Foreign Digest: Macedonia, Colombia and Nicaragua

Macedonia: name dispute settlement

            An accord was reached late last week between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia which ends a quarter-century-long dispute over the name of the Slavic state on Greece’s northern border since its independence in 1993.  The Macedonian Republic’s new name will be The Republic of North Macedonia.

            Greece had been concerned over separatism in its homologous province bordering the renamed Republic of North Macedonia.  The objection by the Hellenic Republic over its northern neighbor’s name blocked Macedonian entry into the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Colombia: conservatives won the presidential elections

            The center-right candidate won the Colombian presidential election yesterday, keeping the presidency of the hands of the conservatives, but of the faction of the former President Alvaro Uribe, and not of Uribe’s successor.  Alvaro had disagreed with his successor over the amnesty for the Marxist narco-terrorists, whom were defeated after a more-than half-century war in large part through Uribe’s efforts, backed by the United States.  The center-left candidate was a former guerrilla.

Nicaragua: update on protests 

           The death toll from protests against the authoritarian Marxist Sandinista regime has reached 170, but a truce has been negotiated, at the urging of the Catholic Church, between the government and the protestors.