Albania

In this impoverished, struggling country, there is wealth lying just about everywhere you look, and yet no one is earning a cent from it. Even the most obvious no-brainer - solar thermal energy - is found on rooftops only sporadically in the north and not at all in the south. The contrast to Italy and Greece, where rooftop solar thermal systems are common, is glaring.

Roaming charges between Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina in July will be reduced by 27% and will have to be dropped completely in 2021, according to the recently signed Regional Roaming Treaty between the Western Balkan countries.

Mayor of Tepelena Termet Peci (centre) addressing supporters in the Church of St Nicolas in the village of Lekel. Photo: Termet Peci Facebook

"The use of sacred churches for political activity insults religious and institutional feelings," a statement issued on Monday reads.

A billboard ridiculing the issue of alleged corruption in Zagreb has gone viral in Croatia.

Seven international rights organisations have urged politicians of all sides in polarised Albania to stop their smear campaigns against journalists, and have urged the authorities to fully investigate recent unresolved attacks on reporters. They also urged the media community to show solidarity and report cases of threats and intimidation.

The Agony of Choice

Croatia's presidential election is not due before the second half of December, but the field of (self-declared) candidates is already getting crowded. Aside from the obvious, incumbent Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, former Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic has also decided to throw his hat into the ring.

Protesters faced off police in a dozen towns across Albania on Wednesday, as opposition-run municipalities demanded that the Central Election Commission, CEC, vacate municipal properties planned for use as polling stations in hotly disputed local elections, which the opposition is boycotting.

The EU General Affairs Council's harsh warning to Ankara and its decision to ask the European Commission to review possible sanctions against Turkey in response to its violation of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the Republic of Cyprus was in part shaped by the implied threat by Cyprus' Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulidis that he would not sign on to the Council's conclusions on EU enla

Bajram Curri. Photo: Wikimedia/Albinfo

Opposition supporters attacked and destroyed election material in the town of Bajram Curri, in north Albania on Tuesday, ahead of a hotly disputed local election due on June 30, which the opposition is boycotting and the President has tried to call off.

Speaking in April last year, Britain's ambassador to Albania, Duncan Norman, said "60 to 70 per cent" of 726 Albanian inmates at that time in Britain were from these three northern counties.

Deeply impoverished, the region has become a rich recruitment ground for the Albanian crime gangs that now dominate the cocaine market in Britain.