“Even though I had spoken with Prime Minister Ehud Barak, the air raids continued with undiminished force. I just had to intervene and give some courage to the Lebanese, who felt as though they’d been left on their own. … Peace with Syria will only be possible if Israel returns to its pre-war positions of 4 June 1967 in the Golan. … Jerusalem is not only the business of the Palestinians but of all Arabs and Muslims, and also Christians. Israel should recognise that it has to meet Arafat halfway, instead of weakening him keeping him up in the air for so long. Yassir Arafat can put up with this stalling for a while, but it’s reaching the point where he can no longer take it. And without Arafat the entire process will be thrown back to an extremely dangerous degree.”
“They Are Afraid of Us”
SPIEGEL in-depth interview with South Korean head of state Kim Dae Yung on the prospects of peaceful coexistence with the Stalinist regime in the North, on the trouble spots in the Far East and his country’s economic comeback following the Asian crisis:
“My politics are based on the following principles: they have to benefit both sides, the North and the South; they have to end the Cold War situation; and they have to lead to peaceful co-operation and coexistence. … We trust in the military security with the USA and in Japan’s support in the broader sense. China and Russia would also like to see stability on the Korean peninsula … North Korea cannot survive any longer without opening up in the economic sector. This system has no other choice. However that opening is going to be a very slow affair … We are over the worst financial crisis. We have started a step-by-step reform in important areas such as the modernisation of the run-down banks and the flexibilisation of the job market. But we still have to address the second stage of the economic reforms. In future we want to get the large corporations to aim their strategies at qualitative growth.”
Next week Daimler-Chrysler is to publish figures showing record profits. However, the price of its shares is dropping. DER SPIEGEL discusses this dilemma.
“Obscene Demands”
Nazi victims: Some lawyers are resorting to dishonest means in order to obtain a mandate from slave labourers and to secure a chunk of the ten billion marks from the compensation fund set up by the German government and industry. In Israel, Nazi victims have even been invited to sign contracts that award fees amounting to 25 percent of the compensation payment. The oppressive contracts include a passage stating that the contracting party is aware that the agreed fee differs from the legal regulations of the German Federal Code of Lawyers’ Fees. American attorneys are particularly brash; US law permits attorneys to take 20 percent or more of the amount in litigation.
“Entertainment is a Pain”
SPIEGEL in-depth interview with American best-selling author Michael Crichton on entertainment’s rule of terror, his time-travel novel “Timeline” and the similarity between modern corporate bosses and medieval despots:
“People often don’t notice this – but all my books take place in the past, though in the recent past. For this book I needed a century where there as a lot going on, a century full of hellfire and brimstone, and the fourteenth century with the Hundred Year War lent itself very well. … I know how entertainment works, and I don’t like it much. Especially because our entire existence is guided more and more by entertainment principles. … I don’t see that there is any room left in this world for heroes. The fact that they have found a reservation in literature, in which they can continue to exist, is not thanks to reality but simply to narrative convention.”
“Mixed-up Creatures from the Test-Tube”
Genetic engineering: The European Patent Office has protected a technique for growing genetically altered human embryos, apparently “by mistake”. Greenpeace is loath to believe in such carelessness. “The European Patent Office has systematically edged its way towards patenting living organisms. Now it is stretching the limits of patentability step by step,” a speaker comments on the behaviour of the authority which is to a large extent self-controlled. In addition, Greenpeace suspects that the Patent Office has its own interests in mind: it finances itself entirely through patent fees, achieving a profit of over 250 million marks in 1998. The biotechnology boom represents one of the most promising sources of revenue. Over 2000 patents for human genes have been filed with the EPA, 300 of them came into force in 1998.
“Dr. Moreau’s Bullets”
Doping: A trial is to solve one of the last mysteries of the SED state. The male hormones that were administered to female East German athletes appear not only to have harmed the women themselves, but also to have led to premature births, miscarriages and congenital disabilities. At the forthcoming trial, the court will have to struggle with a complex situation. Until now there have been no comparable cases in Germany; legal battles concerning damage to unborn children have ultimately always been settled out of court.
“Kick by Click”
Drugs: Thanks to the Internet, illegal drugs such as cannabis and magic mushrooms are brought to the consumer in Germany by post, circumventing customs. The data highway is the most modern distribution channel for anything that makes you high: the search engines of the World Wide Web allow you to retrieve comprehensive information not only about drug abuse and health hazards, but also about sources of the prevalent D&N.
“The Queen’s Treasure Chamber ”
Somalia: No state and no government remain on the Horn of Africa. Yet despite famine and civil war, Somali aid worker Starlin Arush reconciles the warriors in the coastal town of Merka and takes away the killers’ Kalashnikovs. A little less than ten years ago, the 44-year-old woman gave up a well-paid job with the immigration authorities in Milan. Starlin Arush returned to a country from which not only hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing, but, as the inhabitants insist, even leopards, giraffes and elephants. What she has achieved in Merka over the past years does indeed verge on a miracle: for two years now, the guns have remained silent in Merka. But the success of an Islamist group represents a bitter setback for Starlin’s efforts. The Islamic court in Merka bases its power on some 300 armed fighters. Starlin is not the only person to wonder where the many militiamen are coming from, and she is watching the growing influence of the Saudi Arabian-sponsored group with considerable anxiety.
“Frankenstein’s Team”
SPIEGEL in-depth interview with soccer critic Jorge Valdano on the crisis of Real Madrid, reducing players to a common level through the dictatorship of the system, and on the bureaucratic style of the German national team:
“We coaches are the people who are really to blame for the mediocrity of football … The ruling dictatorship of the systems no longer permits any different kinds of players. The American president Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, he was looking for generals who had a very special quality. What he wasn’t interested in was generals without any particular weaknesses. But football is full of players who have no particular weaknesses. … The overall development would have profited greatly if Holland had won the World Cup two years ago. … They combine strength and creativeness.”
“Artificial Earth on Shock-Absorbers”
Computers: The Japanese are hoping to predict earthquakes and climate changes with the help of an Earth simulator whose computing power exceeds everything that has gone before. The simulator they are planning to build will within seconds perform the movements of the earth’s crust, the oceans or the climate, which in reality the planet takes centuries or even millennia to carry out. Satellites, weather stations and surveying ships all over the world are to supply the mastermind with data. The simulator will commence operation in the spring of 2002.
“Godsend or the Devil’s Work”
Medicine: The medical profession has angered the German health minister with a controversial paper. In future, genetic tests are to be allowed to decide the fate of embryos. The doctors conclude that from an ethical point of view there is little difference between the abortion of a diseased foetus and selection in a Petri dish. Critics on the other hand point out that the possible uses of pre-implantation diagnostics are enormous: it can for instance be used to determine the sex. And in future it will even allow people to choose the colour of a child’s eyes and hair.
“Hallelujah and Chocolate Spread”
Music: In the Bach Year 2000, Leipzig’s Thomaner Choir is being great honoured. Its almost 100 young singers embody the tradition of baroque church music. But even while the jubilee is being celebrated, the legendary ensemble is threatened by emaciation: there is a grave lack of young blood. “No future” for Bach?
The cover story continues coverage of the unethical donations for the CDU.
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