Kukes

The Mayor of Kukes, Safet Gjici, has resigned following publication of a tape showing him having sex in his office.

Albania's prosecution SPAK told BIRN that it had started a criminal proceeding about the case though it is not clear what the exact charges might be. Most likely he might face charges of "abuse of duty".

Three years ago, Albania declared the village home to an ethnic Bulgarian minority.

Some were nonplussed. The village has rich traditions of its own but no visible connection with Bulgaria, though many are Gorani a Slavic Muslim community that straddles Kosovo, North Macedonia and Albania and whose language is Slavic.

Serbia, champion of the vaccination process in the Balkans, has donated thousands of jabs to its neighbours, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Montenegro.

Albania recently started doing the same, helping Kosovo, the only country in the region that did not start its vaccination process at all.

The Albanian Road Authority, in a written statement to BIRN, acknowledged the arrears but blamed previous administrations and property registration problems, adding that it had asked the government to increase its budget for compensation in the next two years.

Albanians will soon be able to fly out from a second airport at Kukes in the north after the government and the shareholders of Tirana International Airport, TIA agreed to end the latter's monopoly on flights.

A concession agreement signed by the government on October 2004 gave TIA shareholders, led by AviAlliance company of Germany, exclusive rights to civil flights from Albania.

The first blast went off in the coastal city on Saturday, blowing up a car belonging to Ardian Trota, a crime suspect labelled by the local media as "the strongman of Kukes".

The car was destroyed by the powerful explosion but Trota was not in it at the time of the blast and only suffered minor injuries.

BELGRADE- The Serbian government's Office for Kosovo-Metohija said on Wednesday that all crimes must be solved and punished, expressing hope that the role of the self-styled "Kosovo Liberation Army" in the province will be revealed in an international court as "no other court has had the will or the courage to find the truth."