The medicines had been donated by international organizations Another scandal involving aid? 60 tons of expired medicines discovered TIRANA — A new scandal in the sensitive aid sector is at risk of erupting: 60 tons of expired medicines, worth around 2 million dollars, are to be buried. They were all brought to Albania as aid by a number of humanitarian associations and private individuals. This unexpected news was announced by the Minister of Health, Tritan Shehu. Concerned, Minister Shehu said that he had requested stricter government intervention to stop nearly expired medicines from continuing to enter Albania at the border. “The government must take a firm decision to strengthen customs inspections and increase controls on medicines produced in the country,” Shehu said — for many countries, the disposal of expired medicines is a highly troubling problem that costs a great deal. Apparently, Albania has become a convenient place for achieving this aim.” An official at the Ministry of Health, who did not wish to be identified, also made a serious accusation against Albanian private traders. According to him, the private pharmaceutical sector has imported a large quantity of medical goods that are below standard and outside the nomenclature approved by the Ministry. The same official stated that unchecked medicines arriving from charitable associations and private individuals had fallen into the hands of unauthorized people, opening the way to abuses that harm people’s health. This is a serious accusation, directed more at the humanitarian associations than at private traders; some of these associations are very well known and have been operating in Albania for several years, distributing medicines and other humanitarian aid even to the most remote parts of the country. Thus Albania, one of the countries with the most urgent need for medicines, is forced to bury around 60 tons of them. In fact, many of the medicines sent to Albanian hospitals arrived only shortly before their expiry date. It has often happened that medicines used in very rare cases have arrived, while these countries continue to face shortages of such urgently needed medicines. When humanitarian aid began in 1991, a considerable quantity of medicines for renal insufficiency arrived in Albania, which the Albanian authorities refused. The latest blatant case: it was discovered that a 10-year-old girl had died in Kruja hospital from an ordinary snakebite. The hospital lacked not only the serum for snakebites but also ultracortisone. Albanian hospitals urgently need essential medicines, including antipyretics and analgesin. At Tirana’s pediatric hospital, one of the hospitals that has suffered most from medicine shortages, doctors are extremely concerned. One of them, Dr. Engjellushë Mezini, who currently serves as the hospital’s director, expressed her concern to the “Gazette”: “We have many medicine shortages, and for many illnesses the shortages are truly severe. We lack antipyretics (medicines that fight high fever) and injectable analgin, which are necessary remedies. We also lack various allergy medicines. If we had them, the death of a child in Vlora from nothing more than a simple wasp sting would not have occurred.” Finally, the Albanian minister’s appeal: “Stop expired medicines.” Let aid truly be humanitarian and come through official channels, need essential medicines, including antipyretics and analgesin. a serious accusation also sector has imported a large quantity of medicinal goods that are below standard- ... some of them very well known, operating in Albania for several years now, distributing medicines and other humanitarian aid as far as the most remo- ... even rarer, at a time when the country continues to be short of emergency medicines. When humanitarian aid began in 1991, there arrived in Albania a- ... At Tirana from the shor- ... humanitarian aid scandal that erupted in the weeks that followed. ... during the same period, the humanitarian aid scandal began to emerge, which erupted in the weeks that followed. ... violator of the law that protects these rights. Berisha accused Serbian president Milosheviç of... ... provinces in southern Serbia, with 90 percent of the population of Albanian and Muslim ethnicity, a high school in the Greek language will also open.

At the Conference on Human Rights The spread of the “massacre in Bosnia-Herzegovina” must be prevented, he said. Appeal to the UN, the European Community and NATO At the Conference on Human Rights Berisha sounds the alarm: “Save Kosovo” The spread of the “massacre in Bosnia-Herzegovina” must be prevented, he said. Appeal to the UN, the European Community and NATO VIENNA — The tragedy of the Balkans was the main issue discussed at the Human Rights Conference held in Vienna: Bosnian President Alija Izetbegoviç decided to speak in person at the international meeting organized by the UN, while the Albanian president, Sali Berisha, called for Kosovo to be declared under UN protection in order to prevent the “ethnic cleansing” that the Serbs are ruthlessly carrying out in Bosnia. The United Nations, the European Community and NATO must “intervene before it is too late,” Berisha said, warning that if Serbian expansionism is not restrained, the “massacre in Bosnia-Herzegovina” could spread to Macedonia and Kosovo. It should be recalled that the Albanian president was one of the greatest defenders of human rights in Albania and, after the democratic revolution, was among those who drafted the law protecting these rights. Berisha accused Serbian president Milosheviç of being principally responsible for the “ethnic cleansing” operation and the massacre, with the aim of realizing the dream of a Greater Serbia. If the conflict were to involve the Republic of Kosovo, the southern province of Serbia, whose population is 90 percent ethnic Albanian and Muslim, there would be “direct consequences for Europe and the whole world.” Meanwhile, in Albania, Berisha has declared that the Greek minority is guaranteed all its rights and has a newspaper and a radio station in the Greek language. A Greek-language secondary school will also open soon. President of the Republic, Sali Berisha

