After the latest incident, a special team was sent yesterday to verify ill-treatment in the cells The Minister of Public Order backs down in the face of accusations against the precinct he favors After the latest incident, a special team was sent yesterday to verify ill-treatment in the cells Poçi hands Kosen over: Investigate police violence in Elbasan The Minister of Public Order backs down in the face of accusations against the precinct he favors page 13

By MENTOR KIKIA The campaign to pave and repair roads is missing a red flag and a competition among the crews to win it at the end. All public and private enterprises, starting with the ministry, whose names include the word “road,” have joined the campaign. Hundreds of workers, trucks, bulldozers, excavators and other equipment are working day and night. Ever since the Democratic Party leader, Sali Berisha, launched a feverish electoral race with bulldozers and dynamite, the Socialists, after thinking long and hard to find a counter-move, declared: “We will go into the elections with investments, not shouting.” And the investments began with the dismissal of the former Transport Minister, Ingrid Shuli. Prime Minister Meta paid no heed either to his party’s suggestions or to the warnings from Shuli’s party, which whenever one of its ministers is dismissed says: try it one more time, and we’ll leave the coalition. The first campaign was to repair the Lezhë–Shkodër road. Meta himself ordered the new minister, whom he had brought out of his advisers’ office, to have the road repaired within 32 hours. Never before had work been done this way, even though the Socialists have been in power for three years and roads have become a daily refrain for all Albanians. And it had never occurred to anyone that 30 kilometres of road could be repaired in just 32 hours. The same campaign was later launched in Rrogozhinë, now at the end of Lushnjë, and other projects are ready. Meanwhile, in Tirana, a long list has been drawn up of all the roads that will be paved from scratch. Even two years ago, residents of the capital saw machines doing the same thing, but by now not even a crumb of asphalt remains in the squares as a keepsake. Former Prime Minister Majko made an accusation at the time against the companies that took the money for these roads, but nobody in the government took him seriously. Now it seems the companies have learned their lesson too. The road from “Vasil Shanto” School to the last stop in Tirana e Re is being torn up from the foundations to be rebuilt from scratch. The pavements too. This shows that the work can be done better than it has been so far, and could have been done two years ago as well. Also taking part in this campaign are the foreign companies contracted to reconstruct sections of Corridor 8. The Albanian sleepiness and “couldn’t-care-less” attitude have been disrupted for several weeks, and each company has been warned one by one to get its “heels” moving in Albania. And they have all started moving... This shows that if the screws had been tightened earlier, the roads would not be in the state they are in now. We would be glad to believe that at last something like this will be achieved. But more than that, it would make sense for the SP to win the local elections, so that the road is built in a hurry, completed, and others paved afterwards, and then the parliamentary elections take place next year.

page 9

The trip, after the celebration of freedom page 3 Berisha: all the secrets of the visit to Kosovo revealed

Sunday supplement page 23 For holidaymakers: tips, curiosities, super-crosswords and humor

The country’s largest sports newspaper Starting today, a daily Everything from Euro 2000