Albania

A new bill presented on Wednesday to mark Albania’s 100 years of independence will grant an amnesty to prisoners serving sentences of less than two years.The bill, which is expected to be voted on soon in parliament, will release all prisoners serving less than two years in jail.

After being shunned for two years in a row, Albania expects to obtain EU candidate status on Wednesday, though such a recommendation will likely come with a host of conditions.The European Commission is expected this week to recommend granting EU candidate status to Albania, “considering the improvement in the political …

A report released on Monday by the Open Society Foundation in Tirana says Albania strengthened the planning and implementation of EU reform priorities in 2012.The report said that by October 2012, 46 per cent of Albania’s EU reform commitments had been totally implemented and 32 per cent had been partially …

A former political prisoner, 51-year-old Gjergj Ndreca, set himself on fire on Monday in protest over the slow payment of reparations for the victims of the communist regime by the government.Ndreca poured gasoline over his body and set himself on fire in a Tirana neighbourhood where he and others held …

The Greek foreign minister has apologised to his Albanian counterpart after the country’s flag was hung upside down during a joint press conference on Wednesday in Athens.

Ibrahim Sulejmani, a 39 year-old former commander of the disbanded Albanian guerrilla force that fought the short lived 2001 Macedonian conflict, has died on Wednesday in a Macedonian prison.The former rebel known by his wartime nickname “Commander Mimi” was found dead in a prison cell in the Stip Prison where …

A group of communist-era prisoners of conscience will hold a rally in front of the parliament on Thursday to protest their treatment by the government.A number of former prisoners started a hunger strike in Tirana on September 25, requesting the government to pay out the compensation that is owed to …

Vetro Energy, a US-based consortium, is the frontrunner in a tender to buy Albania’s state-owned oil company, Albpetrol, with an offer of €850 million.Albania’s Deputy Economy Minister, Sokol Dervishaj, said that Vetro Energy, which is bidding through the Vetro Silk Road Equity Ltd consortium out of Singapore, ranked first out …

Socialists accuse government of Sali Berisha of funneling millions of euro in advertising money to friendly media, close to the ruling centre-right Democratic Party.Albanian Socialist MP Eduard Shalsi has revealed data showing that in the past five years several government ministries have paid for expensive TV advertising campaigns, with the …

Bosnia’s NGOs have marked September 21, International Peace Day, with an event in Sarajevo called “Peace Starts with a Smile“.More than a 100 children, teenagers, activists and, representatives from a wide range of civil society organizations gathered in front of Sarajevo’s cathedral to symbolically mark International Peace Day by reading …