22 July 2021 Skopje – North Macedonia recorded 17 new cases out of 2,896 COVID-19 tests over the past 24 hours. Skopje – The State Office of Industrial Property (SOIP) registered in the first half of 2021 a 31% increase in the number of applications for trademark protection, as well as 7.9% more applications for patent protection compared to the same period in 2020. Skopje — As of today, 473,657 citizens have received at least one Covid-19 vaccine dose in the country and 305,804 citizens have received two, according to the Ministry of Health on Thursday. Skopje – Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said Thursday SDSM is fine with holding the elections on October 17, as the opposition requires, if all parties agree to this, adding he had given the proposal to hold the elections on October 31 due to the overlapping of the election campaign with the Census. Skopje – Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said the decision on how to run in the local elections in all municipalities, including Tetovo, and whether SDSM would back anyone, will also depend on the people who will be nominated. Skopje — We accept the resolution and all its contents without changing even a punctuation mark, but we cannot back a document that goes against the Constitution, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said in response to a reporter asking whether he would give the green light to the VMRO-DPMNE draft resolution on the Macedonian language, identity, and national positions regarding the country’s EU integration if the document does not refer to North Macedonia by its constitutional name. Skopje – Interior Minister Oliver Spasovski met Thursday with new Serbian Ambassador to North Macedonia Nevena Jovanović. Belgrade – Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said after Thursday’s video-conference meeting with Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama that three agreements would be signed at the regional economic forum in Skopje on July 28-29, along with a change of the name of the “mini Schengen” initiative and “fast lanes” for citizens at border crossings, MIA reports from Belgrade. London – Post-Brexit trading arrangements were always meant to be flexible, a British minister has argued, as he suggested the EU could yet back down and renegotiate the Northern Ireland Protocol. Berlin – Chancellor Angela Merkel answered questions from journalists at her expected last summer press conference after 16 years in office. Berlin — German Chancellor Angela Merkel has described the agreement reached with the US government on the Nord Stream 2 undersea pipeline, which will deliver natural gas from Russia, as a good step. Washington – NASA’s Perseverance rover is preparing to collect its first Martian rock sample, the US space agency said Wednesday.