Albania

More than fifty years after his death in France, Albania’s former monarch, King Zog I, was laid to rest in Tirana on Saturday in a ceremony attended by political leaders and thousands of people.Zog was laid to rest in the recently reconstructed mausoleum of the royal family, where his wife, …

The Interior Ministry on Monday announced the arrest of a police chief in Gjirokastra, accused of taking bribes from a businessman.Miklovan Kararaj, 26, head of the anti-corruption unit in the Gjirokastra police department, was detained after being accused of soliciting €10,000 from a businessman, the ministry said.

Albania’s Union of Journalists says media owners routinely fail to pay reporters on time and so further erode the media’s independence.“Many newspapers and TV stations are failing to pay reporters for months at a time and the situation has got worse over the past year,” Aleksander Cipa, head of the …

EU Commissioner Stefan Fule announced Monday that Albania will receive 81 million euro to assist with issues including judicial reform and the fight against organised crime.The money will help build the new courthouse in Tirana, restructure two border crossing points and improve the Albanian State Police. It will also help …

Prosecutors have asked a Tirana court to allow an investigation into possible money laundering by Egypt’s deposed strongman, Hosni Mubarak, his family and associates in Albania.The request follows receipt of a request for legal help from the Egyptian authorities, as they seek to trace and recover billions of dollars that …

The World Bank’s Albania director, Jane Armitage, on Thursday described the outcome of the sale of Albania’s utility company to the Czech firm CEZ in 2009 as ‘deeply disappointing’.“Three and a half years later we share the deep disappointment of Albanian citizens and the government with the outcomes of this …

A survey of Albanian judges, published by the Center for Transparency and Freedom of Information, shows that many admit the problem of corruption in the system.ccording to the survey, which polled 58 per cent of Albania’s judicial contingent, only 18 per cent of respondents said the justice system was not …

The Coalition of Local Observers, a Tirana-based watchdog group, on Tuesday urged President Bujar Nishani to declare the date of the 2013 elections as soon as possible.According to the NGOs, “the declaration of an election date would give public institutions the time they need to start a series of important …

Six former political prisoners on Monday ended a month-long hunger strike, which aimed to pressure the government to speed up reparations for their suffering under the Communists.“We are tired because of the psychological terror we were subjected too,” Afrim Biturku, one of the strikers, said, ending the strike. “But we …

A group of eight communist-era political prisoners who have been on strike for 23 days vowed on Sunday to fast to death if the government keeps ignoring their demand for faster reparations.“We will fast to death and will not let the sacrifice of our two friends who set themselves on …