More than 1,000 ethnic Albanians today (November 25, 2012) marched in Skopje -- the capital of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) -- to mark the 100th anniversary of Albania's independence from the Ottoman Empire, according to the Newsvine website.
The prime ministers of neighboring Albania and Kosovo, Sali Berisha and Hashim Thaci respectively, attended the celebrations later today at Skopje's sports center.
Ethnic Albanians make up about 25 percent of FYROM's population of 2.1 million, but tension with the country's Slavic-speaking Macedonian majority has remained high since a six-month armed ethnic Albanian insurgency in 2001 to demand greater autonomy in minority areas.
For nearly five centuries, Albania was at the heart of a sprawling Ottoman Empire, but it declared its independence in 1912, and is now a parliamentary democracy and a member of the United Nations and NATO.
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