’re...
NISH EXPRESS
The highlight of the week for me is the announcement of the construction of the Skopje-Nish high-speed railway. Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski and Minister of Transport...
I’LL DANCE TO MY OWN TUNE
You can talk as much as you want, I’ll still dance to my own tune. That’s more or less how Vice Prime Minister Bojan Marichic presented the latest European Commission report on...
SEAT WARMERS
When the president of the Supreme Court is urgently summoned to a hearing in the Judicial Council because she stated in an interview that there was political pressure on...
CATFISH AND BEARS
I still can’t contain my joy after the unexpected success of Macedonia on our path to the EU. The bilateral screening meeting for the “Fisheries” Chapter took place in Brussels...
AS IF IT NEVER HAPPENED
When Zoran Zaev became prime minister in July 2017 with the promise: “Let this evil never happen again,” the government coalition led by SDSM received a mandate from the...
THE FIRST GUNSHOT
Oh, if only we all possessed the determination and unity of our air traffic controllers, and if we could rebel against the parties that hire incompetent personnel in our state...
TEA AND BEETROOT
I would greatly appreciate it if the Government could release a recording of the session during which our ministers compiled the list of food products whose VAT will be...
GET HIM ANOTHER BOARD
I don’t get it. Why are we making such a fuss over an opposition MP calling the deputy prime minister slimy from the parliamentary rostrum? Yet, that’s the headline news from...
THE BETTER EVIL
Ok folks, what is this situation? That’s a verse by Igor Dzambazov, and I’ve been singing it all day long, asking myself “What is this situation?” looking for an answer to the...
A NEW BATTLE
In our country, those who break the laws are the ones in charge. The government would do just about anything to make their lives easier. Laws are being changed to accommodate...
LONG WEEKEND
We’re celebrating our Independence Day. A nice long weekend. Then why such disappointment? It’s not that horrible that by changing the Criminal Law, the Parliament voted for...
COMEDY CORNER
They said the members of the Anti-Corruption Commission were no good, didn’t they? Just two months ago, didn’t Deputy Prime Minister Artan Grubi say that “there are doubts about...
A GUARANTEE DOCUMENT
It’s not us whom the government should convince that we are Europe. We had such a campaign – “The Sun is a Star” in 2005 when we became candidates for the EU. In the meantime,...
ROMANTIC POETRY
Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski says that the proposal to change the Constitution has only one motive: entry into the EU. There’s nothing to get worked up about when he says...
SWIFT ROBBERY
Twenty-odd years have passed since the military conflict with the paramilitary NLA in our country. If the government truly wanted to build monuments to the fallen soldiers,...
IT DEPENDS ON YOU
Back in 2002, at the Eurovision Song Contest, Karolina sang “It depends on us” and about “a little piece of land in the south that could be paradise”. Then came 2008 and the...
ASTERIX AND OBELIX
I really wonder what sort of agreement was reached by the residents of Slupchane and EVN so that the electricity distribution teams can enter the village, fix the defect and...
COURT GLAMOUR
The Americans solved their problem with Orce Kamchev. They put him on the black list, froze his assets and accounts, forbade American companies to do business with him, and...
THE WHIP-MASTER HAS LOST HIS FOOTING
Bujar Osmani couldn’t contain his excitement when Austria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alexander Schallenberg, said that if the constitutional amendments are not adopted,...
IT’S THE TENDER’S FAULT
For the first time, the largest high schools in Skopje, which traditionally experienced enrolment frenzy until last year, were not filled in the first enrolment period. How can...
HEY, YOU FOOL
Each session of the Judicial Council resembles an episode of a soap opera and there’s more and more suspense, and it’s very likely that once this season is over we’ll continue...
TOYOTA EQUITY TOOL
It's no wonder that, after the mayor of Struga, Ramiz Merko, was put on USA’s black list, it's been discovered that there've been six active cases against him, raising...
BULGARIAN NONSENSE
It’s not like I suddenly feel more Macedonian than what I already am after the vote of the German MPs. The resolution of the German Bundestag recognising the Macedonian culture,...
THE SLUPCHANE FRONT
After several years of sieges and negotiations, EVN managed to breach the defences of the people of Arachinovo and managed to enter the village to modernise the network....
IN A PICKLE, HUH?
I’m looking forward to the statements of Dimitar Kovachevski and Hristijan Mickoski after the leadership meeting, which hasn’t yet been scheduled. Kovachevski says to Mickoski...
ALI OF MACEDON
Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski promised we’d have better living standards than the Czechs, Slovaks, Bulgarians, Poles, as was the case in the former Yugoslavia, who overtook...
RADEV AND PICCOLOMINI
Who wants to bet that there will be an additional condition on the start of our accession talks with the EU asking us to stop comparing Bulgaria’s attitude towards Macedonia to...
GRADUATION PHOTO BOARD
Do you remember at least once instance when the school year ended properly and there were no complications with the fourth-year high school students? Someone’s always...
MISTER AHMETI
Serbia is not that far away. Neither is the USA. They’re already here. We’re alarmed when we hear of an unimaginable crime, like the one in the Belgrade primary school where a...