One hundred cars stolen in one month ON PAGE 4

Angjeli, terrorizing the administration ON PAGE 5

Expired food is sold at every turn ON PAGE 5

The government is lying about the arrest of foreign nationals. Terrorist Islamists in Tirana exist only in the minds of Nano and Teta The news about the arrest of ten Islamists was fabricated by the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of the Interior. There were no such people at Police Station 3, nor at the other stations Not a single Islamist national was arrested two nights ago. Yesterday, all day long, the government and the Ministry of the Interior lied to Albanian and foreign public opinion about this arrest. No Arab nationals were apprehended in Tirana, much less anyone found with tools or objects that could be used for terrorism. Yesterday, through a press release, the Ministry of the Interior announced that, following searches of homes where some of the foreign nationals temporarily residing in Albania were staying, ten foreign nationals had been detained, because radio receivers, bulletproof vests, bladed weapons, batons, etc. had been found in their homes. The Ministry of the Interior’s ridiculous announcement was immediately broadcast by the state media, which even presented it as a sign of the government’s fight against terrorism. This false story, concocted in the recesses of the Prime Minister’s Office, was also fed to the foreign media, as well as to private television and radio stations in Tirana. Meanwhile, yesterday’s press reported accurately that the police had searched Tirana to make arrests, but no one had been taken into custody. According to the president, the Ministry of the Interior’s statement said these people had been detained at Police Station 3. The station had no names of detainees to report; after making inquiries, it stated that all the “detainees” had been released yesterday at midday. This other false story, improvised on the spot by the officer there, was not broadcast in keeping with the Ministry of the Interior’s original statement. The first version continued to be read on the state media until late in the evening, giving the impression that terrorists really had been found in Tirana. The Ministry of the Interior’s statement came only a few hours after a speech by Prime Minister Nano. As if to illustrate the phrases in that speech, the Ministry of the Interior hurried to make the announcement above, which in reality is nothing but a deception by this institution. In reality, the background this announcement seeks to create is different from what it appears to be. It seeks to portray Albania as a dangerous terrorist base and the government as a fighter against terrorism. In this way, the government continues to give the country the most despicable publicity, at a time when the Serbs are the most interested and committed to a campaign portraying Albania as a country with terrorist bases. For some time, the Albanian government seems to have been following this line. Those who have been deceived by the claim that ten suspected terrorists were arrested attribute no credibility to the Ministry of the Interior or to the government itself. Such statements cannot win the support of either the United States or the European Union, which declare every day that there is no law and order in this country and that, for some time, this state has been at odds with these officeholders. You cannot win them over with such ridiculous statements. Their effect is the opposite. No one would want the lies of a country where arrests of dozens of terrorists are announced every day. Such explanations about the arrest of foreign terrorist nationals in Albania (when in fact no such arrests take place) do nothing but highlight the existence of terrorism directed against this country. The Albanian government itself is interested in a new isolation of Albania. The American news agency “AP” confirmed just three days ago that there is certainty that the terrorism allegation in Albania has been backed in Albania and that terrorist activity was linked to Nano’s government. This, only a few months after coming to power, is a fact that has been demonstrated, as has the fact that it is fighting terrorism. F.B

Yesterday, the market near Parliament was demolished

A prominent figure from the USA cancels his visit to Albania. Bishop Mc Carry, of the International Justice and Peace Office of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, will not come to Tirana as planned. Mc Carry announced the cancellation of his visit, even though his entire itinerary in Albania had been prepared and approved. Several important meetings and various visits had been planned during his stay in Tirana. This is the second time in just a few days that US officials or prominent figures have canceled their trip to Tirana. A few days ago, Ambassador Hill, the mediator between Prishtina and Belgrade, canceled his visit to Tirana.

