Edi Rama is an Albanian politician and painter who has been serving as the 33rd and incumbent prime minister of Albania since 2013 and chairman of the Socialist Party of Albania since 2005. He was Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports from 1998 to 2000. First elected mayor of Tirana in 2000, he was reelected in 2003 and 2007.
Conference of Western Balkan States was a 28 August 2014 conference of heads of states and governments of Western Balkans region initiated by German chancellor Angela Merkel. An idea for organization of conference came in light of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I. It is the first conference in this framework and organizers expressed their desire to continue it in future with Vienna and Paris mentioned as a potential next hosts after Berlin. Günther Oettinger confirmed at conference that event will be organised annually with Vienna as a host city in 2015 and Paris in 2016.
The following is a timeline of the presidency of Barack Obama, from January 1, 2016 to January 20, 2017. For his time as president-elect, see the presidential transition of Barack Obama; for a detailed account of his first months in office, see first 100 days of Barack Obama's presidency; for a complete itinerary of his travels, see list of presidential trips made by Barack Obama.
The 44th G7 summit was held on 8–9 June 2018, in La Malbaie in the Charlevoix region of Quebec, Canada. This was the sixth time since 1981 that Canada has hosted the meetings.
The 2019 G20 Osaka summit was the fourteenth meeting of the G20, held at the International Exhibition Center in Osaka. It was the first G20 summit hosted by Japan.
The 45th G7 summit was held on 24–26 August 2019, in Biarritz, France. In March 2014, the G7 declared that a meaningful discussion was currently not possible with Russia in the context of the G8. Since then, meetings have continued within the G7 process. However, according to a senior Trump administration official, US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron had agreed that Russia should be invited to the next G7 Summit to be held in 2020.
A referendum was held in the Republic of Macedonia on 30 September 2018, with voters asked whether they supported EU and NATO membership by accepting the Prespa Agreement between Macedonia and Greece, signed in June 2018, which aimed to settle the 27-year naming dispute, which had prevented Macedonia from joining both the European Union and NATO. Despite 94% of voters voting in favour, voter turnout was around 37%, less than the 50% threshold required to validate the results.
The General debate of the seventy-fourth session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) opened on 24 September and ran until 30 September 2019. Leaders from a number of member states addressed the UNGA.
Northwestern Albania was struck by a magnitude 6.4 earthquake with an epicentre 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) west-southwest of Mamurras, at 03:54 CET (UTC+1) on 26 November 2019. The earthquake lasted at least 50 seconds and was felt in Albania's capital Tirana, and in places as far away as Bari, Taranto and Belgrade, 370 kilometres (230 mi) northeast of the epicentre. The maximum felt intensity was VIII (Severe) on the Modified Mercalli intensity scale. A total of 51 people were killed in the earthquake, with about 3,000 injured. It was the second earthquake to strike the region within three months. It was the strongest earthquake to hit Albania in more than 40 years, its deadliest earthquake in 99 years and the world's deadliest earthquake in 2019.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian Civil War from September–December 2019. Information about aggregated casualty counts is found at Casualties of the Syrian Civil War.
The Open Balkan is an economic and political zone of three member states in the Balkans, those being Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia. The zone has a total area of 131,935 km2 (50,940 sq mi) and an estimated total population of almost 12 million located in Central and Southern Europe. The official languages are Albanian, Macedonian and Serbian. Its administrative centres are the cities of Belgrade, Skopje and Tirana. With the establishment of the zone, all three member states aim to increase trade and cooperation as well as improve bilateral relations.
The extraordinary G20 summit on COVID-19 is a G20 leaders' summit was held virtually via a video conference on 26 March 2020. The extraordinary G20 summit was called and chaired by King Salman of Saudi Arabia to support a coordinated global response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Parliamentary elections were held in Albania on 25 April 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic to elect the 140 members of parliament. A total of 1,871 candidates, including 732 women, were registered, with ten political parties, two coalitions and three independent candidates contesting the election. The Socialist Party (PS), led by incumbent Prime Minister Edi Rama, opted for an independent participation, while the opposition Democratic Party (PD), under Lulzim Basha, formed the Democratic Party – Alliance for Change, a coalition with 12 smaller parties. Other notable political entities, including the Socialist Movement for Integration (LSI) and the Social Democratic Party (PSD), also pursued electoral success independently. The election campaign was highly polarised, with competing narratives centered on pressing national issues such as European Union (EU) accession, economic development, healthcare reform, infrastructure modernisation, and the government's handling of the COVID-19 crisis. Campaign strategies were significantly altered due to the pandemic, with political parties increasingly relying on digital platforms and social media to reach voters, as traditional in-person events were limited by public health restrictions.
The 2021 G20 Rome summit was the sixteenth meeting of the Group of Twenty (G20), a Head of State and Government meeting held in Rome, the capital city of Italy. It was the first G20 summit hosted by the country.
The 2021 Brussels summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was the 30th formal meeting of the heads of state and heads of government of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, held in Brussels, Belgium, on 14 June 2021.
The 2022 Brussels summit was a meeting of the heads of state and heads of government of NATO held in Brussels, Belgium, on 24 March 2022. The meeting took place in the wake of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The 2022 Madrid summit was 31st summit of the heads of state and heads of government of the thirty members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), their partner countries, and the European Union, held in Madrid, Spain, on 29–30 June 2022. Spain previously hosted a NATO Summit in 1997.
The 2022 NATO virtual summit was a meeting of the heads of state and heads of government of NATO held virtually, on 25 February 2022. The meeting took place at the request of the Latvian and Estonian governments, following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, which had begun a day earlier. The request was pursuant to Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which requires consultations when "the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened."
