Prominent architects say plan to build a university in the heart of the town, called Plaosnik 2014, could jeopardise Ohrid’s place on UNESCO’s list of world heritage sites. 

The mocking of Muslims by men dressed in burqas at a carnival in the village of Vevcani in Macedonia last month, and the reprisals and counter-reprisals it provoked, illustrate the dangerously frail state of ethnic relations in Macedonia.

Macedonia’s ruling party is in no mood to back down before the courts concerning its tough lustration agenda.

While foreigners are often caustic in their appreciation of Skopje’s controversial revamp, some comparing it to Disneyland, the local artistic community is keeping strangely quiet.

This week Macedonia pays tribute to its first democratically elected president, Kiro Gligorov, a statesman whose calm posture and peaceful policies kept the country out of the bloody Yugoslav conflicts of the 1990s.

Serbia’s initiative to establish a pan-Balkan extradition treaty may see lift-off next year - but Kosovo’s exclusion from the scheme looks like another politically driven error.

Partly because its grave economic problems are a matter of global concern, Athens is unlikely to come under international pressure to modify its policy towards Skopje.