Someone wants Albania to leave the Council of Europe as soon as possible Now we have become used to requests for immunity to be lifted. I don’t care what people think, people who day and night are thinking about how to dig someone else’s grave and not how to fulfill their constitutional and legal duties. If this is a possible future reality, then this will be, more than anything else, proof of how little some people understand democracy in Albania, how jokingly they take it, and how serious our Albanian state really is, and how much some wish that we should, if possible, leave the Council of Europe as soon as possible. Zef Brozi yesterday at the Press Conference (Photo: L. Lika REUTERS) Above, Sali Berisha, Chairman of the High Council of Justice

The lightning rod[?] Berisha spoke again. What is special about the latest “speech” is that, more than in all other cases, the offices of the Presidency were used to attack the Socialist Party, the largest opposition political party to the PD. Moreover, as never before, the Head of State put himself in the role of the splitter of this opposition party. Only in Albania, as a result of the remnants of Enverist ideology, according to which Albania must be a beacon of enlightenment, is the legal opposition treated in this way. Once again, a special case! Someone has described Berisha’s role in the processes taking place in Albania today — and let no one misunderstand us about the comparison — as that of a “lightning rod[?]” for a newly inaugurated “building.” The “building” in this case is the PD, while the “lightning rod[?]” is the President of the Republic. The “building” seems new, but mistakes were made from the moment its foundations were laid. It is shaken, it has already suffered many damages, it may crumble. The “lightning rod[?]” protects you from surprises that come from the sky, whereas the PD’s drama comes from below, from its disappointed electorate. Berisha, if he does not know all this, at least senses it, intuits it. Let us note on this occasion that, during this year alone, the PD’s “successes” have also been these: The PD was left without a chairman, because he “deviated” from the Party line. The “Arsidi” process, on the basis of which the President has a decoration on his chest, is dragging on together with the other corruption scandals of this party. “Shqiponja” made money in the clandestine fuel traffic, and “Shqiponja” is the PD’s daughter. Zhulali has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bulgaria, and perhaps even more. Crime has become commonplace, and more and more people dressed as police officers, in state uniforms, are appearing in the role of criminals. Open Albania — “fished” in the Adriatic, “dug up” at the southern border, “struck” at the north-eastern border. This is the balance sheet of the PD’s latest “victories,” which Berisha forgot. By launching an entire campaign against the Socialist Party, Berisha is needlessly entangling himself in the resurrection he wants to give to Marxism, an ideology that is already dead. At all costs he is trying to take upon himself the salvation of the lost honor of the PD. In this role of “lightning rod[?],” he seeks to shift public attention away from the drama of this party, its governing incompetence, its corruption, its impassable dead end.

The Nano file is sent from the Appeals Court to Tepelenë It has traveled more than 200 kilometers, to Tepelenë, the file of the “Nano Case,” which this time is linked to the setting of a new sentence under the basis of the newly entered-into-force Penal Code for the prisoner of conscience Fatos Nano. Pres[?] Martini, the Chairman of the Court of Appeals, ordered yesterday morning the dispatch of the Nano file to the Tepelenë Court of First Instance. Read on page 3

Berisha has no alternative At the request of our newspaper’s correspondent to comment on President Berisha’s speech at the day-before-yesterday’s press conference, the Deputy Chairman of the Socialist Party, Servet Pëllumbi, made the following statement: "...They want to hear what will be done about the incapacity of governance, with mass and prolonged unemployment, with crime, with the plundering of national wealth, with the exodus, with trafficking that breeds dirty money, with the “shqiponjat...” It was expected that the President of the Republic would hold a Press Conference about the extremely troubling events in the region, about the latest signs of the settlement of Serb colonists in Kosovo, and would express the active political positions of our nation, regardless of party divisions. But no, it was not meant for us to hear a real Press Conference, because the whole “presidential concern” was elsewhere, to “raise in advance the black burden,” the “successes” of the PD and the “failures” of the PS. From this point of view, Berisha’s latest conference was something standard, rich in verbal imitation and poor in ideas, not to say completely lacking in ideas. So many unanswered questions. So many answers according to the principle: “where the tooth hurts, there the tongue should not go.” The President has long been trying to perfect the method of manipulating people, with inflated, one-sided, or even fabricated data, as it comes to him from Mount Dajti or the shores of the Ionian Sea. He is mistaken, however, when he thinks that Albanians can be tricked into buying soap for cheese. It is no coincidence that when Berisha speaks about success, people call it quits and close their ears and eyes (the radios and televisions). They want to hear what will be done about the incapacity of governance, with mass and prolonged unemployment, with crime, with the plundering of national wealth, with the exodus, with trafficking that breeds dirty money, with the “shqiponjat” that control the dollars and send them to Liechtenstein[?] and elsewhere. Since nothing was said about these and many, many other things that trouble people, neither yesterday nor today, and for sure Berisha will not say anything about them tomorrow either, then the conviction is strengthened that Berisha and the PD he represents as its chairman have no alternative. This is a truth that is circulating inside and outside the country.

No agreement is reached on seasonal employment The Albanian Foreign Minister Alfred Serreqi completed his visit to Greece without the signing of the agreement on the seasonal employment of Albanian workers in Greece, as had long been announced by both sides. According to the BBC, political and journalistic circles in Athens had been taken by surprise when Minister Serreqi interrupted the morning talks in order to continue them in the afternoon. But even for the afternoon, the long-awaited agreement was not reached. The issue that had blocked the talks and apparently became the reason for the non-signing of the announced agreement was the Greek side’s insistence on opening more Greek schools in Albania. continues on page 11