“He and Malaj should distance themselves from Bleta” INTERVIEW / New attack by the PAD leader over smuggling TIRANA - “Nano and Malaj should break with Bleta,” Neritan Ceka declared immediately after returning to Albania. The AD leader has once again launched an attack against the head of customs, now calling for his definitive removal from office. “Bleta must resign after the Prosecutor’s Office has opened its investigation, and if he does not, Malaj must dismiss him,” Ceka said. The former interior minister also warned the head of Albania’s Finance Ministry that if he does not take the step of dismissing Bleta, it will show that he is just like the director of customs. On the other hand, Ceka, not wishing to open a full-scale conflict with the Albanian prime minister as well, ignored the statements Nano made a short time ago in defense of his officials. On page 2 Nano Ceka

In Bonn, the Contact Group orders a halt to funding for the Kosovo army BONN - The Contact Group imposes sanctions on the KLA as well. The countries that met in Bonn to discuss the fate of the Albanian region have decided to immediately halt activities outside the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by those providing financial or arms support to the armed Albanians in Kosovo. They also called on all countries to prohibit the collection of funds and financing. On page 10 UÇK soldiers Dokle: They are hostages to Berisha’s game. The Presidency: They must reflect KLA soldiers

DIPLOMACY TIRANA - Kinkel arrives in Albania. Yesterday evening, the German foreign minister met with President Meidani, to whom he presented the latest results of the Contact Group in Bonn. Meanwhile, his itinerary includes a visit to Tropojë today. On page 10

Dokle: They are hostages to Berisha’s game. Presidency: They should reflect TIRANA - The parliamentary boycott could cost the Democratic Party’s MPs their salaries. Parliamentary Deputy Speaker Nik Marti Dokle warned that if the MPs of the largest opposition party insist on their decision to abandon proceedings until another parliament is constituted, they will not be paid. “If they agree with Berisha that the institutions should not be recognized, let them come and sign that they are relinquishing their mandates and severing all ties with parliament, including financial ones,” Dokle confirmed yesterday to “Gazeta.” According to the Socialist Deputy Speaker of Parliament, the DP MPs are playing games and engaging in political blackmail if they do not go to the parliamentary leadership to sign that they are relinquishing their mandates. But MPs from Berisha’s party have responded that they have never decided in any way to sever all relations with Parliament. “The electorate of the DP gave us our mandate, not Dokle,” one of them said yesterday. On page 3

converge, seemingly, for all parties. Nevertheless, the alarm bells have not frightened anyone. Not even the great masters of European seminars, who have not understood that Albanians, besides not knowing how to milk a cow, lacked this last thing too. Official Reasons To keep a newspaper going, you must necessarily calculate these elements: circulation, advertising, subscriptions, distribution, and the recovery of money. More than 99 percent of people who talk about the press have a mistaken idea. They equate a newspaper’s success with its circulation. Without going into other considerations, let us refute this logic in the simplest way. Imagine a European newspaper with many pages. The cost of its white paper alone is several times higher than the purchase price paid by the reader. The secret is very simple. If advertising is absent, every attempt to increase the circulation of the newspaper mentioned above does nothing but increase its losses. In Albania this formula does not work because there are no laws linking a newspaper’s circulation to its advertising. Not only is national production—the real basis of competition—missing, but so is the business culture of Albanian entrepreneurs, whose funds accumulated over the last five years do not correspond to the exchange rate at the time they were earned. This means they are never interested in advertising their goods. One need only look at the nature of Albanian advertisements to be convinced. because our makeshift officials of political power. It was a bitter joke when the Albanian Parliament concluded its concern for the national press with the phrase: “The press is free.” This vain and lazy phrase of government officials will cause much damage, not only to the national press, but to the economy and politics as well. Since its creation, the press could no longer be extinguished. From this point of view, it will continue to exist in Albania too. The question is who will continue to keep it on its feet. The local or foreign Mafia has a defense. It can answer Parliament with the phrase: “The press is free.” The only possibility is for representatives of the people, the deputies, to sit at the table with the journalists’ and publishers’ associations. It is much more honest to tell the people that this business cannot exist in Albania, and that the state cannot finance such a business because, for the same reason, it cannot finance teachers, hospitals, the army, etc. The claim that the IMF prevents the Albanian Government from financing the press is a lie invented somewhere in the Prime Minister’s lazy office. It has nothing to do with the essence of the problem. After Monday, the press will practically no longer exist. Partisan attempts to settle accounts using unrealistic costs do nothing but deepen the crisis.

The causes of the crisis that could have been avoided SHPËTIM NAZARKO According to the latest reports, the “Demokracia” printing house is officially at risk of bankruptcy. If one looks at the figures for its domestic debt—something over one million dollars—and at when this debt was incurred, one has to understand that the bankruptcy should have happened a long time ago. It is not only the lack of business acumen that has prevented this bankruptcy from being declared. We are all witnesses to an era when you could borrow 50,000 dollars from your neighbors and pay it back the following week with 100 percent interest. Factors of this kind, which gave one hope that there was business in Albania where the profit margin was terrifyingly high, did not spare the press sector either. Having watched the press closely, in which I myself was an active player for a time, I have always thought that the time when all the evidence would converge was approaching for all sides. Nevertheless, the warning sirens have alarmed no one. Not even the great masters of Europe’s seminars, who failed to understand that Albanians, besides not knowing how to start the cow, lacked this too. You can never talk about a newspaper’s crisis without connecting it to the advertising in it. Albania has no subscription system. Such an absence presupposes a lack of money at the beginning of the year, which is essential for investment in the newspaper. Albanian distribution is completely ruined. The sales and money-collection agency does not exist. The logic of running a business when none of its components work clearly shows that the press business in Albania is bankrupt. We should also add the most important factor: the price of an Albanian newspaper, which, when compared with the price of a European newspaper, is a hundred times more expensive. This is in relation to the incomes of Albanian citizens compared with those of Europeans. What should be done The Albanian government, whether in Berisha’s time or in Nano’s time, has not had, and does not have, a proper understanding of relations with the press. This is not only because our makeshift politicians during this period, like our journalists, cannot bear the weight of

GAZETA e Durrësit NATO ships in the Port On page 8 GAZETA e Vlorës “Merchants, pay your taxes” On page 7 GAZETA e Shkodrës Phone numbers are changing On page 6