Edi Rama

Socialist Party MP Taulant Balla on Tuesday criticised what he called "web portals used for electoral propaganda" and called for obligatory registration and the blocking of sites that fail to register during electoral campaigns.

A draft of the proposal, which Balla sent to BIRN, says that unregistered sites publishing 'electoral propaganda' will be closed down.

The unexpected visit of CIA director John Brennan to Tirana has prompted claims that  besides Islamic radicalism, concerns about Russian influence in Albania were also on the agenda.

Russia and Islamist militants could try to boost their influence in the Balkan nations if the European Union doesn't take them in as members, Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama said in an interview published on Wednesday.

Rama told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung it was in the EU's interests to try and bring Balkan states into its fold.

In a surprise move, the Mayor of Kamza, Xhelal Mziu, a town of more than 100,000 inhabitants near the Albanian capital, has declared US President-elect Donald Trump an Honorary Citizen.

Mziu, who comes from the opposition centre-right Democratic Party, announced the decision on a Facebook post and on the council website.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has denied his country is following an irredentist foreign policy with its insistence on discussing the issue of claims made by the Cham community to the property they left behind when they were expelled from Greece during World War II.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has again returned to the vexed issue of the exiled Cham community in a Greek TV interview broadcast on Tuesday.

Rama said it was a perfect Balkanic paradox that Albania and Greece remained "de jure" in a state of war despite signing a treaty of friendship in 1987.

Giorgos Koumoutsakos, New Democracy's shadow minister for foreign affairs and defense, on Wednesday called for a meeting of the National Council on Foreign Policy (NCFP) in a bid to hammer out a unified strategy on Greek-Albanian relations.

In a bid to take the sting out of a string of incendiary remarks, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has denied his country is following an irredentist foreign policy with its insistence on discussing the issue of claims made by the Cham community to the property they left behind when they were expelled from Greece during World War II.

Albania's capital Tirana on Friday hosts the first-ever Diaspora Summit, that will gather 800 participants from 40 countries worldwide.

Albanians from the old and newer waves of migration have been invited to the three-day summit that will emphasize the country's need to better utilize its huge diaspora concentrated in Europe and the United States.

 A 40-year-old worker, Shkelqim Muca, died and five others were wounded after an explosion at the Ballsh oil refinery in southern Albania.

The explosion happened while 300 workers were on a shift, 11 of them in the hydro-cleaning sector where the blast happened. Workers told the media tell that the flames from the explosion burned for around 20 minutes.