Berisha

Tensions escalated in Albania as anti-government protests erupted into clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement in the capital city of Tirana. Thousands of supporters of the opposition Democratic Party converged outside the parliament building, demanding the immediate release of party leader Sali Berisha, who has been under house arrest since December 31 on charges of corruption.

Albania's parliament voted Thursday to lift the legal immunity of former prime minister Sali Berisha, who leads the opposition Democratic Party and is accused of corruption.

The case of Fredi Beleri, the ethnic Greek elected mayor of Himare, in southern Albania, who is being tried by a special court on charges of corruption, is stoking tensions on the domestic political scene. 

Albania's Socialist Prime Minister, Edi Rama, has rejected opposition claims of blackmailing voters over access to government funds.

On Wednesday he said his threats to block funds to municipalities run by opposition mayors were a consequence of opposition leader Sali Berisha's designation by the US State Department as "being involved in significant corruption".

Albania's Appeal Court has ordered a retrial in the long-lasting case that should determine who will hold the seal of the main opposition centre-right Democratic Party.

An online petition against the wearing of headscarves by Muslim girls in schools has been initiated in Kosovo, following an earlier petition calling for girls who wear a headscarf to be allowed to attend public schools was closed by organisers on Saturday over claims that their campaign had caught the attention of decision-makers.

In December last year, Albania's High Court overturned a decision by the country's Appeals Court which, five years earlier, had freed a notorious underworld figure called Lulzim Berisha.

Sali Berisha appeared to be back in charge of Albania's main centre-right opposition Democratic Party after nine years, after he won 93 per cent of votes cast by around 40,000 party members on Sunday.

Prominent Turkish sports club Fenerbahçe's German football player Mergim Berisha has been given a restraining order by a court in Istanbul over his fiancée's violence complaint.

Sebahate Berisha remembers the warm night of April 1, 1999 when she put all her five children to sleep wrapped up in blankets in the basement of an abandoned house in the village of Nagavc/Nogavac in Kosovo's Rahovec/Orahovac municipality.