Bode and Minarolli expose the channels of government corruption. Nano is at the head of state terrorism New elections, an escape from the crisis Malaj, Bleta, Sanxhaku, Xhafa, Fino, Ruçi, Arapi: the tentacles of the Albanian mafia ON PAGE 3

Former vice-president of the NGO Forum, Petrit Shehu, denounces the mafia-like activities of the NGO leadership clan “Yes! NGOs are stealing millions” ON PAGE 3

The Prime Minister was at the government clinic the night before last Albanian Prime Minister Fatos Nano may have been admitted to Tirana’s government clinic on 22 August. A duty doctor at the government clinic did not deny the press’s inquiry about the matter. “I am not authorized to tell you about anyone like that,” she said. “We are forbidden,” she said, “to speak about the Prime Minister’s health.” Prime Minister Nano was admitted to the clinic early in the morning and remained under medical care, following an episode of suffocation... ON PAGE 3

Former head of SHIR at the Ministry of the Interior, Gjergji Lezhja, discusses the state of law and order, crime, and the causes of the country’s total insecurity ON PAGE 6

A conversation with painter Nazmi Hoxha “With all the creators I speak to, they say the same thing: we always end up on trial, instead of having artistic discussions, we have to account for other things or hear the politicians’ sins...” ON PAGE 7

Fatos Nano is concerned about his mission By Lazër STANI ON PAGE 2

By Filip ÇAKULLI A friend of mine, a member of the People’s Assembly, and a foreign journalist and I set off for Sarandë. Just after we passed Ballsh, as we were going around a bend, we saw a line of stopped cars. When we asked what was going on, we were told that three masked men had come out onto the road and were checking every car that passed. The funny thing is that neither the MP nor I was at all surprised... ON PAGE 4

Insecurity about holding on to power and his ties to the regional mafia have turned the Albanian prime minister into a typical paranoid who does not know what he dreams of gaining from power It is no coincidence that, even when it comes to the USA, even when he is not the first, even when he is insulted by all of Albania’s international partners, even when he is sinking and falling apart, he thinks about his removal from power. The Prime Minister, crazed, also declared two days ago that Berisha used Kosovo to threaten his hold on power. To make clear what the Head of State describes—and what Fatos Nano is, or at least appears to be—one of the main reasons is that Fatos Nano’s power does not control any government, village, road, or other environment. The only thing the Prime Minister’s Office has is the villa, 2,000 metres from where Prime Minister Nano sleeps. Fatos Nano’s power is violent; it is visible only among the judiciary’s enforcers, with ships and speedboats smuggling goods toward or away from Albania’s borders; it is visible at his desperate meetings, where they speak of power and not of power, at meetings of the PS Steering Committee, whose members he has all chosen to be like himself: smugglers, drunks, or committee criminals. While his power remains at the level of a shadow, and all the roads of Albania are overrun by gangs, in the homes or streets of the capital you can be killed for no reason, while nothing is done in the other cities. There is no talk of Nano’s insecurity, nor of the police’s power. At customs, where power is most concentrated, when it registers the flow of goods made possible by the government, PS MPs and party leaders are involved. Truckloads of goods enter through smuggling, and millions of lekë end up in the hands of the Albanian mafia, which is all part of the power structure. Nano does not hold the power of the state, nor the roads, nor anything else in the world. It is precisely the absence of these powers and acts of violent, autocratic rule that has created insecurity. Nano’s power is a power to be hated. But this power is not taken by the people; it is taken by the Prime Minister, while the real power—the power that builds the state and respects people—does not exist. Nano has lost that power, which is like a heavy burden that keeps weighing him down. He has no means to take power from him, to destroy all the possibilities of this country, all the hopes of its people and all their nightmares, and turn Albania into a great burden for Europe and the USA. This is indeed Nano’s great power. But it is not taken by the current opposition; it is taken by the judiciary. Real power—the power that builds the state and respects people—does not exist. Nano has lost that power, which is like a heavy burden that keeps weighing him down. He has no means to take power from him, to destroy all the possibilities of this country, all the hopes of its people and all their nightmares, and turn Albania into a great burden for Europe and the USA.