When Macedonia renamed Skopje airport for Alexander the Great in 2007, this seemed a one-off to annoy Greece.

ECONOMIST: Annoy Greece, put up more statues of Alexander

SKOPJE, Macedonia (CNN) -- Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov was critically injured Tuesday in a car bomb attack that took the life of his driver.

CNN: World Briefs

How to achieve that was the subject of some hard talking this week between Mr Xhaferi and Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign-policy spokesman, who has been shuttling between Brussels and Skopje, Macedonia's capital.

ECONOMIST: Charlemagne

In Macedonia's capital, Skopje, senior politicians, Serbian mafiosi and Albanian guerrillas all hide behind blacked-out car windows.

ECONOMIST: Macedonia: Next domino? | The

And as a consequence of Greek opposition to recognition of Macedonia by its own constitutional name as the Republic of Macedonia, when the representatives of the Skopje government took their seats at the United Nations after some delay in 1993, they sat behind a name plate referring to the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, or Fyrom for short.

BBC: Macedonia's name saga

That will change, he said, in the four days before the team flies to Skopje for the vital game with Macedonia.

BBC: GB men fight back to beat Hungary

The national roundtable held in Skopje successfully started this process in Macedonia.

UNESCO: MEDIA SERVICES

Parties in Macedonia's fractious coalition government started a two-day summit in parliament in Skopje to work on details of a deal to end the insurgency.

CNN: Rebels extend Macedonia cease-fire

Tensions between Macedonia's ethnic groups recently flared up over the construction of a church-shaped museum in Skopje's old fortress, which Albanians are unhappy about.

ECONOMIST: Business as usual in Macedonia