As in Albania, the ethnic-Albanians in Macedonia, who may number up to 35% of the 2.2m population, have been doing their best to look after their destitute cousins.

ECONOMIST: The refugees

On the foreign front, Mr Berisha sensibly made sure that, despite large and restless Albanian ethnic minorities in Serbia and Macedonia, Albania proper kept out of the Balkan cockpit.

ECONOMIST: Albania

KUKES, Albania (CNN) -- Ethnic Albanian refugees seeking shelter from the war raging in neighboring Kosovo are coming under increasing pressure to move out of crowded border camps.

CNN: refugees

In Bosnia and Albania especially, the bare modicum of ethnic harmony that still exists and in Bosnia it is very bare can be sustained only by economic cushions provided from outside.

ECONOMIST: Cooling down Kosovo

Shea said there were "very alarming" reports that Serb soldiers who had been pushing ethnic Albanian refugees across the borders of Kosovo into Albania and Macedonia were now pushing them back into Kosovo.

CNN: NATO strikes target Serb ground forces, complicate GI release efforts

High Commissioner for Refugees reported fewer than 7, 000 ethnic Albanians left Kosovo on Sunday, with 4, 300 entering Albania and about 2, 500 entering Montenegro.

CNN: NATO vows to prevail in Yugoslavia

As Kosovo, the Serbian province with an ethnic-Albanian majority, slides towards war, the government of Albania proper is begging the western defence club to help seal its border.

ECONOMIST: Why Albania feels lonely

Thousands of captured ethnic-Albanian men were this week freed from prison and shoved, dazed and battered, over the borders into Albania and Macedonia.

ECONOMIST: NATO piles it on