Thousands Gather For Skopje Protest

Thousands of demonstrators traveled to Skopje from across Macedonia on May 17 for an antigovernment rally in the capital. Macedonia is in the midst of a political crisis that has been deepened by a wire-tapping scandal and deadly violence last weekend, when eight police and 14 gunmen -- allegedly ethnic-Albanian militants from neighboring Kosovo -- were killed during a battle in the northern Macedonian town of Kumanovo.