Cheaper diesel and a hole of 7-8 billion denars

Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski delivered two pieces of news in one statement, and they don't sit well together: diesel should get cheaper next week, and a budget revision is coming by the end of the month, because the budget is 7 to 8 billion denars short. That is the price of the reduced excise duty and the reduced VAT on diesel - a discount at the pump that doesn't vanish, it just moves into the state coffers. SDSM says the gap will be covered with new borrowing.

The Finance Ministry, meanwhile, is celebrating the BB- rating that Standard & Poor's confirmed. The agency's report says growth is being driven by the highway corridors, and that public debt will reach 57 percent of GDP by 2029. The praise and the warning sit on one page.

Iotova: talks "without ultimatums", but with conditions

Speaking in Blagoevgrad, Bulgarian President Iliana Iotova said Sofia is open to talks, but Mickoski must first forget that the issue is bilateral. On Friday Skopje sent a note requesting a meeting between foreign ministers Timcho Mucunski and Velislava Petrova-Chamova, and so far the answer is arriving through microphones. A bilateral meeting about an issue that must not be called bilateral - that is the "European policy" Skopje is supposed to "read very carefully".

Heating is priced on gas at 40, while the exchanges are at 70 euros per megawatt-hour

The district heating prices in force since 1 August were calculated with gas at around 40 euros per megawatt-hour. Today it trades at 70-72 on the exchanges. Aco Ristov, head of the Energy Regulatory Commission, is warning of a "turbulent" heating season if the price doesn't settle, and household heating has already gone up by 5.96 percent on average. The regulator is considering pegging the gas price to the exchange, while energy expert Mitko Andreevski warns that this is the wrong direction for a market that has been liberalised for more than ten years. If a subsidy comes, it will be paid from the budget - from coffers that are already billions short.

46 fires in October, and timber thieves inside "National Forests"

By 7 pm on Sunday the Crisis Management Centre had registered 46 open-air fires, 16 of them still active. Fire was moving towards Korab, pastureland was burning above Bogovinje Lake on Šar Mountain, a pine forest was burning near Lipkovo, and in Skopje, in Jurumleri and Vizbegovo, rubbish was on fire too. The calendar says October; the tally looks like August.

The forests have another problem as well. The state company "National Forests" is urging people not to buy firewood from timber thieves, while admitting that some of its own employees are connected to the criminal groups. The appeal goes to the buyer; the admission concerns the people who are supposed to guard the forests.

A foal in the middle of Ilindenska, and nobody picks up the phone at "Lajka"

On the morning of 4 October a mare gave birth right on the asphalt of Ilindenska Boulevard in Skopje's Karpoš district. Passers-by filmed it, and the foal was dragged off the road by activist Biljana Nikolovska, alone. The veterinary clinic in Avtokomanda referred her to the public company "Lajka", where nobody answered, and in the end a team from the Zoo stepped in, even though, according to Mayor Orce Gjorgjievski, that is not their responsibility. The mare and the foal are now in quarantine, and the owner is still unknown. So which number is a citizen of the capital actually supposed to call?

A screening that doesn't work, school classes that don't exist

On breast cancer screening, the minister says "we have to completely rethink the concept". Around a thousand new cases a year, around 7,000 women being treated or previously treated, patients faking symptoms just to get an examination, and a programme the State Audit Office has assessed as unsuccessful. For now, the new concept is a promise with no deadline.

In Gevgelija the secondary school enrolled 52 fewer students than two years ago, and this year there is no class for cooks, waiters and car mechanics. The ministry allowed smaller general-education classes, but not vocational ones - so ten students ended up in the mechanical engineering track.

From Kočani to Ohrid

At the "Days of Kočani Rice", Minister Serafimovski promised help over the price of rice, while the award for the most successful farmer went to the church board, because no farmers applied. Lake Ohrid is just five centimetres above its October average, 26 centimetres remain to the minimum permitted level, and the measurements offer no explanation for the ten-centimetre drop in two days in August. In Karpoš, the municipality's report on the kindergarten in Kozle and the "mega-park" arrived as a VMRO-DPMNE press release - the numbers belong to the municipality, the signature to the party.

A hand grenade in a flat and badly injured children in Gostivar

In the home of a 33-year-old Skopje man, police found a hand grenade, two pistols and 240 rounds of ammunition, along with a motorbike key that, according to prosecutors, was used in a murder. Which murder, the prosecution isn't saying for now. In Gostivar, a three-car collision injured six people, among them two 14-year-old passengers who were taken to the clinics in Skopje. The drivers of the two Golfs are 18 and 19 years old, and the cause of the crash has not yet been announced.

The neighbourhood and the world

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the HDZ won back the Croat seat in the Presidency, while Dodik credits his victory to Trump. In Serbia, Vučić is fighting for the prime minister's post, promising a government of 12 ministers "on wheels". Trump threatened Europe with a ban on diesel exports, and the G7 is releasing 100 million barrels from strategic reserves. Lukoil's international assets, worth 20 billion dollars, have entered the negotiations over Ukraine, including refineries in neighbouring Bulgaria, and Geran drones flew over Kyiv for almost two hours, where Russian sources claim the target was the TE-TO 6 heating plant.

Skopje's marathon and a bad weekend for football

More than 15,000 runners from 63 countries filled the streets for the Skopje Marathon, and Dario Ivanovski finished third, less than a minute behind Kenya's Njoroge. For one morning the city belonged to the runners rather than the cars. On the pitch it was harder going: Scotland took the points from Skopje, Macedonia's third defeat in three matches, and England crushed Croatia 7:0.

What ties the heavier part of the day together are institutions that announce faster than they answer: a budget revision right after the promise of cheaper fuel, a new heating price calculation before the first heating bill, an appeal to firewood buyers while timber thieves sit among the employees, and a public company for stray animals where nobody picks up the phone. The question isn't what has been announced, but who will answer for it when the announcement arrives.