Durrës, a group of clandestine migrants blocked near Currila Police attack on speedboats Durrës, a group of clandestine migrants blocked near Currila Blitz against traffickers Police attack on speedboats DURRES — Not only in Italy but also in Albania, the difficult hours for trafficking in clandestine migrants toward the opposite shores of the Adriatic are now sounding. A police station operation managed to block, right near the city, two speedboats that, full of human cargo, were preparing to set off for the Apulian coast. It happened on Saturday in the early afternoon, but the news has only now become known. The incident took place on the stretch of coast near the road that leads to Currila beach, where the last apartment block has been built. At 4:00 p.m. two police vans suddenly headed toward the group of 30-40 clandestine migrants waiting to board the three speedboats moored very close to the seashore. The police arrival caused panic in the crowd; many scattered wherever they could, leaping onto the clay slopes. The two speedboats therefore could not be loaded with their precious cargo. Only one of them, apparently faster than the others, managed to take advantage of the confusion and head toward the horizon. According to eyewitness accounts, 12 people managed to climb aboard at the last moment, 7 of them Kurds. In the other speedboat, women and children were also seen hurrying across the Adriatic. To frighten the crew of the craft, the police fired into the air. The pistol shots were clearly heard by residents of the apartment block built recently on the edge of the city. So far, fortunately, there has been no report of any accidental injury to the speedboat passengers. Sources very close to the Durrës police station have said that one of the five crew members of the stopped speedboats was held for about 20 hours. Z.Z. — his initials — was released the next day. No details about the reasons for his brief detention have been made known. So far this is the police’s most sensational operation against smugglers of clandestine migrants. The “Adriatic boats,” as they are commonly called, have become an extraordinary source of profit for certain groups of people. Taking advantage of the initial difficulties and the persistence of the dream of the “Italian Eldorado,” clandestine speedboats repeatedly cover the short distance separating the Albanian shores from the Italian ones. One of the traffickers — certainly seeking not to be identified — stated that Saturday’s police intervention surprised them for its determination. And it is precisely the determination shown on Saturday that makes one think a new phase is beginning to take shape in the fight against this transport. Latest news confirmed officially, but time will show them to be very close to the police reports, speak of an order issued by the station and the latest: “all suspicious speedboats are to move out at sea.” Meanwhile, suspicious people continue to be seen in Durrës. They are Kurds; many of them are often seen sitting in cafes near the Port, watching the line of the horizon that disappears in the West. Is that still Italy, the country where they said they might find work. (p.re.)

Hypothesis in the WHO report Italian doctors: “Cholera in Albania came from Greece” TIRANE — “It is very likely that the cholera epidemic that broke out in Albania was imported from Greece.” The statement was made yesterday by the Italian team, epidemiologist Donato Greco and microbiologist Ida Luci, in a detailed report they sent a few days ago to the World Health Organization and the Copenhagen center. Both specialists had stayed in Albania throughout the summer and the “hot” cholera period and had closely followed the entire course of the disease’s spread. Thus, the doubts about the arrival of the vibrio from Greece, first raised by Health Minister Maksim Cikuli himself, now also find support from WHO experts. According to the latter, “from the epidemiological, clinical and bacteriological investigations carried out in 10 cities of Albania, on more than 100 patients and hospitalized people and in 120 sources of infection, there are sufficient epidemiological elements to establish that, most likely, and perhaps at least as an explanation, this cholera came from Greece in the last week of August.” In connection with this date and the fact — that Greece itself has so far remained in “the sufficiently adequate control confines” — that during the same period there was also a mass return of Albanian emigrants from the neighboring country. And that cholera — Greco further assured in the report — “broke out precisely in the two areas where the two main roads linking with Greece were also located.” The first strong signals that gave rise to suspicions about the Hellenic origin of the vibrio appeared after the outbreak in Librazhd. Here, of the four people who had been found ill, two had returned from Greece. Meanwhile, the report addressed to the WHO reiterates the fact that the epidemic outbreak in Albania occurred through the water-supply network as a result of the heavy pollution it has from sewage and wastewater. This categorically rules out any doubt that the disease could have originated from food as a dangerous source of infection. Armand Mero

