Albania

Afghan refugees living temporarily in the country have started knitting and sewing groups as a way to promote solidarity and deal with their trauma, four months after the country stepped up to take in thousands of Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban

The country's leaders met with those of North Macedonia and Serbia in Tirana to discuss and agree on the promotion of the Open Balkan initiative, launched to foster political and economic ties between the Balkan countries

EIB lends €80 million for key investment in the capital's water distribution, ensuring continued access to clean drinking water for more than 800.000 people

With the country due to hold a delayed national population census next year, minorities organizations are urging authorities to address the shortcomings of the 2011 census, which they claim cost minorities dearly in terms of resource allocation

The June 2019 local elections, which were boycotted by the opposition, are valid, the Constitutional Court recently ruled, closing the last road to full-fledged early elections

Seventeen Afghan journalists sheltering in the country are managing to continue producing two online Afghan newspapers, Kabul Now and 8am Daily; currently working from their hotel rooms, they are preparing a room to be used as joint office and newsroom

Teachers' salaries will be increased by 6% from next year; the announcement has been made by the Ministry of Education

Albanian student organizations are opposing compulsory vaccination; although they consider it correct in principle, as it is unfair to force students to vaccinate when it is not yet required of other groups in society

Border police officers went through a specific training to improve their skills in detecting identity and document fraud at border crossings to face the increasing volume of documents in circulation and the associated risks of forgery

The country ranks first in Europe for the inability to perform health examinations: the Eurostat data system reported that 13,5% of Albanians do not have the possibility to access health examinations because they are very expensive

Business Confidence in the country has been dropping for two years in a row, and is currently standing at 37.6%, one of the lowest in the region, according to data yearly report by the American Chamber of Commerce

Work is underway on the Skërfica tunnel, the most important work on the new Delvine-Kardhiq national axis, a strategic road infrastructure project that will open up new areas of tourism potential and economic development