At least 700 people, mostly women, have sought medical help for apparent drug intoxication in a village believed to be the largest marijuana producer in the Balkans, doctors said Friday.

All the patients, suspected workers in cannabis fields in the southern Albanian village of Lazaret, had similar symptoms and "serious disorders from cannabis intoxication," doctor Hysni Luka of the hospital in nearby town Gjirokaster told reporters.

The EU's executive on Wednesday urged the bloc's governments to reopen stalled membership talks with Turkey despite this year's crackdown on protesters as well as open the door to Albania.

Releasing its much-awaited yearly enlargement report, the European Commission rebuked Ankara for an "uncompromising stance in the face of dissent" and "excessive force" by police against protesters.

A coalition led by Albania's opposition Socialist Party was on Tuesday leading the race to form the Balkan nation's next government after weekend polls.

With three quarters of the ballots counted, the coalition had won 53 percent of the vote, with an alliance led by outgoing conservative Prime Minister Sali Berisha's Democratic Party at 36 percent, the electoral commission said.

One man was killed and three people were wounded in an apparently politically motivated shooting in Albania on Sunday during a crucial vote that could determine whether one of Europe's poorest countries has a chance of joining the EU.

The shootout in the northern town of Lac "might be related to the vote," police spokeswoman Alma Katragjini told AFP without elaborating.

Seventy-one members of an exiled Iranian opposition group based at a camp near Baghdad have been relocated to Albania, the U.N. said Saturday, a week after the camp suffered deadly mortar attacks.

The resettlement is the latest in protracted efforts by the U.N. to move the around 3,000 members of the former rebel People's Mujahedeen at Camp Liberty, on Baghdad's outskirts, outside of Iraq.

Europe's top rights court Thursday ordered Macedonia to pay 60,000 euros ($78,000) in damages to a Lebanese-born German who claims the CIA abducted him there in 2003 and flew him to Afghanistan to be tortured.

Khaled el-Masri, 48, says he was abducted by CIA operatives under the so-called extraordinary rendition program while on holiday in Macedonia and then taken to a secret Afghan prison for brutal interrogation.

Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" has come out in Albania for the first time, printed by a local publisher who now risks possible charges for stirring racial hatred, officials said Wednesday.

Ermir Nika of the culture ministry said Hitler's book would be "judicially treated as it violates Albanian legislation" for inciting racial hatred.

September has seen devout Muslims again flocking to Albania's only "burqa beach" after the Ramadan holy month, where women bathe in full hijab -- a short distance from the "other" Albania where girls romp in scanty bikinis.

The contrast is not to everyone's liking but is a testament to Albania's centuries-old tradition of religious tolerance, which even survived nearly half a century of a communist rule that tried to stamp out all religion.

The Albanian authorities have seized 200 kilos of Colombian cocaine with an estimated value of over 15 million euros ($21 million) hidden in vats of palm oil, they said Wednesday in a statement.

At least five people, including two Macedonian nationals, were arrested in connection with the find, the police said.

A Lebanese-German man who says he was snatched by the CIA in Macedonia and tortured at a secret prison after being mistaken for a terrorism suspect, will begin a legal battle against Macedonia Friday to demand official recognition of his ordeal.

Khaled el-Masri is seeking €50,000 ($69,000) in compensation — and an apology — from the government in Macedonia, where he says he was abducted while on a trip in 2003. His action follows failed attempts to have his case heard in court in the United States and Germany.