Revamp for army base

Power couple unveils big plans to put up luxury villas at Cold War hideout.

- Sazan

Once a Cold War base that would have been the pride of James Bond villains, an Albanian island is set for an overhaul after Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump unveiled plans to revamp its wild beauty.

The daughter of former US president Donald Trump and her partner want luxury villas to go up on the island of Sazan that for decades served as a garrison with bunkers, fallout shelters and a warren of tunnels designed to withstand a nuclear attack.

The base epitomised the paranoia rampant during the four-decade rule of Albania's Stalinist strongman Enver Hoxha after World War II.

"The island was dotted with 2 840 bunkers with heavy machine guns and other automatic weapons," said Ylli Mecaj, a former soldier stationed at Sazan.