Volume 8 (2012): Issue 2 (December 2012)

This research investigates the importance of writing skills in English for academic purposes (EfAP) courses and compares students’ responses to their own English writing needs, their ability to perform and their priorities in their foreign language writing. This paper presents quantitative and qualitative research conducted through analysis of a questionnaire and students’ written compositions. The survey involved 50 EFL (English as a foreign language) students from different departments of the South East European University of Tetovo, Macedonia aged between 18 and 23 who attended Academic and Advanced Academic English (AE & AAE) classes at the Language Center. The participants composed different types of texts in their foreign language. The findings from the needs analysis questionnaire conducted at the beginning of the courses show that students deemed their written performance as not important and that for them writing was not priority over other language skills. However, the results from their actual work (different genres of writing) showed that students could perform quite well. Moreover, their writing improved, and, by the end of the semester, writing in English was not considered an intimidating process.

One of the environmental challenges is a management of solid wastes produced by industrial activities. Among these industrial activities is energy production from power plant, which produces the waste material during the coal combustion processes. The power plant during the coal combustion processes produces the fly ash, bottom ash and boiler slag. These are solid wastes commonly referred to as coal combustion byproducts (CCBs). The coal combustion byproducts are managed in two ways: They may be disposed of in landfills or surface impoundment ponds, or they may be used in some capacity (commonly referred to as “beneficial use”). In this paper an overview of coal combustion byproducts and their physical properties are presented. The benefits of utilizing CCBs in certain application implying the utilization of CCBs in water and wastewater treatment domain are provided here as well. In fact, this paper attempts to encourage and promote the utilization of native coal combustion byproducts where the needs arise. The appropriate studies of native CCBs provide an opportunity to use these materials for supplemental needs in water environment in the future.

This study has been conducted in order to investigate the role of EU in the new international order and its impact on the Europeanization of the Western Balkans. The paper has a theoretical approach and examines the role and European strategy in the new order, its policy of enlargement, with particular emphasis on its foreign policy towards the Western Balkans after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. EU engagement in the processes in the Balkans has been and remains crucial to the security and stability of this region. This study explores and analyzes in detail the strategy of EU enlargement and the Western Balkan progress towards this integration.

The strategy of the EU enlargement and the analysis of European foreign policy towards the Western Balkans clearly demonstrate the commitment of this organization for the future of the Western Balkans and Europe in general.

This article presents the latest changes in the system of extraordinary legal remedies included in the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Republic of Macedonia. Special attention is given to the analysis of the legal provisions which are related to the reduction of the request for reduction of the sentencing and its replacement with new basis presented in the frame of the request for the uneven criminal procedure as well as other changes which reflect other means remaining in the repertoire of the extraordinary legal remedies: the representation of the request for the defense of the legality against the decision, constitutional violations, removal of the obligation of the Supreme Court to evaluate of the factual condition as well as the conditions for the presentation of the motion for the review of the decision. The legal reforms soften the consolidation of the domestic legislation with the international democratic standards of the criminal procedure.

In addition to theoretical investigations of radicals connected with a right ideal in associative rings, we seek to build models implementing the achieved results. In the process, we succeeded in building an upper nilradical connected with a right ideal in the ring (Z[√3], +,·). This is presented in the paper, after some necessary theoretical preliminaries.

This paper investigates the European Union’s IPARD funding scheme at work in the Tikveš wine region of the Republic of Macedonia. Based on anthropology fieldwork carried out in Tikveš in 2011, it argues that for most farmers, the scheme’s opportunities are unattainable. Primarily, participants must put down a substantial amount of money to take part in the program. Meanwhile, this occurs under the umbrella of post-industrialization and privatization, whereby the region’s majority grape growers are undergoing a “catastrophic” transition and have had several years of unpaid harvests, if their grapes are even bought at all. The industry is in reality transforming itself due to market pressure, but for growers it appears that to survive increasingly requires turning to other means such as barter and subsistence living. Therefore, the growing disparity between the winery owners and the grape growers combined with the uncertainty of the latter’s future means that most growers cannot imagine participating in a development scheme such as the IPARD. This paper will thus elaborate on the policies behind it and the specter of EU integration for the Tikveš region.

The article provides an analysis of the jurisprudence of the Albanian Constitutional Court on land reform in the post-communist Albania, which highly impacted the Constitutional right of the property of the (legal) owners. It takes a three dimensional approach. Firstly, the article provides a brief analysis of the process of nationalization of the immovable property by the Albanian Communist Regime. Secondly, it examines the efforts of the Albanian Governments after the fall of the communism to redress the past injustice of massive property confiscation/nationalisation. Such efforts had to address two conflicting interests: the interests of traditional owners and the interests of those who possessed and enjoyed the immovable property of the former, either due to formal allocation from the communist state, or by occupation after the fall of communism. Thirdly, it evaluates the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of Albania developed as a result of such conflicting interests. It finds that both the Governmental reform for returning private property and the Constitutional Court refer to a re-distribution of immovable property in accordance with the principle of social justice; however, the definition of social justice remains plausible. The Court refers to the justice of majority, with the majority including the de facto possessors of the immovable property and not the historical owners who have the legal entitlement in accordance with the Civil Code. The latter, by and large, practically can not use and enjoy their property even in the post-communist Albania, as it was expropriated for the interests of other private parties, under a state established compensation regime with a fixed price, considerably lower than the price of the market.

This analysis is carried out under the lenses of the concept of social justice, as it has been formulated by the Albanian Constitution and as it has been interpreted by the Albanian Constitutional Court, in cases concerning the private property reform.

Albania, Macedonia, and Kosovo despite being small countries, are notable for their rich biological diversity, as it is also shown from their index of the biological diversity (BD-RICH) respectively 0.633, 0.636 and 0.602. The relatively positive value of their index of biocultural diversity (IBCD-RICH) is the result of their high biodiversity. All of the three countries have the highest index of the flora diversity highest compared to mammals and birds. The values of the diversity index of 0.5 for mammals and birds (MD-AREA), diversity index of plants (PD-AREA) and the index of biologic diversity (BD-AREA) show that these countries are much more diverse compared to the expected values in relation to their surface