Edi Rama

More than 7,500 delegates from all over Albania selected 160 new members of the centre-right opposition party's national council at a congress held last weekend.

Albania is hoping to tap Chinese money for an important and costly highway to Macedonia, Albanian and Chinese media reported on Wednesday after Albania Prime Minister Edi Rama met Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang at an economic forum in Tianjin.

The Albanian transport ministry told BIRN on Tuesday that negotiations over awarding a concession for the use of the Shengjin port to China have been going on for the past few months.

"We want to give the Bank of Albania a governor from the financial or banking system, who would be praised internationally as a professional, moral and uncontestable choice," Prime Minister Edi Rama told a press conference on Monday.

Albania’s Minister of Culture, Mirela Kumbaro, on August 16 said the Pope's forthcoming visit to Albania will generate enormous interest in the country.

“This is a big event that will bring Albania to the centre of attention of the international media,” Kumbaro told reporters.

“About 1,000 journalists are expected to cover the visit,” she added.

BELGRADE - Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama will pay an official visit to Serbia in September, which will be the first time an Albanian high official has come to Belgrade in the past 70 years, the Belgrade-based daily Danas reported.

Ahead of an important German-hosted meeting in Berlin on Thursday, the Prime Ministers of Croatia, Albania, Bosnia and Montenegro met on Monday in Cavtat, Croatia, to discuss the planned construction of an Adriatic-Ionian highway.

The highway will connect Central and Western Europe with Greece through the Western Balkans, running down the coast.

Analysts see significance in Rama's planned visit to Belgrade

Prime Minister Edi Rama has ordered the closure of 18 colleges suspected of handing out dubious diplomas and degrees.

Highlighting the findings of the report on Monday, Rama noted that in the space of only a few years “32,000 degrees have been generated from the private university system, half them issued by one university.

Albania has changed the face of local government after MPs on Thursday adopted a reorganisation bill, radically reducing the number of town halls.