Grapevine

By PAUL GRAY/

THE REACH-OUT ALBANIA PLAN. Paranoid, reclusive Albania is beginning to reach out and touch someone. The nation opened telephone links with 54 Western countries earlier this year, and this month a direct U.S.-Albania link is being inaugurated by AT&T. This week the National Assembly begins meeting to consider a number of -- for Albania -- revolutionary proposals. Among them: reinstituting the Ministry of Justice, which was abolished in the '60s on the pretext that it was no longer needed, and the right of the accused to have a defense lawyer.

With reporting by DAVID ELLIS