ALBANIANS, LEAVE SOMETHING TO YOUR CHILDREN PAGE 16

NATIONAL INSTITUTE TIRANA

GJINUSHI AND IMAMI IN MALËSIA E MADHE PAGE 13

SEVEN SUSPECTS DETAINED PAGE 2

CRIMINAL COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST ÇILI, DIRECTOR OF EXTERNAL RELATIONS PAGE 13 LAW AND ORDER: 800 cartons of cigarettes seized in Tirana PAGE 2 MAJKO BRINGS 40 MITSUBISHIS FROM ITALY Gift from the Italian government to the police PAGE 6 ALBANIAN OPPOSITION SHOULD PLAY A CONSTRUCTIVE ROLE European Parliament against the boycott PAGE 3

ANTI-SMUGGLING OPERATION IN

Majko and Simitis sign in Athens

DURRËS, SCANDAL AT THE PORT The Port of Durrës has become a port of terror for travelers. For days, under the pretext “Your passport is forged” and using the protection afforded by the state uniform, police officers have been stopping travelers and demanding money. They demand so much that you can never call it a tip when you hear figures of 200,000 or 300,000 lire. Threats from state representatives—the police—at this port are an everyday occurrence, so the queue at the checkpoint splits in two: those who pass through and those who wait to reach an agreement with Shqefeti or Cetin, as they call him, to get the price down. Dozens of traders, whose passports contain hundreds of Albanian and Italian entry and exit stamps, can be heard boarding the ferry while cursing the government. These state representatives, who openly use their uniforms to steal, cannot deny traders and travelers—the people who keep the port alive—the right to say that bandits have taken over the institutions. There are also dozens who curse the government but cooperate with the thieving police, slipping money into their passports for one reason or another even when the police officer has not asked for it. In either case, at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Koci, such police officers represent the face of the state.

This amount is the third tranche of a 70-million-dollar loan PAGE 3