Saturday 20:06
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A governing party official is pressuring BIRN’s funders, and that is improper. The questions underneath his pressure are real anyway. BIRN’s answer so far, redefining its own journalist in real time, is the one response its standards do not permit. By Ardit Rada (Tirana) On July 15, Taulant Balla, chairman of the governing Socialist …
Regional
Brussels condemned a Serbian minister’s sentence about 1998 and missed the clause about the future. Europe has missed this program before. Twice, at Berlin and at London, it certified the outcome instead. By Ngadhnjim Brovina (Pristina) Brussels condemned the wrong sentence. Within two days of Snežana Paunović’s interview on Kurir, the Commission had declared …
Hard Talks
Recorded in Tirana. Broadcast on Euronews Serbia, 14 July 2026. Editor’s note: This interview was recorded in Tirana days after the NATO summit in Ankara (7 and 8 July 2026) and broadcast on Euronews Serbia’s programme Direktno sa Minjom Miletić. The conversation was conducted in English and aired in Serbian translation; the transcript below is …
The Examiner
By Prof. Assoc. Dr. Bledar Kurti In modern democracies there exists a great paradox. Today we believe that politicians shape public opinion, when in truth it is increasingly the algorithms that shape both politicians and crowds. If the road to power once ran through parties, television stations and institutions, today it runs through a …
The Examiner
The targets were individual businesses. The exposure was national. The July review-bombing campaign revealed how digital trust has become critical infrastructure for Albania’s tourism economy. By Bekim Besimi (Venice) When states or movements attack infrastructure, the images are familiar: a pipeline, a substation, a server farm. In the second week of July, at the …
The Examiner
What a former foreign minister’s photograph in Beijing says, and what it carefully does not By Ardit Rada | Tirana Examiner There is a photograph from Beijing, posted on July 3, in which Ditmir Bushati is smiling. Beside him stands Yan Xuetong, honorary dean of the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University and …
Daily Briefing
Prime Minister Edi Rama delivered the following address on July 12, 2026, in a video statement published on his social media channels, one day after the Kanye West concert held at Eagle Stadium in Tirana before some 60,000 attendees from more than 80 countries. The address responds to criticism of the government’s decision to commit …
Daily Briefing
Editorial Board | Tirana Examiner The Secretary General ended the speculation in Ankara. The real uncertainty was never Albania’s ability to host, but whether NATO will continue holding annual summits at all. The question was answered in Ankara, in the plainest language the Alliance’s Secretary General could manage. “The next Summit will indeed be …
Daily Briefing
Prime Minister Edi Rama used his weekly podcast to address several policy and governance matters: the June normative budget act and its package of citizen support measures, the ongoing boulevard protests and the government’s engagement with genuine grievances, the Zvërnec and Sazan investment projects and the role of the European Commission as guarantor, a visit …
Hard Talks
The Economy Minister argues that Albania’s growth rests on tourism, investment and reform, not criminal capital. As the “narco-state” narrative spreads through European politics and media, we ask Delina Ibrahimaj whether the government’s numbers are finally strong enough—and transparent enough—to settle the argument. by Albatros Rexhaj (Tirana) Introduction There is a number in Albania …
Hard Talks
A country sees pink: In Albania, protests are taking place against a planned luxury resort by the Trump family. It’s long since become about more than just a construction project – it’s about criticism of Prime Minister Rama. For over a month, demonstrations have been taking place every evening in Albania’s capital, Tirana. The protests …
Hard Talks
The prime minister defends the coastal development program, rejects claims of public land privatization, and rules out resignation as protests enter their second month. Speaking to Deutsche Welle on the margins of an artificial intelligence summit in Bochum, Prime Minister Edi Rama delivered his most extended foreign press engagement since the protest movement began. Pressed …
Regional
Ukraine sought another European partner in Belgrade. Within twenty-four hours, one Serbian minister had already assured Moscow where Serbia’s loyalties lay. The conference produced photographs; the contradiction was the strategy. By Ngadhnjim Brovina (Pristina) On Monday, at the Innoprom industrial fair in Yekaterinburg, Serbia’s minister for economic cooperation with Russia, Nenad Popović, told TASS what …
Regional
Kosovo’s struggle centered on recognition. Montenegro’s centers on definition. Ngadhnjim Brovina On 12 May, the assembly of a municipality on the edge of Podgorica voted to annul the Republic of Kosovo. The municipality was Zeta. The vote was advanced by Milan Knežević’s Democratic People’s Party and carried by the eighteen councilors of the “For …
Regional
by Mark Gojcaj | Tirana Examiner, US – International On Thursday morning, Sali Berisha walked into the Albanian parliament and delivered four words from the rostrum: “I came, it is done.” Democratic Party deputies applauded. Outside the chamber, he told journalists that official communication had confirmed the lifting of his American travel ban. Asked …
