Miners’ protests resume. 600 miners supported the strike in Mushqetë Miners’ protests resume. 600 miners supported the strike in Mushqetë Tirana’s miners: Bufi, get out! ON PAGE 5

The Ministry of Transport calls off the strike by ACC specialists ON PAGE 5

Head of the Construction Police, Roshi, changes the anti-kiosk operation ON PAGE 5

The clan war within the Socialist Party took on a new dimension for the PD, following the accusations and insults that the former leader of this party, Fatos Nano, directed at the current government and his opponents within the party. Nano’s jargon openly declared war between the PS groups, whereas until now this war had been camouflaged by the clamour of debate and the alternatives that any leader might put forward within their party structures. But if one takes a look at the smuggling routes during Nano’s time, which ran from Kakavija to Han i Hotit and from Qafë Thanë to Durrës, they are no longer controlled so much by his clan, which he built up in the Ministry of Public Order, the Ministry of Finance, the customs service, and all the other nodes connected to the uninterrupted operation of illegal trafficking. Likewise, several of Nano’s people have been removed from Majko’s government. At their centre was the former Minister of Public Order, Petro Koçi, Fatos Nano’s main supporter. Nevertheless, he still holds strong positions in the government, but now only in the field of privatizations, as demonstrated by the delays and the pursuit of the preferences of the Nano government by Minister Bufi. He also has considerable influence over the PS parliamentary group, as well as a number of PSD MPs with whom he has family ties or service contracts relating to their parliamentary mandates. In any case, Nano’s clan has seen no gains, only decline, which is forcing the former prime minister to rally the forces he has left in order to surround his opponents in business and trafficking wherever he can. For months, the Socialists tried to cover up their divisions with theoretical issues, but Nano’s accusations, which came after the collapse of his stronghold in the Ministry of Public Order, show that the amount of power is what determines whether the Socialists are united or divided, just as that power determines the income of the mafia groups within the Socialist Party. One of the PS leaders, Pellumbi, said yesterday that Nano’s insistence on returning to the head of the PS can only be understood as the result of an order Nano has received: to return to power by any means. Pellumbi did not explain who might have issued the order, but naturally he knows this, just as Albanians do. But the fact that he lacks the courage to say it shows that Pellumbi’s allies too may have been ordered not to reveal his relations, which form the very core of the Socialist Party’s activities. A few years ago, Pellumbi himself was rumoured to have links with the fund for former communist parties based in Bulgaria, which had previously been investigated by the Russians; nor was their activity unknown to him or to the current ministers in Majko’s cabinet. But the history of Socialist rule is not simply the history of their government, which changed three times in two years; it is the history of the clans within the PS leadership. That is precisely where political and economic businesses, smuggling, licences, privatizations, the hotel industry, the assets of the pyramid schemes, customs and customs officers, and trafficking in cigarettes, alcoholic drinks, drugs, undocumented migrants, speedboats, and all the other markets collide. Depending on agreements over such businesses or the obstacles they create for one another, their appetites for the party and the parties grow as well, as with guralecë, harabelë, gjinjë, pianecë, gassa, etc.

Bullets seriously wound a passerby. Three vans riddled with bullets in the fusillade The capital in the hands of crime. Terror and panic among citizens. A battle in the centre of Tirana ON PAGE 3

PD, two years after the Socialists’ extravagant promise to return 100 percent of the pyramid-scheme money Bode: “Nano showed Albanians that the power the Socialists have enjoyed for two years is founded on massive fraud and rebellion” ON PAGE 3

The opposition comments following the former PS leader’s new deceptions ON PAGE 3

When chaos, fear and bribery make the law ON PAGE 2

Thaçi’s “government” agrees to dissolve ON PAGE 2

Nano in Vlorë drags out the battle for the PS leadership. “ZP” defends the “sparrows” Çeka announced that the direction and composition of the government are determined by who manages to become head of the Socialist Party ON PAGE 3

Berisha has lunch with the French Ambassador, Cristmant The French Ambassador in Tirana, Mr Patrick Cristmant, invited the Chairman of the Democratic Party, Prof. Dr Sali Berisha, Vice-Chairman Pollo, Secretary General Bode, Deputy Speaker of Parliament Ms Topalli, and the well-known writer Besnik Mustafaj to lunch yesterday. During lunch, they discussed the crisis in Albania and the situation in the region. Ambassador Cristmant praised the PD National Council’s decision to enter Parliament, Berisha’s mediation regarding the Kosovo issue, as well as Berisha’s analysis of the situation in the country. Berisha asked the French Ambassador to convey to President Chirac his profound gratitude for the very important role that President Chirac and the French government played in the battle to liberate Kosovo. ON PAGE 4

ON PAGE 4

Today, 288 days since the murder of the December leader Every day that passes since the murder of Azem Hajdari, the symbol of democracy and pluralism, proves the involvement of Fatos Nano’s government and those responsible in a crime that shook the entire Albanian world. The government of the former communists, who are at the helm, leaves the criminals who took the December leader’s life undisturbed and shows Albanians that they have been and remain on the side of the killers, who have names and are accused, but are untouched by those in power. The Democrats and all Albanians who loved and supported Azem cannot tolerate this fact under any circumstances: the government must either open the case and bring the criminals to justice, or resign in the face of the very killers of Azem Hajdari.