By the end of this year, Macedonian citizens will be able to obtain U.S. visas in Skopje. The building of the object intended for a U.S. embassy in Macedonia is underway. This was announced on Saturday by the head of the U.S. Liaisons Office in Skopje Victor Comras, during his stay in Struga and his several- hour long discussions with local businessmen.
In response to numerous questions of the businessmen, Comras stressed that Struga has all the preconditions to grow into an American cultural center also for neighboring Albania, following Skopje, considering the influence of the international poetry event the Struga poetry evenings.
The PDP parliamentary group sent a letter to the Council of Europe on May 17, this year, in which it says that RM does not meet the criteria to be accepted to this organization or any other international organizations, and that the acceptance should follow only "after the true democratization of Macedonia begins, with the equal treatment of all its citizens," Makpress reports.
"After Macedonia's gaining of independence," the letter says, "the members of the Albanian minority were deprived of the rights they enjoyed with the 1974 Constitution, such as the right to a constitutive nation and the status of the Albanian language as official, in parallel with the Macedonian."
Furthermore, the way in which the education in the mother tongue is sanctioned, PDP feels, rules out the possibility for higher education, in contradiction with the Constitution.
"The Electoral Law, such as it is, disables the Albanians from being represented in parliament in the percentage that corresponds with their numbers."
"The judges are not independent at all. The police, especially in dealing with the Albanians, oversteps its competence and easily turns to the use of force," is said in the letter.
"The Law on citizenship deserves to enter the Guinness book of records, as it denied 100,000 members of the Albanian minority, who fulfill the condition to obtain Macedonian citizenship, by spending 15 years in the country," PDP writes to the Council of Europe.
The special envoy of the U.S. President Clinton on the Greek-Macedonian dispute Matthew Nimetz, as the Greek media reports, will arrive in Athens before the end of next week. According to what Nimetz stated for "Nova Makedonija," still, this does not indicate any kind of preparations for the continuation of the negotiations with Macedonia, nor an eventual visit to Skopje, as the purpose of his visit is purely private - to go vacationing on one of the Greek islands.
Nimetz said that although he and Cyrus Vance were still in close contact with the negotiators from both sides, at this moment, they could not go into details concerning the announced possible accord, nor speculate when and how the negotiations between Macedonia and Greece would resume.
The Republic Institute for Blood Transfusion in Skopje without a drop of blood of any blood type, due to which even the most urgent surgeries are cancelled. There are no blood reserves even in the gynecological-obstetrical clinic in Chair, while the situation is somewhat better in the city and military hospital.
Due to this alarming situation, the citizen's association of the Skopje suburb "Gjorche Petrov," in cooperation with the Institute for Blood Transfusion and the Red Cross, will organize a blood donning action today, from 9 to 20.00 hours, at the locality "Cheshma." Such actions will also be organized in the coming days.
The religious life of the Macedonian community in Australia will proceed in the best order, following the visit of the delegation of the Macedonian Orthodox Church. During the visit, three new churches were sanctified, and the problems among the believers in Australian eparchy were overcome. Now, it remains for a competent metropolitan of this eparchy to be appointed. The Holy Synod of the Macedonian Orthodox Church has to decide whether he will be a new bishop or the Synod will stay in charge of the eparchy.
The academic, prof. dr. Ljupcho Serafimov passed away in Skopje yesterday, quite unexpectedly. He was a world renowned orthopedist, famous for the application of the method for building in artificial hips, as well as a number of operative techniques from the field of children's orthopedics. At the time of his death, he was the director of the Orthopedic clinic with the Medical faculty in Skopje and head of the orthopedics department, corresponding member of the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences, first president of the Macedonian association of orthopedists and traumatologists, formed last year, and a member of a number of several international expert associations.
He was born in Ohrid, in 1930, where he completed his elementary and secondary education, and he graduated, specialized and got his doctor's degree in Zagreb. In 1984, he became a regular professor at the Medical faculty in Skopje, while 10 years earlier, he became the first man of the orthopedic clinic. He is the author of a number of scientific works published in Macedonia and the world. He is the winner of a number of awards and recognitions.
The situation in the Macedonian radio-diffusion area has been the center of attention of our, and recently, also the international public, for more that a month now. Especially following the action of the competent Ministry of Transport and Connections, which, in cooperation with several other ministries, issued work ban decisions to over 60 commercial radios and televisions. If in the beginning, the action was given a bitter welcome followed with suspicion as to its true motives, due to the hastiness and unpreparedness of the services that are conducting it, after the short sobering up of those who found themselves targeted in this action, nevertheless, the matters took on an upward course.
