Momir Bulatovic

Joanikije, bishop of the city of Niksic in Montenegro, is an outspoken critic of Montenegrin leader Milo Djukanovic and of his plans to support the Montenegrin Orthodox Church, a feared rival to the dominant Serbian Orthodox Chuch.

Ascent began in wars of 1990s:

The article recalls that Djukanovic, during the so-called "Yogurt Revolution", with Momir Bulatovic, took power in the smallest Yugoslav republic, and focused on a close alliance with Slobodan Milosevic and Serbia, which Milosevic ruled at that time.

Local elections on May 20 in the tiny northern town of Pluzine, which just over 2,500 voters, are being seen as an important trial of strength both for the opposition and ruling parties in Montenegro.  

Pluzine is the only town in Montenegro where the country's ruler for several decades, Milo Djukanovic, and his party, have never won either a general or local election.

Members of Montenegro's parliament on Friday ratified the country's NATO membership treaty while thousands protested outside the old royal palace in the town of Cetinje where the ceremonial session took place.

The vote marked the final steps in the country's long drawn-out accession process.

Several anti-NATO opposition parties are to endorse businessman Miodrag Daka Davidovic as the leader of a joint electoral list to challenge the pro-Western ruling Democratic Party of Socialists of former Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic at local polls in Niksic on March 12.

Three main opposition groups in Montenegro say they will join forces to fight in the general election scheduled for October 16.

The "democratic coalition" unites three parties and groups considered civic and moderate in their orientation - the Civic Movement URA, DEMOS and the Socialist People's Party, SNP.

Several thousand opponents of the Montenegrin government staged an anti-NATO rally on Saturday in Podorica, shouting "No to NATO" and "Long Live Russia" and demanding a referendum on Montenegro's membership of the alliance.

Opposition groups are planning an anti-NATO rally on Saturday, demanding a referendum on Montenegro's upcoming membership of the Western alliance.

On December 2, Montenegro received a long-awaited invitation to become the 29th member of NATO. The government called it a "historic moment".

BELGRADE - A military parade to celebrate seventy years since the liberation of Belgrade from Nazi occupation in World War II, attended by Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic and Russian President Vladimir Putin, began with a gun salute and the sounds of the Serbian anthem in the afternoon on Thursday.