Tirana

2 tons of cannabis seized in Albania

VLORE -- The Albanian police on Thursday confiscated two tons of cannabis and arrested two suspects.

The drugs were seized in the port town of Vlore, and were meant to be sold in Italy.

According to the police, the shipment was hidden inside a vehicle that was to be transported to Italy in a dinghy.

VIENNA - Swiss Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chair of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Didier Burkhalter expressed satisfaction with his two-day visit to the Western Balkan region and the meetings he had with officials in Belgrade, Pristina and Tirana.

Officials from Pristina and Tirana gathered on Wednesday in Kukes, a town in north-east Albania bordering Kosovo, to commemorate the exodus of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo in April 1999, after NATO launched its air strikes on Serbian forces in a bid to end the war.

An Albanian man holds a placard that reads 'Kudret Kume was beaten by Greek police' during a protest in front of the Albanian Interior Ministry in Tirana, Albania, Monday.

Four guards from Nigrita Prison in northern Greece were bailed Monday after giving depositions in connection to the torture of Albanian inmate Ilie Kareli – aka Kudret Kume – who later died.

NGOs join to promote social entrepreneurship

Jonuz Musliu, president of the mainly ethnic Albanian town of Bujanovac in southern Serbia, said that ethnic Albanian parts of Serbia should have a right to join Kosovo, now that the ethnically Russian Crimean region had joined Russia.

Documents obtained by the Forum for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, a watchdog based in Tirana, show that 1,360 hectares of land inside the park were restored to property claimants in 2006.

Kosovo, Albania sign employment deal

The bilateral agreement establishes a common labour market between the two countries.

Erion Veliaj, Albania minister of youth and social welfare (left) and Nenad Rasic, Kosovo minister of labour and social welfare, sign a memorandum of co-operation in Tirana. [Albania Ministry of Youth and Social Welfare]

Announcing the rally in Tirana, Albania's former Democratic Party Prime Minister, Sali Berisha, said Edi Rama's new left-of-centre government had based "everything on deception, falsity and violence against the opposition and the people”.

“The fraud committed by Edi Rama in turning his electoral platform upside down is quickly making his government illegitimate,” he added.

BELGRADE - Evangelos Venizelos, Greece's deputy prime minister and foreign minister, will visit Serbia on Tuesday, in his capacity as President of the Council of the European Union.