On several occasions, and without much turbulence and raising of tension, meetings were held between the top man at the Transport Ministry, expert associates and the members of the Steering committee of the private commercial RTV stations that represent the interests of some fifty and more public media in the country. And, when it was expected that soon (a deadline of 15 to 30 days was mentioned) it would come to the first more concrete decision that would lead to the settlement of the acute problems, things returned back to the start. Firstly, as the private media claim "because of the inconsistency of the government spokesman Gjuner Ismail who devaluated the efforts made so far in the Belgrade media, and who is giving incompetent and arbitrary interpretations of important segments from the field of radio-diffusion," and which was followed by a bitter accusation by the Minister of Transport as a counter-attack, that this case was being rigged and that together with the president of the Commission for political system Naser Ziberi, his personality was being attacked.
One doesn't have to be especially wise to see that at this moment, going a step back was the thing least necessary. Since, even without that, much too much time has been wasted in the numerous improvisations that exist in this field, the non- existence of important legislation that would channel and direct the work of all those who aspire to be a part of the radio- diffusion sky. Instead of maximum efforts in bringing efficient technical norms which would contribute to the establishment of some kind of order on the air, impermissibly lot of energy and nerves are being spent on peripheral activities which not only don't help to make things better, but, to the contrary, create even more misunderstanding. Both sides should show enough openness and good will for mutual cooperation which would give the first concrete results. It is really impermissible to continue tolerating, without any order, the free frequencies, regardless of whether they bother anyone or not. At the same time, the long announced frequency plan has to be made as soon as possible, so that everyone can find his place under the sun. It's also odd to ask for something that no one has (the infamous permits from the Transport Ministry), but it is incomprehensible to be working in the informative sphere the way in which some people did. Without any program concepts, with ideological and political influences from the side, a lot of kitsch that offended the taste of the ordinary viewer and listener.
If several years went by in lethargy and with the thought that "everything that is not forbidden is allowed," then it's high time for things to change for the better. But, certainly not with a "Caesarean section," as some believe, but by giving a period of adaptation, so that all those who want to work freely have the time to get adapted to the new circumstances.
These days, a hot rolling mill and the line for the production of steel resumed work at the Skopje Iron works. Underway is the realization of the agreement with the German firm "Klekner," for the delivery of 100,000 tones of hot rolled steel metal. 30,000 tones are planned to be delivered in the first month. Also, work is being done on the production of 20,000 tones of sheet metal for Ukraine, as part of the agreement with the Ukrainian metallurgy combines for the delivery of 240,000 tones of semifinished articles.
An agreement was signed at the headquarters of the World Bank on Friday, to the value of US$ 24 million, for the building of roads in Macedonia. These funds will be used to build the section Tetovo- Gostivar.
The airlines "Avioimpex" is the first in Macedonia to purchase a cargo plane. Namely, purchased aircraft is an "AN 12," with a capacity of 20,000 tones, and which will be used for the transportation of goods and agricultural products from Macedonia to other countries, and vice versa.
The metallurgy-chemical combine "Zletovo" from Veles reduced the production of zinc, lead and other metals 21.8%. This decrease is owed to the international sanctions against FR Yugoslavia and the Greek embargo. "Zletovo" has capacities for the production of 80,000 tones of zinc and lead, while last year, 62,553 tones were produced. Artificial fertilizers and phosphoric acid were produced even less. The machines at the combine worked only 8 months last year, while the rest of the time was used for general repairs, which cost US$ 5 million. Otherwise, the combine has 1,700 employees.
As for the production in this year, there were frequent stoppages in the first three months, but in April and May, the situation was somewhat improved. 14,611 tones of "sinter," 5,226 tones of zinc, 2,660 tones of lead, 9,122 tones of sulfuric acid and 8,930 tones of fertilizer were produced in April.
The rate of export incentives for lamb's meat has been increased from 4.2% to 30%, for grapes and wine, from 4% to 12%, while for fruits and vegetables, as well as their products, the increase is from 1.7% to 5%.
This is the latest decision of the Macedonian Government. It is believed that this step will enable greater competition on the world market and a greater possibility for realization of the agreed export deals. MKD 365 million (US$ 9.76 million) will be used for the payment of these incentives.
The stock company for the production of medicine and cosmetics "Alkaloid," has been privatized according to the management buy-out system, and purchased by the company's managerial team. The deal for this purchase was signed on Friday at the Privatization Agency.
"Alkaloid" is estimated at 65 million DM, and has 2,070 employees. The managerial team that took over the running of the company has five years to pay a sum of 24.9 million DM which presents 38.31% of the company value, with which this team will own a control package of stocks.
15% of the value of the company is reserved for the Pension Fund, and 161,070 DM are reserved for the former owners. A capital of 24.9 million DM will also be found on free sale, which is still state-owned and which will be sold through the Privatization Agency.
From the end of last year, and up to the end of April, the number of registered enterprises in Macedonia has gone up 8.7%, whereby the overall number of registered companies has reached the figure of 79,497. From the total number, 95.5% are private companies, and according to the origins of the capital, 96.3% are with domestic capital.
Out of the total number of companies, only 1.7% are of mixed ownership, and as for the origin of the capital, only 2.5% are with mixed capital and 1.2% are with foreign capital.
The number of companies that are state owned is constantly dropping and by the end of April, only 1.6% of the companies are state-owned.