Free Republic

Tirana, Albania — It is the stuff of wild nightmares. Despite the passage of three decades, for Iranian dissidents residing in a sprawling Albanian compound — far from their homeland — the torture and trauma of life inside an Iranian regime prison is still raw. “I was a university student, almost seven months pregnant, when the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) came,” Kobra Jowkar, now 59, says softly. “They raided our home at midnight and were very ruthless.” That ruthlessness, she claims, included kicking her around like a soccer ball — and walking on her bulging belly. The worst would...

Asim Krasniqi watches anxiously as the Adriatic Sea creeps ever closer to his beach bar in Albania, a country faced with an alarming pace of coastal erosion. “I’m nostalgic for how this place used to be,” the septuagenarian told AFP wistfully, remembering when this beach in Qerret, to the west of the capital Tirana, was bigger and “many more” foreign tourists came. “Today everything is degraded,” he said.

(Vatican Radio) The Vatican Secretariat of State issued a tweet on Monday: “Intolerance against Christians, especially in the name of ‘tolerance’, should be condemned publicly.” The tweet referenced a Statement of the Holy See delivered by Bishop Mario Toso, SDB, at the High Level Conference on Tolerance and Non-discrimination (including Human Rights Youth Education), which took place May 21-22 in Tirana, Albania. The Conference was held under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Since the last High Level Conference, Bishop Toso said, “examples of intolerance and discrimination against Christians have not diminished, but rather...

TIRANA (AFP) — Powerful explosions rocked an army munitions depot near Vora, 12 kilometres (eight miles) north of the capital Tirana on Saturday, witnesses reported, injuring at least 155 people, mostly civilians. Many of the casualties arriving at local hospitals for treatment were women and children covered with blood and one doctor appealed for local people to donate blood to help the casualties. The blasts, which occurred at intervals for around an hour, blew in all the windows of the terminal building at the city's airport, just over a kilometre from the base. The initial blast was so loud it...

via translation - Arrival of George W. Bush with Tirana TIRANA - American president George W. Bush arrived Sunday at the airport of Tirana-Rinas for a visit of a few hours, the first of a president of the United States to Albania, noted a journalist of AFP. Mr. Bush, accompanied by his Laura wife, must meet president Alfred Moisiu, the Prime Minister Sali Berisha and the Prime Ministers Croatian and Macedonian, respectively Ivo Sanader and Nikola Gruevski. The arrival of One Air Force in Tirana was retransmitted on line by Albanian national television, sign of the importance that Albania, a...

TIRANA, Albania - Albanians chose a new parliament on Sunday in elections that mark a crucial step in the tiny Balkan country's push for closer ties with Europe, but local observers raised concerns over voting procedures in rural areas. Previous elections in Albania, which was sealed off from the world during decades of communist rule that ended in 1990, have been plagued by fraud and irregularities. Sunday's voting is being watched as a test of the impoverished nation's ability to hold a fair election. Both NATO and the European Union have warned Albanian authorities that only free and fair elections...

Tirana police arrest Kosovo Albanians accused of terrorist acts    BC-EU-GEN--Albania-Kosovo-Arrests Tirana police arrest Kosovo Albanians accused of terrorist acts TIRANA, Albania (AP) _ Police have arrested three ethnic Albanians, two of whom were accused by the United Nations Mission in Kosovo of terrorist acts, including kidnappings and killings, during the 1999-2001 period, a press released said Tuesday. Florim Ejupi, 25, and Faik Shaqiri, 22, described as members of the underground Albanian National Army, were arrested on the basis of an international warrant. The extremist group wants to unite all predominantly ethnic Albanian-populated areas of the Balkans and has in...

(AGI) - Brindisi, June 11 - The 59 arrest orders include an Albanian diplomat working at Tirana's embassy in Rome. The arrest orders were issued by the Lecce's narcotics department against an Italian-Albanian criminal organisation dealing in drugs, human trafficking, cigarette contraband, extortion, theft and armed robbery. The operation, code named "paradise", involved 150 carabinieri policemen and has resulted, thus far, in the issue of 54 detention orders.

Serious accidental floods with Tirana Sunday September 29, 2002 - 15h23 GMT TIRANA, 29 seven (AFP) - the Albanian capital, Tirana, remained Sunday mainly flooded by water of an artificial lake located near the city, after the malencontreuse opening, the day before, of a valve of the stopping of reserve by an employee in a state of intoxication. The Albanian army however managed in the morning to close the valves of the stopping, indicated to the press the prefect of Tirana, Lili Nushi. Tirana was in parallel private of electricity and drinking water following the floods which caused damage...