The political situation in Albania

The Kushner affair engages a generation of young Albanians

The so-called flamingo revolution has given a new political identity to a generation of young Albanians who were previously politically uninterested, says lawyer Dorian Matlija to SVT Nyheter.

The protests have been going on for two months. The origin is Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner's planned construction of a luxury resort in the city of Zvernec.

The affair - which also involves a suspected mafia-linked gangster - has aroused great anger among young people. One of them is 30-year-old Alina Kokalari, who lives in France but went home to participate in the protests.

She first became aware of the scandal through clips on social media.

- What I saw shocked me. That we treat our own people as if they are worthless, she says.

Jared Kushner involved in gangsters' tangle in Albania

American businessman Jared Kushner's planned luxury resort in the Albanian town of Zvernec has developed into a soup of a gangster, a fistfight and a wave of protests, writes the Wall Street Journal.

Residents of the small coastal town were shocked when they were told last year that Trump's son-in-law had bought the land. They had been in a legal battle over the area for almost two decades with Artur Shehu, a suspected gangster believed to have connections to the Italian mafia. They claim that Shehu illegally took over the land through forged documents and that it actually belongs to the local community.

Nevertheless, Kushner's company paid Shehu over a billion kronor for the peninsula. Two months later, the Miami-based Shehu was wanted by Albanian prosecutors, with allegations that he plays a key role in a global drug ring.

The protests have been going on in Albania for months. They intensified when a video clip showed how the company's security guard beat a local resident and dragged him across the beach, writes WSJ.