DECISION OF THE GERMAN PARLIAMENT. THE ALBANIAN RED CROSS REGISTERS THE NAMES AND DISTRIBUTES THE AID For Albanian families of victims and people who were harmed or persecuted during the war against Nazism. The Parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany will grant one-time humanitarian aid worth thousands of dollars. The German Parliament has decided to help all victims anywhere in the world who suffered harm from persecution during the Second World War. Among the many people who were harmed during those years in all the countries where Hitler’s Germany had declared war On page 11

EDITORIAL “There is no greater pain than remembering happy times in bad days,” says Dante. Wrapped in two blankets, trembling from the cold and from anger at their helplessness, Albanians curse the current Government, the previous one and the one before that in the dim light of a candle. Perhaps they nostalgically remember the wood stove, which might have smoked, but at least kept them warm. In fact, the “government of darkness”—as the current government has been called because of the frequent, almost total power outages in Tirana and the other major cities—has inherited more than it has received the lion’s share of the blame in the burned-out transformer of Albanian governments. “KESH is like a milking cow,” says an electrician. “It has to work in summer to be maintained in winter.” During the summer, our KESH hibernated, and today the consequences are showing. Nevertheless, blame, in the language of bureaucrats and state directors, Continued on page 3

DOSSIER Poliçan would have remained a lost village somewhere in southern Albania if someone had not thought of setting up an arms factory there. With the establishment of the ammunition plant in 1960, the village, which belonged to Berat, became a town and in 1972 was transferred to the Skrapar district. On pages 12–13

U.S. President: “Let us pray for the Prime Minister of Albania” TIRANA - Majko pledged to Clinton that his government would pursue a wholly pro-American policy in the troubled Balkan region during the face-to-face talks they held yesterday immediately after the prayer ceremony ended, where the American president asked the hundreds of attendees from all continents to “pray for the Prime Minister of Albania, that he may have great success on the path he has embarked upon,” the Albanian Press Ministry announced. On page 3