Frosina Remenski

Dimitar Kovacevski, who is the current deputy Finance Minister in Zoran Zaev's government, won more than 37,000 of just over 44,000 votes in internal Social Democratic Party leadership elections on Sunday, leaving the other two candidates, Frosina Remenski and Jovan Despotovski, far behind.

Currently, our country is in negotiations with Bulgaria, which are based on European values and respect all adopted resolutions. This was said by the newly elected leader of the ruling Social Democratic Union in RN Macedonia, Dimitar Kovachevski, during his first public statement. He replaces Zoran Zaev, who has held the post since 2013, BGNES reported.

In a case that the local media in North Macedonia have already nicknamed "Extortion 2", the vice-president of parliament, Frosina Remenski, has been named as the third accused and charged with helping to commit fraud. She had previously insisted she was innocent.

North Macedonia's Prime Minister and leader of its ruling Social Democratic Party, SDSM, Zoran Zaev, on Sunday said a promised "clean-up" launched after lower than expected results in recent presidential polls would not go without a mass cull of party officials - and will soon include ministers.

All 95 MPs who were present at Tuesday's session in Macedonia's 120-seat parliament voted in favour of the controversial amnesty legislation.

The opposition VMRO DPMNE MPs joined the majority led by the Social Democrats in supporting the law, despite the fact that there amendment aimed at expanding the scope of the amnesty to all participants was rejected earlier in the day. 

After Macedonia's ruling parties on Monday unilaterally elected a new interim government in parliament, paving the way for early elections in April 24, the leader of the opposition Social Democrats, SDSM, Zoran Zaev on Tuesday said his party was yet to decide on its response.

After Labour Ministry started to investigate the increasing debts run up by the State Pension Fund, PIOM, it rushed to repay its multi-million euro owings, private pension funds confirmed.

PIOM's debt burden had raised questions about its liquidity and the government's policy of annual pensions increases.

After several breached deadlines, Macedonia's warring parties on Friday reached an agreement on the appointment of several interim ministers and deputies from the ranks of the opposition.

The appointments were envisaged in the EU-brokered crisis agreement reached this summer that foresees several reforms being undertaken before early elections in April.

Embattled Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and opposition Social Democrats leader Zoran Zaev held marathon talks that went on into the early hours of Friday, finally reaching agreement about the stalled issue of the appointment of interim ministers from the ranks of the opposition who will hold their posts until the April elections.

Skopje airport authorities have launched an investigation to determine how the former secret police chief, Sasho Mijalkov, passed through airport security and boarded a plane to Belgrade with a pistol.