The General Prosecutor’s Office is launching criminal proceedings against KESH, currently the institution attracting the most attention... THE GENERAL PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE: WHO PROVOKED THE DARKNESS AND PANIC THAT LASTED TWO DAYS IN ALBANIA Attack against KESH Tenders and burned-out transformers Arian Çani The General Prosecutor’s Office is launching criminal proceedings against KESH, currently the institution attracting the most attention. ... who will work on this case file, but the decision taken last night will begin to be implemented very soon. The General Prosecutor’s Office’s accusation against KESH comes precisely at a moment when it is opening such a large and important case, whose investigation reaches directly into every Albanian household. For the first time, the General Prosecutor’s Office has undertaken to bring criminal charges over the electricity scandal of two days ago, thereby taking the side of the majority of Albanians, consumers and regular payers of electricity. After last night’s decision to initiate criminal proceedings against KESH, General Prosecutor Arben Rakipi told Gazeta Shqiptare last night that an investigation into everything that happened with the electricity on Monday and Tuesday of last week would begin very soon. “As the General Prosecutor’s Office, we will also investigate the tenders for the transformers that burned out a few weeks ago, and we will work to shed light on the companies that were paid to repair the Fierzë transformer.” It should be recalled that this transformer burned out again only a few weeks after being repaired. Rakipi said yesterday that the other investigators who will work on the case file have not yet been appointed, but that the decision taken last night would very soon begin to be implemented. The General Prosecutor’s Office’s accusation against KESH comes at the most difficult moment this still 100-percent state-owned institution is going through. Just a few days ago, the Corporation’s managers and specialists sounded the alarm about bankruptcy and reported a considerable number of consumers who had not paid their bills for a long time. KESH’s new director, Alfred Paloka—appointed to this post only a few weeks ago—will now also have to deal with the investigation into the country’s latest electricity scandal. Paloka said last night that he was unaware of the criminal proceedings the General Prosecutor’s Office had initiated against the Corporation, but explained that he himself was concerned about everything that had happened. “We are carefully analyzing the causes that triggered this unusual outage. So far, we have identified two reasons: the falling water levels and partial ice formation at all three of the country’s hydroelectric power stations, as well as the malfunctioning of two Fierzë transformers.” Director Paloka also did not deny that some KESH managers would share responsibility for what happened two days ago. “When the outage occurred, I was unfortunately in London, but as far as I understood, even as of yesterday, the order to take this measure was given by the center’s dispatch office,” Alfred Paloka, the new Director of the Albanian Power Corporation, said late last night. Also read: “Berisha copies Meidani,” “NATO against speedboats” and “Albania not a trafficking hub.”

ON THE PACT Like Meidani, Berisha has proposed a pact among the political forces on public order and disarmament. The packages put forward by the two men, who have occupied the office of head of state during the six years of pluralism in Albania, seem to differ only in form. On page 3

THE LANDING NATO is violating the Adriatic’s waters to prevent the “luxury” of migrants from Albania. The Atlantic Alliance has agreed to monitor the Adriatic Sea for uncontrolled movements of migrants. Admiral David Soun stated yesterday to the ANSA news agency... On page 5

The accusations made against Albania are exaggerated because migrant smuggling is an international phenomenon. “It is therefore not right to accuse Albania alone.” This is what Dan Everts, the OSCE ambassador in Tirana, told “Gazeta Shqiptare.” On page 4

Andi Bejtja While Italy is at the height of its criticism of Tirana over the high volume of migrant trafficking between the two shores, other voices from abroad are also emerging, saying that Albania does not deserve to be singled out in this way. Yesterday, the head of the OSCE in Tirana, Daan Everts, said that Albania is not the center of illegal trafficking, but one of the links in a chain whose roots lie in many European cities, including Italy. This is one side of the coin. The other side is that internal conflicts within Italian politics, where governments are shorter-lived than even those in poor countries in transition, mean that Italian smoke often falls over Albania’s battered face as well. Tirana’s being singled out over the so-called migrant trafficking has more to do with the political struggle within Italy than with what Italians routinely claim, that “the Albanians are creating problems for Rome with the other Schengen countries.” The Italian right, which has shown that it knows very well how to exploit anti-immigrant sentiment among Italian public opinion, wants to prove to the left, to Dalema[sic], that the immigration law is not worth a penny and that the left is destroying the country. And there could be no better proof of this than the images on Italian TV showing speedboats carrying migrants arriving from Vlora every day. Faced with this pressure, the left, [karrigahet], has no other choice but to

Illustration: people trying to light a large lamp.

THE JOURNEY On pages 12–13

Starting on 1 February, a contest for our readers will begin. The newspaper will give away 4 holiday trips, each lasting 1 week, to Italy’s most popular tourist destinations. Anyone who buys “Gazeta Shqiptare” will receive: a free trip, a Schengen visa, a villa booked for 1 week, and a contribution toward travel expenses. The winners will be announced on TV on 16 February.