Will Agron Musarai reappear on the government scene? The Meksi-Shehu power gamble has begun, but is not over. The Shamata-Musarai duel, openly declared at police stations, is also the first spark of the government crisis Page 3

Editorial -The Democratic Party, by allowing crime to take over our cities and villages, seeks to divert attention from the severe crisis of its government - Crime has not let a day go by without striking brutally in Albania. Like a human scythe, it is taking the lives of many people, of every age, in every region, at every hour. Never in Albania’s troubled history has crime reached the scale it has today. People’s insecurity in the face of armed gangs that rival one another and seek to impose their own law, even in a remote village or commune, has become the gravest feature of this period of transition. Those in power have always sought to conceal the truth about crime levels in Albania; indeed, they have not hesitated to claim that freedom and citizens’ security are flourishing in the country. There are no statistics on crime, but the best evidence is the mothers and sisters of countless victims, dressed in black. As if the victims of emigration were not enough—those who drowned at sea or in the mountains, and who, without any protection, lost their lives on foreign soil—crime has become an honorary citizen in today’s Albania. Crime struck heavily last week at police representatives, that segment of power whose duty it is to fight crime. The murders of the police chief in Pogradec and the Director General of Prisons in Tirana are now well known; these events were followed in recent days by the killing of two police officers. When people vested with authority are killed, from an ordinary member of the force up to its highest-ranking chief, this is an expression of …Continued on page 3

The newspaper “Albania” reveals the deep crisis in the relations between Tirana’s government officials and the US and Europe - If the strongest criticisms of the Berisha regime today continue to come from the US, it is unthinkable that Europe would allow the precedent set on 26 May—when the people’s vote was stolen in the name of democracy and its sacred laws were violated—to go unpunished. This is all the more worth emphasizing now that the time has come to demand an account of what was done in Tirana with its documents, which severely condemned the farce of 26 May. Page 4

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Meeting of the FRESH Presidium with the leadership of the National Committee of Veterans of the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War Page 2

A chain of scandals in Albanian finance Lists are being prepared with the names of the new people who will head Albania’s banks Page 5