Kosovar Xhavit Morina (44), who escaped from the Kosovo prison Dubrava recently with six other prisoners, was killed in the Tetovo village of Odri yesterday morning in an armed confrontation between two criminal groups, the Interior Ministry informed.

Individuals and groups with criminal, not political motives are operating in the crisis regions, Macedonian President Branko Crvenkovski said following yesterday's session of the National Security Council. The attack near Tanusevci, the situation in Kosovo, and the security situation in Macedonia were the main issues discussed at this session.

The Government should decide whether the Albanian flags should be removed from the town halls or whether the flags of all ethnic communities should be hoisted. The Constitutional Court only cancelled the articles that put the members of the Albanian ethnic community in a privileged position. This is the Constitutional Court's official explanation for its decision to annul certain articles of the Law on Use of the Ethnic Communities' Flags, which provoked an avalanche of reactions from the parties, the public, and even the judges of the Constitutional Court.

 

Strong condemnation of all forms of religious violence and all religions that promote terror. This was the message sent from the World Conference on Dialogue among Religions and Civilizations, which was held in Ohrid this weekend. The conference was closed with the adoption of a joint declaration.

The double formula for resolving of the differences over the name with Greece – this is the position with which Macedonian Ambassador Nikola Dimitrov will depart to the new round of talks in New York in 1 November. President Branko Crvenkovski, Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki, and Macedonian Ambassador Nikola Dimitrov decided at their meeting yesterday that Macedonia should not depart from the constitutional name.

"It would be good if a resolution for the name dispute is found before the NATO Summit in April next year. But only Greece has problems with our name," Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki said yesterday. He was asked about the Government's position regarding the announcements on continuation of the talks on the name, scheduled to take place in New York on 1 November, the media report.

23 October, Day of the Macedonian Revolutionary Struggle, was marked as a state holiday in Macedonia for the first time yesterday, without the presence of opposition parties SDSM and LDP. Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski assessed the opposition's absence from the formal ceremony in the Assembly as a bad step, noting that the opposition would lose most from this.

"You are FYROM. You have always been FYROM and you will always remain FYROM." This statement of an official, given prior to the Macedonian female athletes' tae kwon do match, was the last Greek provocation that forced Macedonia's Agency for Young and Sport (AMS) to withdraw all 133 Macedonian athletes at the start of the last competition day of the first Sports Games of Southeastern Europe, which were held in Thessaloniki and ended on Saturday.

If they tell you that you have problems fulfilling the political criteria, how can you ask for a date for start of the negotiations this year – Deputy Prime Minister Gabriela Koneska-Trajkovska commented briefly following the meeting with EU Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn and senior representatives of the Directorate for Enlargement for Macedonia.

EU Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn said at the meeting with Macedonian Deputy Prime Minister Gabriela Koneska-Trajkovska that there is progress in Macedonia, but that he is disappointed with the non-achievement of the political criteria, especially the politicians' inability to reach a political compromise on the important issues in the country.

Macedonia bid farewell to megastar Tose Proeski today with the highest state honors. Proeski was killed in a traffic accident in Croatia yesterday. Thousands of citizens, including Tose's colleagues and associates from Macedonia and the region, came to his birthplace Krusevo today to pay their last tributes to "our Tose" and to express their condolences to his family. His Holiness Archbishop Stefan, head of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, held the funeral service. Archbishop Stefan said that Tose, although young, lived a good and wealthy life, but he never forgot to be humane and to help the poor.

 

Macedonian music star Tose Proeski (26) got killed in a car crash in Croatia at about 6.30 this morning. The accident happened near Nova Gradiska when his Volkswagen Tuareg collided with a truck, Television Nova and Jutarnji list reported.

The security situation in Macedonia is stable and peaceful, and all events in the region that are related to the resolving of the final status of Kosovo are being watched alertly, Macedonian Interior Minister Gordana Jankulovska said in an interview for Radio Free Europe.

PPD leader Abdylhadi Vejseli told the members of the parliamentary Inquiry Committee yesterday that the reason for the incident in the Assembly was not his address, but BDI's intent to liquidate him. Vejseli asserted that precisely this was the reason why BDI leader Ali Ahmeti was in the Assembly the whole day that day and why BDI security guards and vehicles with "kalashnikovs" were outside the assembly building. When the members of this assembly committee asked the PPD leader to clarify this assertion, he refused to do so.

Who allowed Abdylhadi Vejseli to address the parliamentarians and why, considering that he was not on the list agreed among the coordinators of the parliamentary groups? The fight in the Assembly started after Vejseli's address. This was the key question on the first workday of the parliamentary Inquiry Committee, which is supposed to establish the facts concerning the fight in the Assembly within seven days. Assembly Chairman Ljubisa Georgievski and the coordinators of the parliamentary groups were called to give their statements.

The Government submitted a list of candidates for ambassadors to President Branko Crvenkovski on Friday and it expects the president to accept the individuals nominated, government Spokesman Ivica Bocevski said.

•Government submits ambassadorial candidates list to the President Crvenkovski.

•Macedonian President Crvenkovski to meet with NATO Secretary General Scheffer in Brussels today.

Late last night, the Assembly elected Mentor Qoku, candidate of President Branko Crvenkovski, member of the Judicial Council. Lina Petrovska from Skopje, Bujar Sabriu from Tetovo, and Ljubomir Bogeski from Kicevo, all nominated by the assembly Committee on Elections and Appointments, were also elected members. The parliamentarians failed to elect Crvenkovski's other candidate, Abdulselam Kanzoski. This means that one more member remains to the elected to the Judicial Council.

President Branko Crvenkovski met with EU Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn in Brussels yesterday. The president informed Rehn about the spheres in which Macedonia has made progress this year, stressing the improved business climate, the successful fight against corruption, and the foreign investors' increased interest. Crvenkovski stressed that Macedonia is still determined to receive a date for start of the negotiations for membership in year 2008, underlining that everyone is prepared to work on fulfilling the necessary criteria.

•Parliamentary parties reach agreement on make-up of parliamentary inquiry committee tasked to investigate incidents in Assembly.

The Parliamentary Committee on Election and Appointment Issues determined three judges that should become members of the Judicial Council. The Parliament will soon have to appoint Lina Petrovska, Ljubomir Bogoevski and Bujar Sabriu members of the Judicial Council with a majority vote and by observing the Badinter principle.

•Macedonian President Branko Crvenkovski invites Macedonian political party leaders to talks before his tomorrow's reporting in Brussels on Macedonia's progress.

 

Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa sent a letter to the chairman of the European Commission, requesting that negotiations for membership between the EU and Macedonia start in 2008, Croatian daily Jutarnji List reports. Jansa presents Macedonia as a positive example for the Western Balkans.

Around 2,000 supporters of BDI staged peaceful protest at the Sekender Beu square in Skopje today against the state violence against members of the ethnic Albanian community in the country and against the violation of the freedom of media.

•Four persons including a Macedonian, a member of a Red Cross team, have been kidnapped in Afghanistan.

•The Association of Journalists of Macedonia appeals for an information boycott of BDI s activities until the party apologizes for the attack against an A1 TV reporter by a BDI security guard.

Dnevnik and Utrinski Vesnik correspondents from Brussels report that European Commission representatives are shocked and disappointed by the latest events in Macedonia.