A ridiculous government contract to keep the country’s main gateway out of Corridor VIII For 20 years, an area of 14,000 m² at the Port of Durrës has been leased for 82,000 lekë per month to a Greek fuel company represented by the cousin of the Minister of Finance on page 3

The Prime Minister seeks to blame his predecessors for the failure on page 2

By Sami NEZA Durrës’s exclusion from the Stability Pact projects is now a fact acknowledged even by Albanian government officials. The problem is that, although they have learned of this, they have remained silent, or at least have said nothing about this sidelining, which is directly connected to Albania’s gaining or losing importance in the region on page 5

President Ciampi: No aid to Balkan countries that send us trafficking Italy closes its gates

By Shemsi PEPOSHI The establishment of a party-state in Albania became a cause for concern in public opinion immediately after Nano took over as head of the PS and announced the operating structure of the party-state, in which he himself would be at the top on page 5

Today, 523 days since Azem’s murder 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 his successor in the crime that shook the entire Albanian world. The governments of the former communists, who let the criminals who took the life of the December Leader go free and remain at large, show Albanians that they have been and remain on their side, but do not touch the killers, who have names and surnames, yet are neither arrested nor captured. Democrats and all Albanians who loved and honored Azem Hajdari can in no way tolerate this fact. The Government must either arrest the criminals and bring them to justice, or publicly declare that it itself carried out the murder of Azem Hajdari.

President Ciampi: No aid to Balkan countries that bring us the trafficking Italian President Ciampi called yesterday on Italy and the European Union not to provide any aid to Balkan countries that bring them illicit trafficking every day, making it clear that he was referring to Albania. The Italian president’s statement follows the killing of two financial police officers in Italy, but it is not simply a reaction to this event. Italian political leaders have been mulling over and revisiting this conclusion for some time, and the recent visits to Rome by Albanian Foreign Minister Paskal Milo and Stability Pact coordinator Gramoz Pashko embody this. For a long time, official Rome and the Italian press have kept the Tirana government under constant accusation of encouraging illicit trafficking and failing to combat organized crime, which is transported from Albania to Italy. The previous day, the well-known newspaper “La stampa” wrote that in Albania it is the state itself that encourages smuggling, while Foreign Minister Paskal Milo also spoke about the suspension of aid. At a press conference, the latter said that relations with Italy are very good, but that Italy has blocked all funds for Albania?!

The Stability Pact coordinator also fails Stability Pact coordinator Gramoz Pashko failed yesterday in his efforts to remedy something after the major failure of the Skopje meeting, when he went on an official visit to Rome to meet officials at the Farnesina. The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued no press statement about Pashko’s visit, which is easily interpreted as a total lack of interest in the visit. Pashko must surely have met with low-ranking officials, and, worse still, they opened no doors for him. In this way, the Pact coordinator suffers the same fate as Foreign Minister Paskal Milo, who returned empty-handed from Italy just a few days earlier.

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