SARANDE — The Sarandë police have successfully carried out an operation aimed at curbing one of the persistent phenomena in the circulation of precious metals: the theft of church bells. The operation made it possible to identify a group of individuals, some of whom were also from the capital. The operation continued throughout the last two weeks and, in its stages, officers from the Sarandë police station also took part. From the first church bell, weighing about one ton, five young men from the village of Progonat in Tepelena had managed to dismantle it. Apparently, it was not just a single group of thieves that throughout this summer had been involved in stealing bells in southern Albania. According to sources from the station, at the time of detention one of the young men was found with a TT-20 type pistol that he was carrying without a permit. Only a few days passed before another coastal church became the target of a robbery. This time in Piqeras, on the Ionian coast, unidentified thieves entered the church at night and managed to take the church bells. The Sarandë police were immediately mobilized and managed to identify — thanks to the successful operation mentioned above — one of the perpetrators. It was no coincidence that further investigations found that two of them, A.R. and B.A., had only recently completed military service precisely near Piqeras. Church-related objects have long since become an attractive target for thieves. Many of them — because of their age and special history — are highly valued on the foreign antiques market, especially in Greece, where most of them end up. But while protective measures for places of worship have recently increased, the safeguarding of bells, directly the responsibility of the state, but of churches and mosques scattered throughout the country, will be more difficult and, it seems, for some time still a difficult operation. Their care must be entrusted to the administrators appointed by the religious communities themselves, because faced with thieves who exploit surprise and the darkness of night there are often, moreover, people who are alone and elderly. But at least Sarandë perhaps shows that life has also begun to get difficult for church robbers. (Ra. Ko.)

On the 25th anniversary TIRANE — The 25th anniversary of DHL Made is also being celebrated in Albania by the General Director for Southern Europe, Eastern Europe and North Africa of DHL, Peter Davies, who chose precisely the Albanian capital to commemorate that distant day when, for the first time, a service carried a letter from San Francisco to Honolulu. Today, among the more than 2,000 offices of this powerful postal service — with 65 billion dollars in annual revenue — are also those in Tirana, Durrës and Fier. Meanwhile, Shkodër is among its near-term plans. These links and more are offered in Tirana by a Gary Kemp office, DHL Director for the Adriatic region. (Fe)

Our tracheal system is also recommended for other countries It has been rated the most successful for KSE interventions for the final screening in Albania with a 9-hour function. It has been rated the most successful for KSE interventions for the final screening in Albania with a 9-hour function that had allowed it to take part of the time at high speed. The measure is initially defined for the firing of the carton, which has achieved an effective speed for the passage and completion of such a network, recommended by the center of [?] Hoqel. New guidance for turning the carton to the left of school textbooks It has been issued by its Educational Directorate in the region from a little while ago, which has begun implementing a new instruction — “For not taking Education Minister Dhimiter Anagnosti — including all kinds of books and the unloading of them by students from the school blockers. This, as books now intended for cardboard — will free up space for literary books. Hygiene against the cholera vibrio A broad nationwide campaign has begun, and a detailed campaign of lesions is taking place near a very low meeting. A major sanitation action has just started from the Public Transport Directorate in the city, where under a group of professionals an additive has also been used. All cleaning tasks in the neighborhoods have been carefully undertaken, while large shops have been equipped with pipes and mirrors to stir up the waste. In a neighborhood where sealed water wells remained, with care taken, plugs were placed for the city wells that intervened.

Commercialization to begin soon TIRANE — The sale of yogurt — industrial yogurt — with fruit is also arriving in Albania. And now not through imported products but through domestic production. It is the company “TIBA” that will put the first cups of fruit yogurt on the capital’s market today. “This company, — Selaundi Haxhynuri, head of the veterinary sector in the Municipality of Tirana, which has provided technical assistance in yogurt production, tells Gazeta Shqiptare — has set up a modern plant, the first in 1994 in Italy, and will initially produce 1,500 to 2,000 125-gram cups per day.” The price of each cup will be 35 lek, a price the producers themselves call reasonable compared with the imported one, 45-50 lek. The quality they offer is also high. “The ferment used is the same as that of the well-known Italian yogurt ‘Yomo,’ Hoxhynuri assures. We are also preparing production with two we do not know? a concern that is considering the possibility of producing canned milk in cups. Ar. Me.