DEPUTY HEAD OF THE STATE AUDIT RESIGNS — Mustafa Kërçuku, deputy head of the State Audit Commission, submitted his resignation to Parliament. His request, which was accepted onto the agenda by the Presidium of the People’s Assembly, was made—as stated in his letter—“because of the current lack of conditions in the city of Tirana.” Referring to his residence in the city of Tirana, he cited “the lack of housing conditions in the city of Tirana.” FORMER POLITICAL PERSECUTEES SEND A LETTER TO THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS. A special law separated the activities of the Ministry of Labour, Emigration, Social Support and Former Political Persecutees. The Committee of Former Political Persecutees—newly established—will now be a member of the Council of Ministers, with the possibility of close interdepartmental cooperation. This committee is temporary; Parliament is expected to discuss the status of this part of society and to create the legal basis for the committee’s activities. THE STATE AUDIT OFFICE EXPOSES ABUSES COMMITTED IN THE FORMER TIRANA DISTRICT — It was found that state acts [...] concerning the transfer of state property into private ownership had been systematically violated to the detriment of state interests. This was the finding of the Supreme State Audit, which inspected the activities of the State Committee. The losses identified in this district alone amount to some 200,000,000 Albanian lekë; at one office where these losses were incurred illegally, they amount to billions of lekë.

TIRANA — Albania’s only civilian airport, Rinas, will be temporarily transferred to Lezhë at the end of September or the beginning of October this year. The transfer to Gjadër airport—which until now has been military—will also mark the start of the massive reconstruction of Rinas airport. The airport employees have already been notified; last year alone, they served 87,000 passengers. At the end of last month, the Albanian government drew up a master plan to modernize Rinas. The consulting company that wins the contract is expected to be announced so that work on the first phase can begin, at a cost of 110 million marks.

Widow’s letter to the Ministry of Public Order TIRANA — Nexhmije Hoxha is asking to be moved from Tirana Prison. The request—a handwritten page written in her cell—has been forwarded to the Ministry of Public Order and seeks “removal from isolation conditions.” It is difficult for her request to be considered, because the case concerning the 11-year sentence imposed by the Court of Appeal is now to be reviewed by the final court, the Court of Cassation. Only that court’s decision can permanently change the place where widow Hoxha has been held since January 1991. In her letter, Nexhmije Hoxha first requested a transfer to Unit 325 (the women’s prison), on the outskirts of Tirana. The real reasons for her wish to leave her current prison are still unknown, although her letter once again mentions her age, her innocence, and perhaps her wish to serve her sentence in a state prison. Widow Hoxha is now the only woman in Tirana Prison, but that does not mean that her cell is ordinary. In a special section on the second floor of the prison, she has been given the largest room among the ten others, traditionally used only for women detainees.

SHKODER/They were from Yugoslavia SHKODER (Ar.Ça) — Fifteen Yugoslav citizens were detained by the Shkodër Financial Police for entering in violation of the embargo. They had entered Albania in the morning and, after buying coffee and cigarettes at Shkodër’s large market, wanted to return to their country with the goods they had bought. The operation carried out by the city’s Financial Police ended with their being taken to the Public Order Department and the confiscation of the seized goods, valued at 1,000,000 lekë. After the necessary checks, the Yugoslav citizens were released. “This is the second case within a week,” Shpëtim Hoxha, press spokesperson for the Shkodër Financial Police, told the Gazette, “in which Yugoslav citizens have been caught by us trying to break the embargo. A week ago, another person was caught with four barrels of fuel.” The Yugoslav citizens caught most recently were in two separate groups of 6 and 9 people. In addition to large quantities of coffee and cigarettes, they had bought slippers and other goods at the market. After a long period of embargo, many citizens from the remaining part of the former Yugoslavia are trying to reach the Albanian market—naturally, where prices are lower—to buy various fuels in particular, as well as monopoly goods, coffee, cigarettes and olive oil.

Fashion and relationships with families are beginning to change (c.bo.) — The first signs of a new revolution in Albania. Fortunately, it is peaceful, though no less radical than the others. It is the revolution of the young. They are demanding new rights: “We are persecuted by our families,” they say, using the language of someone who—much more rarely—has been persecuted by the regime. “We will fight for the right to self-determination,” they add, copying the terminology of someone who—tragically—is seeking recognition of a compromise denied to him by a foreign country. Progress is the big word, along with foreign ideas, but the rapid direction of their style is clear. According to a report published today by the newspaper “Albanica,” 30 young Albanians have formed an association with a new statute and several objectives for the future and the common good, including the right to live alone, that is, outside their parents’ control. They would then be able to live with the people they love, without the obligation of marriage, which seems old-fashioned to them. We do not know how serious this is. The members of this association (all between 15 and 18 years old) are truly fired up about the revolution they are promising, but that is of little importance for now. There are many signs of a cultural revolution among young Albanians: in the way they dress, the music they listen to, and the new role models they follow. And in the future, too. This change, in a country whose population is the youngest in Europe, cannot fail to affect many other aspects of life. Democracy has so far provided freedom of action; changing mentalities is much more difficult, but what is happening with young Albanians points to something else: democracy is also demanding the right to think.

SHKODER/They were from Yugoslavia Another wave of racism in Germany Women and information: conference in Bari A new ceasefire signed in Bosnia