Macro-economic indicators are good in Albania, despite the impact of the Kosovo crisis. But rampant crime and corruption, combined with a questionable political will, continue to deter critical foreign investment.
The power stations are old, the distribution system outmoded and electricity is regularly switched off for up to ten hours a day: is it any wonder Albanians refuse to pay their electricity bills? Poor rainfall and corrupt industry management are only comp
Albania is reluctant to openly support the Kosovo Albanian demands for independence but Albanians on both sides of the border threw themselves into celebrations for Albania's first official Independence Day on November 28.
With the demise of its President, Croatia has a chance break with the past and move politically out of the Balkans and into Western Europe. But Franjo Tuijman's legacy will make the years to come difficult ones...
By Mufail Limani in Pristina (BCR No.100, 8-Nov-99)
Kosovo is not ready for elections: To hold them now, in the present political and social environment risks more instability, not less.
Fear of crime is taking bizarre shape in Kosovo, with rampant rumours of gangs kidnapping babies to steal their body parts. The response of UN representative Bernard Kouchner to the problem might seem to some as no less eccentric.
Abducted by a special team of Serbian policemen on December 3 and since held incommunicado, Teki Bokshi, the Kosovar Albanian lawyer who has led efforts to free some 2,000 ethnic Albanians still held in Serbian jails, now shares their uncertain fate.
Kosovar Albanians are used to living their lives according to a traditional moral code that - among other things - guides the conduct of women in public. The arrival of organised prostitution shows that like so much else in the tormented province, that co
The stand off at Podgorica airport last week highlighted a stream of small-scale confrontations between Belgrade and Podgorica that is increasingly successfully undermining Montenegro's efforts to make its own way in the Balkans.
