06/09/2026
For days now, the streets of Tirana have filled with Albanians who refuse to stay quiet. The chant echoing off the buildings is blunt: "Albania is not for sale." Police have answered with water cannons, and the clashes have only grown.
What set it off is a luxury development backed by Jared Kushner's investment firm, Affinity Partners, and tied to Ivanka Trump. The plan would push coastal construction into the protected Vjosa-Narta lagoon, a designated wildlife reserve, and build a resort on Sazan island, a former communist-era military base off the Albanian coast.
Environmental groups say the damage is already visible. They report habitat destruction inside the protected zone, including a mapped sea-turtle nesting site that sits in the path of the project. For a lagoon that shelters migratory birds and rare coastal ecosystems, conservationists warn the build-out could be irreversible.
The pushback isn't only in the streets. Albania's special anticorruption prosecutor has opened an investigation into the deal, raising hard questions about how a foreign-backed luxury project landed inside one of the country's most protected natural areas.
Supporters frame it as investment and jobs for a developing economy. Protesters see something else: a wealthy, politically connected venture carving up public land that was supposed to be off-limits. As the crowds keep returning, the fight over who Albania's coastline belongs to is far from over.
https://yourdailyupdates.news/albania-protests-kushner-resort-vjosa-narta/