Latest News from Albania

Albania's economy grew by a modest 1.1 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared with the same period in 2012, the head of INSTAT, Gjergj Filipi, said.

Filipi said the sectors registering highest growth were industry, construction and trade, with the latter accounting for the lion's share.

DIMITROVGRAD - In a joint operation by police forces from seven regional countries, named "Nisava 2014", a large amount of foreign currency was seized as well as a so-called ATM skimmer - a fraud device used for stealing customer bank card data, chief of Serbia's border police Nenad Banovic said on Monday in Dimitrovgrad.

Police found the drugs stashed in a van parked on secluded beach. It is believed that speed boats were to be used to traffic the drugs to Italy.

Media reports said police have arrested one suspect and issued warrants for five others.   

The drugs are believed to have originated in the notoriously lawless village of Lazarat, a no-go zone for police.

BELGRADE - The Serbian Office of the Prosecutor for War Crimes has welcomed the information by Tanjug that came from Brussels, which says that those from the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) indicted for the crimes listed in the report by Dick Marty will be tried in The Hague, and not in Pristina.

At the end of March, police at Nigrita Prison, in northern Greece, reportedly beat to death Ilia Kareli, an Albanian inmate held in solitary confinement.

The autopsy revealed that he was extensively beaten on the soles of his feet and his chest, and had burns on his hands.

Germany's leader has given a cautious thumbs-up to Albania's application to obtain EU candidate status, while declining to commit Germany one way or the other ahead of an important report.

“We treat countries on the EU path based on the reports coming from the European Commission,” Chancellor Merkel told a press conference in Berlin held with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama.