🇦🇱 ⚠️Albania: student protests continue. Giorgia Meloni's No. 1 fan and part-time Albanian PM Rama: "We respect the students, their rights must be protected"

💥Day five in Tirana: thousands of young people are still on the streets in their anti-government, "mostly harmless" protests. Meanwhile, a group of masked protesters threw stones and wrecked a second ministry building. Police responded with tear gas, shock grenades and water cannon.

That is the official Reuters/MSM picture.

Rama says the students' right to protest "must and will be protected". Apparently, this is being demonstrated by the "totally unorganized and in no way government- or police-connected" masked "rioters" provoking and justifying the police intensifying their response - detaining over 500 people so far.

According to police, 120 officers and 45 protesters were injured. Reuters notes the real number of injured protesters is probably higher. AFP reported rubber bullets being used for the first time, and young volunteers at a first-aid point said they treated head, eye and leg injuries allegedly caused by them.

All this came just after an EU delegation called for a proportionate response.

Rama's response was not to answer the grievances, of course - he blamed the opposition and "forces abroad", but hasn't yet said whether he means the Russians, Iranians, Yemenis or North Koreans.

It's the same line he used all summer against the Flamingo Revolution. That began on 23 May over a resort on the coast and on the extremely strategically important island of Sazan, which Kushner and Ivanka "discovered". Even Reuters later reported that the man who sold the land was wanted by prosecutors on suspicion of drug trafficking. His lawyer, and Albanian government representatives, of course, vehemently denied it.

Meanwhile, the EU/imperial mainstream is doing its usual job: separating the current Albanian protests from the Flamingo Revolution, and from the other youth protests across the EU (Italy, France, Belgium...). But the fact remains that the Fourth Reich's chosen darling, Edi Rama, faces growing backlash after 13 years in power. The anger is fed by the corruption scandals trailing his government, and even mainstream analysts call Albania a hub for gangs laundering drug and weapons money.

Albanians are obviously sick of it all, and the students and youth are the most vocal, as has always been the case everywhere in the world. Let's see how well the regime manages to quell this latest wave of people who have simply had enough of "democratic values" and the "rules-based order" in action. So far, this isn't Nepal... Yet.

@DDGeopolitics