The number of people sick is being kept secret. Doctors: You cannot protect yourself from this flu The virus from the Far East has entered Albania from Macedonia page 2

. The private television of tomorrow will speak the language of yesterday’s state television. The DP is taking all the necessary measures to make sure that this is exactly what happens. Having gone four years of its first term without private electronic media, the DP is preparing, during its second term, to once again choose the worst legal option for Albania: granting a limited number of national private television channels. There will be two such channels in the entire country, while the rest will be local television stations. This is the essence of the draft law expected to be sent to parliament for approval. The most powerful information medium invented to date will once again come under the petty censorship of state bodies, and broadcasting frequencies will be allocated according to the same criteria used for tenders, privatized properties, positions in the administration, and even apartments—political loyalty to the party in power. The four-year struggle to establish independent private media has thus been channelled in the worst possible way, into a formula that, as always, bears the stamp of the perverse originality of those who never think about how they might govern. International pressure on Albania regarding private electronic media has been substantial and consistent. Almost all the institutions we belong to or aspire to join have reminded our government that the existence of media decentralized from the state is a basic condition for trustworthy governance and for the quality of democracy practiced in the country. This repeated lesson, which our officials have never rejected in principle, was put in writing in the commitments Albania undertook in June 1995, when it was admitted to the Council of Europe. Among them, the existence of independent electronic media was one of the fundamental conditions, whose implementation would unlock the stagnant situation that prevailed—and still prevails—at Albania’s only state television station. But apparently, since June ’95, those in Tirana have not been thinking about how to allow private television channels, but how to obstruct them. Time cannot have been wasted, since a formula has been found that permits maximum censorship within the framework of allowing national private television. A scheme involving a limited number of national private channels is also known in other European countries. Viewed in this way—and this is surely how state propaganda will present it tomorrow—this solution may seem normal for our country too. What is wrong with the formula that has been devised is that, by restricting the possibility of opening private television channels with national reach, it effectively eliminates the chances that Albania will ever have independent electronic media. The Supreme Commission (that will be the name of the body granting the relevant licence), whose chair is appointed by the President of the Republic, will carry out the political order of the party in power, stifling all the others in turn. This has always happened, and there is no reason to expect things to be different with private television. Names of possible candidates for the two networks are already beginning to circulate. The way the law on private electronic media is being handled is the second major challenge to Albanian democracy, after the theft of votes during the previous year. The battle for the media, if it ever existed, is now ending with an outcome similar to that of the electoral battle for power. S.MINXHOZI

A Russian breaks the ice in a Siberian city Photo: Reuter A Russian breaks the ice in a Siberian city. Photo: Reuter

President Vehbi Alimuça[i?], from Vlora, responds to Silva and Xhaxhi page 9

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