Student protests and police clashes in Albania persist as prime minister offers dialogue

Student-led protests demanding better education conditions and Prime Minister Edi Rama's resignation continue, with clashes between demonstrators and riot police in Tirana and other cities.

• Official figures report 295 people injured in the clashes, 186 of them police officers.
• Protesters gathered at the Court of Appeal and the Interior Ministry, hurling stones and Molotov cocktails as police responded with tear gas.
• Prime Minister Edi Rama announced the government is ready to open dialogue with the protesters and urged them to renounce violence.
• Rama said negotiating with protesters throwing rocks would mean "the state has fallen," blaming "dark forces in Europe and the US."
• Analysts described the protests as a decentralized 'horizontal revolt' coordinated via social media and uncontrolled by traditional opposition parties.
• The movement grew out of an environmental campaign dubbed the 'Flamingo Revolution' before becoming a broad uprising demanding Rama's resignation.