Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, the candidate of the right-wing opposition VMRO DPMNE party, soundly beat ruling party-backed incumbent Stevo Pendarovski in the first round of North Macedonia’s presidential elections.

As a number of Western Balkan countries join the global trend toward authoritarianism, human rights are suffering, the latest Amnesty International report warns.

Voting has started in the country’s seventh presidential election since independence – one that may inform the outcome of the more high-stakes general election due in two weeks’ time.

Environmental watchdogs say bank should scrap planned loan for a new pipeline bringing additional gas to North Macedonia through Greece, claiming it breaches the EU’s and the EBRD’s own environmental policies.

The US State Department on Monday blacklisted the former chief of North Macedonia’s now defunct Special Prosecution, Katica Janeva, on account of her involvement in ‘significant corruption’.

US Treasury sanctions two individuals and five companies associated with the Intellexa Spyware Consortium – including one company from Greece and one company from North Macedonia – over ‘misuse of commercial surveillance tools, which increasingly present a security risk to the United States’.

North Macedonia missed the February 12 deadline to issue personal documents containing the country’s new name, leaving about a third of citizens stuck with old papers that do not guarantee free travel abroad. If you have experienced problems because of this, we’d like to hear from you.

Reversal of years-long ban on state-funded advertisements in media angers journalists’ unions who say the law change is likely to restore media dependence on politics.

The ethnic Albanian opposition bloc’s decision to field its own candidate in North Macedonia’s spring presidential elections has upset the plans of the ruling parties.

A quarrel between the current and former heads of the Alliance for Albanians – over whether to run alone in elections or as part of a bigger bloc – threatens to tear the party apart.