Our Man in Tirana

Apparently it's World Tourism Day and European Heritage Day. I only know this because the Ministry of Tourism, Culture Youth and Sports is organising a series of events to mark these. In Tirana, most of the events are taking place at the National Art Gallery on Thursday 29th. There is a exhibition of photographs running all day, and in the evening there is the 'Albanian Tourism Destination Mini-Fair'.

Two stories from BIRN: Andi Beli, the previous director of KESH who was sacked in March of this year (I think) is under attack by the Office of State Control, a financial watchdog. According to BIRN the OSC is calling on the State Prosecutor to start proceedings against Beli. BIRN also reports that Lulzim Basha, the Foreign Minister, has invited Crown Prince Leka II to become an advisor on foreign affairs. I have to confess that I did not know that there was a Crown Prince. A brief search uncovered an entry on wikipedia , and a video from Vision Plus. The Jewish Advocate carries a story about Bujar Veselaj, whose father, Refik, rescued Albanian Jews during the war and later founded the Albania-Israel Friendship Association. The son has been granted asylum in the US after expert testimony backed his claim that Muslim fundamentalists had threatened his life. I'm not sure what to make of this story. On the one hand I think many Albanians - and outside observers - are complacent abo...

In the Guardian Benji Lanyado reports on his visit to the Albanian Riviera. More from IPS - an article on Gjirokaster , and one on marketing the remnants of Albania's communist past to tourists. The Times reports on artist Saimir Strati's latest project - a mosaic of a horse made from about one million toothpick. This is a follow up to last year's project, a mosaic of Leonardo Da Vinci made from half a million nails. I saw Strati working on the Da Vinci mosaic last year in the Pyramid and he is there working on the toothpick horse at the moment. His website has some good pictures of the nail mosaic.

Thanks to ITS for drawing my attention to a disturbing article in the Christian Science Monitor on child poverty in Albania . Despite recent economic growth, a third of Albania's children live on less than $2 a day. And according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), a staggering 35 percent of children in rural areas are malnourished; in urban areas, 17 percent are. In terms of child malnutrition – measured by the percentage of children under age 5 who are underweight – the World Bank puts Albania just above Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe. On a different note, the latest report from IPS discusses the new legal framework for the development of the tourist industry.

Here's another article from the IPS agency. This one is about plans to build an oil-fired power station in Vlora .

The IPS news agency have published more articles on Albania. A couple of articles look at the relationship between tourism and the environment . Another looks at the similarities between Albania and other countries in the region. Then there is an interview with Jozefina Topalli , Speaker of the Parliament and lastly a piece on Tirana . Elsewhere, the IHT reports that attempts to elect a President are still going nowhere. Also going nowhere is the power supply situation with long blackouts anticipated in September . In the Southeast European Times Robert Austin suggests that the longer term outlook may be brighter following the appointment of a new director of KESH, Xherxh Bojaxhi. I can confirm Austin's claim that Bojaxhi takes to the field with his staff since he turned up to read my electricity meter last week. (It's not that I'm special. It's just that the day before I had refused to allow his staff to do so on the perfectly reasonable grounds that none of them h...

The Inter Press Service news agency has published three articles on travel in Albania - one is a general overview , one focuses on Berat , and the third is an interview with Ylli Pango , the minister with responsibility for tourism. The new website the minister refers to is still under construction but should be ready soon. All five of the Economist's reports on Albania published at the time of the Presidential visit are now available together .

I've never been in the sea at Durres, though there are plenty of brave people who have. Most Western embassies here strongly advise against swimming in the waters off any of the major towns since they are all severely polluted. Now a study from the Ministry of Health has reached the same conclusions, singling out Durres, Vlora and Kavaja. This is hardly surprising in the case of Durres since the entire beach front has been blighted by uncontrolled development, and you don't have to be a genius to work out where all the sewage from those new apartments, hotels and restaurants is going. Quite apart from the dangers to public health for the local population, this level of pollution means that Albania will never develop into a major tourist destination in the way the government here seems to assume it will. Without clean beaches and clean water Albania won't have any tourist industry worth speaking of. Whether anything will be done about the problem is unclear. There is much l...