That Turkey is heavily involved in Albanian business and construction is a well-known given. For example, recently the Turkish company Kurum bought four Albanian hydropower centrals as part of the general sell-out of all public property by the current government in attempt to mask failing tax incomes and pay off their civil servants. However, as [...]
As I promised yesterday to do a write-up of all the IDAHO events in the past weeks surrounding the International Day Against Homophobia (May 17), I thought this morning that I’d better do it today, now that the memories are still semifresh and I’m not washed away but yet another series of events. Let’s [...]
The election campaigns for June 23 are in full swing, and it seems the advertisement does not stop at posters, campaign cars with loud music, people driving with flags in cars, concerts, opening thousands of highways, meeting all heads of state, an tv advertisements from hell. A few days ago I even received a [...]
Sometimes a photo just hits you in the face. Like this one. Ettore Sequi, the EU Ambassador to Albania is a man with an attitude. It’s a man that loves to hear himself talk. It’s a man who melts for press conferences. But it’s also a man who loves to dress up in costumes [...]
Already some time ago I found online an example of the 2013 ballot paper to be used during the parliamentary elections of June 23. It was a model issued by the KQZ (Central Election Committee), which currently consists of 4 majority party members and 3 vacant seats with no solution in sight. I think [...]
The last few days, finally on a short holiday in Istria (and my dear are these Croatians afraid to enter the EU on July 1!), I’ve been trying to think what to write about, or at least, where to start on reporting about the current Albanian pre-election situation. A small recap: about two weeks [...]
On Sunday I woke up around 11 am to the sound of the nationalist song “Xhamadani vija vija” (YouTube terror). Somebody was playing it loudly on a car stereo or maybe the wind brought it to my window from Skënderbeg Square where nationalist party Aleanca KuqeZi was holding their “peaceful” rally “against” Berisha. I [...]
To join a climbing gym has definitely been one of the better decisions I took so far this year. Not only is my fear of heights drastically decreasing (at least up to 5 meters), it also teaches me to trust my body, which for an anti-physically oriented person like me can be quite exhilarating. [...]
It has been a while since I posted for the last time about Albania, but now that finally the first rays of real spring sun are shining through the window of my study and the new washing machine has been installed, I feel ready for some political commentary. Two days ago when I was [...]
Thus was the main event of Albania’s 100th independence day. A cake fight. Thousands of people had gathered at the central Skënderbeg square as Mayor Basha of Tirana cut the giant supercake (a world record) with an extended pizza knife and presented the first piece to Kosovar president Jahjaga. After several pieces of cake [...]