WikiPedia: AlbaniA

AlbaniaCommunications?

AlbaniaTransportations?

AlbaniaMilitary?

AlbaniaTransnationalIssues?

                                       Communications

Telephones - main lines in use: 42,000 (1995)

Telephones - mobile cellular: 3,100 (1999)

Telephone system: domestic: obsolete wire system; no longer provides a telephone for every village; in 1992, following the fall of the communist government, peasants cut the wire to about 1,000 villages and used it to build fences international: inadequate; international traffic carried by microwave radio relay from the Tirana exchange to Italy and Greece

Radio broadcast stations: AM 16, FM 3, shortwave 2 (1999)

Radios: 810,000 (1997)

Television broadcast stations: 13 (1999)

Televisions: 405,000 (1997)

Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 2 (1999)

                                        Transportation

Railways: total: 670 km standard gauge: 670 km 1.435-m gauge (1996)

Highways: total: 18,000 km paved: 5,400 km unpaved: 12,600 km (1998 est.)

Waterways: 43 km plus Albanian sections of Lake Scutari, Lake Ohrid, and Lake Prespa (1990)

Pipelines: crude oil 145 km; petroleum products 55 km; natural gas 64 km (1991)

Ports and harbors: Durres, Sarande, Shengjin, Vlore

Merchant marine: total: 6 ships (1,000 GRT or over) totaling 10,907 GRT/16,101 DWT ships by type: cargo 6 (1999 est.)

Airports: 10 (1999 est.)

Airports - with paved runways: total: 3 2,438 to 3,047 m: 3 (1999 est.)

Airports - with unpaved runways: total: 7 over 3,047 m: 1 1,524 to 2,437 m: 1 914 to 1,523 m: 2 under 914 m: 3 (1999 est.)

Heliports: 1 (1999 est.)

                                          Military

Military branches: Army, Navy, Air and Air Defense Forces, Interior Ministry Troops, Border Guards

Military manpower - military age: 19 years of age

Military manpower - availability: males age 15-49: 856,820 (2000 est.)

Military manpower - fit for military service: males age 15-49: 701,194 (2000 est.)

Military manpower - reaching military age annually: males: 35,508 (2000 est.)

Military expenditures - dollar figure: $42 million (FY99)

Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 1.5% (FY99)

                                      Transnational Issues

Disputes - international: the Albanian Government supports protection of the rights of ethnic Albanians outside of its borders but has downplayed them to further its primary foreign policy goal of regional cooperation; Albanian majority in Kosovo seeks independence from Serbian Republic; Albanians in The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia claim discrimination in education, access to public-sector jobs, and representation in government

Illicit drugs: increasingly active transshipment point for Southwest Asian opiates, hashish, and cannabis transiting the Balkan route and - to a far lesser extent - cocaine from South America destined for Western Europe; limited opium and cannabis production; ethnic Albanian narcotrafficking organizations active and rapidly expanding in Europe