Sentence also reduced for Marko and Cela Dies in the Court of Appeal

According to Herald Tribune Tribu families with close ties to the Italian mafia have emerged and play a key role in the international trafficking of drugs, weapons and stolen cars, according to a report published on Wednesday by a group of anti-narcotics observers. Well-known families are linked together in clan alliances in the mountainous north of Albania. The group of observers, Observatoire Geopolitique des Drogues (OGD), says that the clans are in fact the ones governing a country where an effective constitution and strong rule of law are lacking. The report says that the Greek embargo against Macedonia and the national embargo against Serbia have turned Albania into a crossroads with a key role in the Balkans. It says that Albanians work as mafia couriers, transporting stolen cars in which certain quantities of heroin are concealed, from Italy to Slovenia; from there, they head towards Central and Eastern Europe. At the same time, the couriers transport television sets, video equipment and household appliances to resell in Albania. A member of the group of observers who refused to have his name published said that he had seen around 4,000 Mercedes Benz, BMW and other late-model luxury cars waiting in a five-hectare yard near the port of Durrës. From being Europe’s poorest country, he said, Albania now has the highest number of Mercedes cars in all of Europe. Referring to Italian police sources, many of the stolen cars were sold by their previous owners, who wanted to wash their hands of dubious methods of acquiring wealth that could lead to an investigation of their income. After this, the owners report the cars to the police as stolen. The correspondent for the group of observers said that many of the Albanians he met were proud of their smuggling and considered drugs a problem for the countries where they sold them, not for their own country. He stated that Albania transports heroin and cannabis, but these types of drugs are not consumed in the country. However, the observer said that Albania has a serious problem with pethidine, a synthetic morphine substance. He said that this drug is widely distributed by doctors, who thereby seek to supplement their small salaries. BARRY JAMES

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Freedom to give birth or freedom to have an abortion? (p. 6) “Polygamy has never been an element of our culture” (p. 7) The Clock Tower A story by Zija Çela (p. 8)