Had fled BERAT — He had left two dead people on the asphalt and had hidden. And since the beginning of September, 24-year-old Agron Gorezi — the author of a serious road accident — had been wanted by the law enforcement authorities to be brought to justice. But everything happened only three days ago, when Gorezi was found by law enforcement authorities in the home of a cousin of his, in the village of Vërtop, who is now accused of “assistance after the commission of the crime.” The same measure was also taken against Gorezi, who, while traveling at great speed, had fatally injured 45-year-old Ruzhdie Cindibhi and her 15-year-old daughter. (p.re.)

A child is at risk of death FIER — He risked losing his life while playing in a playground abandoned for a long time. A careless movement and the 12-year-old Egert B., from Fier, fell from the height on which he was playing. The fall was dangerous because the boy suffered a serious leg wound. Only the immediate intervention of the doctors made it possible to neutralize the massive hemorrhage, which increased concern for his life. “I have played there hundreds of times,” says Egert, but he never quite understood why it has been more than five years since this playground had any swing. Some playgrounds remain in a very bad condition; others are being left without frames? Even though the price was high, the boy was saved with a sacrifice? Change kitchen? Perhaps someone, one of the younger ones, will remember, and the children. (En. Mj.)

IN SIDE Yeltsin’s visit to the USA Immigration in Italy will be strictly controlled New laws soon IN SIDE Washington-Moscow economic agreement Yeltsin’s visit to the USA Immigration in Italy will be strictly controlled New laws soon ON PAGE 2

DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SELL? DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO BUY? This space is free for your economic announcements. Send your message no longer than 15 words to one of our addresses: In Tirana: Rruga Bajram Curri, 370, or in Bari: Viale Scipione l'Africano, 264. State in your message what you are looking for and offering, your name and address FOR RENT — a two-story building, masonry, which downstairs can be used as an office and upstairs as a dwelling. The second floor has a room and a kitchen, bathroom and corridor, while downstairs there are two large rooms. Interested parties may address: Rruga “Xhorxh Martini”, No. 4. I HAVE — an apartment in Vlora, consisting of two rooms and a kitchen. It is also exchanged for a two-room apartment with a kitchen in Tirana, against a reasonable cash compensation. Telephone number in Tirana, 22763. FOR SALE — an IPA car in good technical condition. It has covered 30,000 km and comes complete with a spare coupling motor as well as about 40 spare-part items, the number of which is considerable. For more detailed information and contact method, information can be obtained by phone 32123, Tirana. FOR RENT — a 40-room building for hotel or offices; downstairs there is a restaurant with an area of 150 square meters with a tavern, lottery game located opposite the parliament. Interested parties may call 23182, Tirana. FOR SALE — a one-room apartment and kitchen, with annex and balcony. Address: Rruga “Hodo Beg”, building 156/1, floor 271, apartment 85, Tirana. Tel. 60327. EXCHANGE — a two-room apartment and kitchen, with annex and a spacious 16-balcony, on the first floor, near Shkolla e Kuqe, for an apartment, one room and a kitchen, inside the ring and will be on the first floor. You can call at any hour of the day on 42160, Tirana. FOR RENT — a shop in Durrës with an area of 21 square meters. Address: Rruga “Maliq Muço”, no. 195 (near P.T.T.). Contact by phone at 042, 33455, Tirana. FOR SALE — an apartment, 1 room and 1 kitchen, first floor, near the school “Petro Nini Luarasi”. Address: Rruga “Luigj Gurakuqi”, no. 6, tel. 42515, Tirana. FOR SALE — a three-room apartment and a kitchen, on the fifth floor, near the Army Ensemble. Price 4 housing? reasonable. For clarification, Rruga “Luigj Gurakuqi” no. 6, tel. 42515, Tirana. FOR RENT — a shop with an area of 30 square meters. Address: Rruga e Dibrës, near the Optical Theater. Tel: 24866 and 42020, Tirana. EXCHANGE — a house with a yard, with two rooms and a kitchen, one-story, near the hospital, Tirana. Address: Rruga “Hafiz Ibrahim Dalliu” no. 9, Tirana.

DURAZZO BARI DURAZZO with CATAMARAN GOLUBAYA STRELA IN 3 HOURS AND A HALF Daily departures: from DURAZZO 17:00 from BARI 09:00 Fare from USD 45 For information and reservations: at your TRAVEL AGENCY or at: ILAM ALBANIA Sh.p.k. GENTI MARINER DURAZZO - Socialisti i Treti Durres, 3 Tel. 00355-52-22035 - Fax 00355-52-23741