Kosovo has Highest GDP Growth in Balkans

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will inaugurate a highway which is constructed by a Turkish-American consortium and will connect Albania to Kosovo, Turkey's state-run Anadolu agency said.

Completion of a tunnel under a 60 km (37 miles) stretch of road linking the Albanian coastal resort of Durres to the border with Kosovo will slash hours off travelling time for Kosovan holidaymakers heading for the sea.

Erdogan will join Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha to inaugurate the highway on June 25.

The 61-kilometer highway is constructed by a consortium of U.S. company Bechtel and Turkish construction firm Enka. It will lower the 6-hour travel time to 2 hours from Albanian city of Durrës to Kosovo's border gate Morina.
Albania began considering building the road when the United Nations and NATO took control of Kosovo in 1999 after ousting the Serb forces of late war crimes suspct Slobodan Milosevic, but it was Berisha who pushed the project forward.

When the 160 km road is finally completed next year at a total cost of 1.1 billion euros ($1.557 bln) the trip of around six hours to Kosovo's border from the Albanian capital of Tirana will take just two hours.

In the past, Kosovars have had to face a gruelling eight-hour trip, often via Macedonia, to reach Albania's beaches.

Kosovo town to host Balkans' first space science complex

"This science museum will offer opportunities to students from Kosovo,Albania and all other Albanian territories," says Jahja Kokaj, a physicist currently working in Kuwait.

Prof. dr. Jahja Kokaj has previously lectured at the University of Prishtina and Carnegie-Mellon and currently lives and does research in Kuwait.

With personal initiative and money, Kokaj is planning to build a science museum, planetarium and space observatory on the Çabrati hill overlooking his home town of Gjakova, Kosovo.

"It will be a first for the region, as not only in Kosovo but neither in Albania or in Macedonia or Montenegro there is such a facily with a planetarium and observatory sited together. Even Croatia, Bulgaria and Serbia have no such facility," said today in a conference with journalists prof. dr. Jahja Kokaj, before setting the cornerstone of this building.

To build this facility, Kokaj has bought land on the Çabrati hill, and will also fund the construction. But he said that the support he has received from Gjakova Mayor Mr. Pal Lekaj is more important.

"I am hopeful and convinced that this science museum in the future will be of service to pupils and students from Kosovo and Albania and from all the Albanian territories. Of course, it will also be used by scientists from both sides of the border and there has already been interest, even prior to the start of construction," explained Kokaj.
http://www.newkosovareport.com/200909221963/Society/Kosovo-town-to-host-Balkans-first-space-science-complex.html