After being dropped from the Cabinet, the chief economic adviser is sidelined from the Thessaloniki conference. Page 2 After being dropped from the Cabinet, the chief economic adviser is sidelined from the Thessaloniki conference Page 2

BY EMIN BARÇI Vlora and the DP achieved a historic victory yesterday. For the DP, the nightmare bearing the name of the capital of revolts against them is over. Meanwhile, Vlora won itself back, showing that it has decided to live in the present. Yesterday, the people of Vlora showed precisely that they had managed to stabilize, dialectically, the relationship between the past, the present and the future. After the successful test Pollo, Topalli and Hajdari faced yesterday, Berisha, too, seems to have the gates of the city of anti-presidential protests open to him. Ultimately, after a rite of passage, the DP marks the country’s entire territory in blue on its political map. The mere dozens of people throwing stones at Democratic militants were too few to show that Vlora now hates the DP. Just as the 800 people attending the rally (a good number of them brought in from other districts) cannot symbolize any revived love among the people of Vlora for today’s opposition. Now that the DP has set foot in Vlora, all kinds of questions and hypotheses can be raised. Perhaps Vlora has forgotten that pyramid schemes, speedboats, prostitutes and drugs began in that city, with Berisha’s blessing. Perhaps the people of Vlora have forgotten that, because of the phenomena mentioned above, Artur Rustemi was killed, and SHIK and the special forces were unleashed against the entire city. It seems that memories of Zani and Gaxhai, those drowned on the Orant(os), and those killed on the road to the port no longer provoke confrontational reactions. But there is another logic, too: yesterday, Vlora decided to live in the present. The civic indifference that was evident yesterday shows that today’s hardships are more vital than memories or revenge for the past. The savings swallowed up by the pyramid scheme, the severe shortage of jobs, prices rising faster than incomes, and a future discussed only at tables in front of television cameras have replaced the revenge-inspiring laments at graves with the growls of empty stomachs and the shivers of bodies in threadbare clothes. Yesterday, Vlora showed the current government that political biographies (however dark they may be) are used only by politicians against one another, while the people want solutions for the present and the future. The DP’s entry into Vlora naturally does not mean votes for Berisha; on the other hand, it is an appeal (or passive protest) to the governing coalition not to measure its work against the wreckage of the overthrown regime, but against people’s needs and aspirations.

Women of Vlora in front of the DP motorcade on the Mifol bridge. Photo: GENT SHKULLAKU

The police have identified them, but they are not being caught Around 1,800 foreigners suspected of being criminals live here. Another 300 enter and leave. They are involved in terrorism and drugs Around 300 foreign nationals who enter and leave freely belong to a group implicated in terrorist acts and drug trafficking across and within our borders. There are around 1,800 people suspected by the police for whom no actual address is known; 35 percent of them are from Islamic countries. Regarding around 300 people, the Albanian police, with information provided by foreign police forces, have learned that they are perpetrators implicated in terrorist acts and major drug trafficking here. P. 8

NATO in Albania, the noose around Kosovo P. 4–5

Among them, the thief P. 7 Major police operation: Among them, the thief Seven behind bars over Nano’s BENZ P. 7

Professionalism is lacking in the police P. 32

The Constitution in crisis P. 6

Four more torpedoes will soon be back in the homeland P. 11

The Legalists in Johannesburg P. 6

No grade average is required for higher education P. 18