REPUBLICANS: PR, the Property Owners’ Association and DBSH are ready to contribute legally to the issue of property restitution The Commission should present clear legislative initiatives P. 3

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By Arben SHIHI If on 22 July of this year the “friends of Albania” gathered in Brussels and, beyond every diplomatic veil, reported ... the misery of Albania in contexts already known to Albanians, they thought that such a denunciation would set the country’s state institutions in motion, or at least be understood by them as a final warning, beyond all patience... Their disappointment was complete. There was no clear, expected response from the Albanian state machinery. A few incoherent murmurs from officials. That was all. The savage momentum of evil in Albania continued its gallop, undisturbed and untroubled by any institutional ambush. Nothing can any longer halt the Albanian state’s downward spiral. Not even two months had passed when, three days ago—and not unexpectedly—a shocking statement from the emancipated world across the ocean appeared in the world media: State Department spokesman Rubin declared that 1 billion dollars earmarked for Bosnia’s reconstruction had ended up entirely in the pockets of local rulers!!! This was undoubtedly the final warning for... Albania. Yet once again, silence. Only one “independent” electronic media outlet dared to broadcast the news, and only once. Complete state silence. Only a seventy-two-year-old official stood up to appear taller (oh God, how many seventy-year-olds are governing this land of legends and tall, noble people!!) and foreign officials, who spoke in riddles, after showing some interest and consideration for their audience, immediately appeared to justify their “duty” (burden) at one of its stages: distributing the last millions, who knows how, and who knows where... The shocking fact was, in reality, Albania’s foreshadowed fate. Suddenly finding itself, after a hundred years, at the crossroads of the world’s overwhelming interest, this situation’s sudden and provincial representation and manifestation raises the danger that Albania will ultimately suffer the fate doggedly imposed on it for 50 years, and receive what it does not deserve: the final silence of its Euro-Atlantic “benefactors.” No one would want to believe that rulers who are shod, clothed, fed, and installed in office by the world’s poorest taxpayers would systematically act against the vital interests of Albanians. Consider some of the latest facts: The Minister of Finance goes to Greece and, it is said... with the foreign minister?! They discuss funding for the National Theatre?! The Prime Minister makes a tour of visits to ... Continued on page 2

Caricature bearing the caption “THE STATE.”

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Statements by former hea ds of

. Checks on officials’ incomes. P. 5

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. P. 2A

SHORT STORY by Ritvan Dibra. CONTEMPORARY German POETRY. ESSAY by Faruk Myrtaj. POETRY by Juan Ramon Jimenez.

. P. 6 A tragedy is averted in Durrës. P. 7 The Criminal Code favors the accused. P. 6