“We Need the Courage to Make Mistakes”

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with the new head of Philips, Gerard Kleisterlee, on his group’s unexpected billion-dollar losses, old complacency and new visions, and on the question what is better for the electronics empire: asparagus or spaghetti?:

“I think exaggerated optimism is as inappropriate at the moment as deep pessimism. So we prefer to plan along conservative lines. I’m not expecting the big upswing to come yet next year. … The big difference from the genuine crises of earlier days is that today we have a healthy financial structure. … Where it is worthwhile doing something ourselves, we will do it. The innovations must be ours. But why shouldn’t I let other people build televisions for me in China? … The old civil servant’s mentality is just as futile as egotistical scrimping. We need the courage to make mistakes. Philips has been so busy avoiding mistakes in the past that we have stood in the way of our own success, strange as that may sound. But if you have never made any mistakes, you’ve never tried out anything either.”

“Who’ll Be Next”

Banks: Small banks are fighting to survive, the larger ones are suffering a drop in profits. The German money industry is in its most serious crisis since the Second World War. Now bank managers are paying the price for having delayed long-overdue structural reforms so many years. The Frankfurt bankers don’t regard themselves as being the cause of their own plight. They say the savings banks are to blame. The latter enjoy state protection and are therefore allegedly able to borrow money more cheaply, which distorts competition. There is indeed some truth in this, but it is also true that the large private banks have not managed to stormproof their houses during the fat years. For more than five years, the powerful money managers have been complaining that there are too many banks in Germany.

“The Warriors of Pearl Harburg”

SPIEGEL cover story : They were trained in Afghanistan and financed by the emirates. When the terrorist pilots vanished from Hamburg they left behind jihad confessions and bin Laden propaganda. In the meantime, investigators have put together quite a detailed picture of the German terrorist cell - and initiated further proceedings.

“Piggyback to the Front”

German Armed Forces: The Afghanistan conference at Petersberg is to deal with the political future of the country. The military is concerned with the present: it plans to deploy ground troops. The Nato headquarters in Brussels feels that if the Germans are to be allowed to host the peace conference, they are under a particular obligation to participate in an international corps for securing the fragile peace in the post-Taliban era and protecting civilian relief organisations. The strategic military plans have come a long way. The week before last, Nato Secretary General George Robertson locked away a highly explosive paper by Nato’s Supreme Commander for Europe in his safe, having come under pressure from Berlin, Washington and Paris: US General John Ralston wanted to send up to 25,000 soldiers to Afghanistan and neighbouring countries to protect the supply routes, lorry convoys and depots of humanitarian relief agencies, and to supply remote villages with food and medical supplies from the air.

“The Threat from the Wild West”

SPIEGEL interview with British military expert Jonathan Eyal on the situation in Afghanistan after the collapse of the Taliban regime and on the argument between London and Washington:

“The much-criticised bombing did at least destroy the morale of the Taliban troops. … The Pakistanis are the big-time losers. … It takes a charismatic leader to get people to commit suicide. Getting rid of bin Laden certainly wouldn’t mean the end of terrorism, but at the moment there’s no one else who is as charismatic as him. … The Americans aren’t the least interested in rebuilding Afghanistan at the moment. … And if billions of dollars of reconstruction aid are now being offered, I am very sceptical about that.”

“Germany Is Our Best Friend”

SPIEGEL interview with Hamid Sidig, special envoy of the former Afghan king Zahir Shah, now living in exile in Rome, on the United Nations conference in Bonn and the path to peace and democracy in the Hindu Kush:

“If all goes well, a so-called Supreme Council will be set up in Bonn, which will choose an executive committee from among its numbers. This will take charge of Afghanistan for a brief period of time until conditions have been established in which we can convene an emergency Loya Jirgah so to speak. This ad-hoc assembly of as many representatives as possible of the Afghan people will then elect a transitional government and a head of state. They should lead the country until the true Loya Jirgah, representing all Afghans, has worked out a constitution and determined the rules and forms by which Afghanistan is to be ruled. … In future, men and women will have the same rights in Afghanistan. … All our neighbours have a legitimate interest in friendly relations with a peaceful Afghan nation. That’s why we’ll do everything in our power to work together closely, particularly with Pakistan and Iran.”

“The Dollar as a Mystery Play”

Bolivia: Bolivia’s young reformist president Quiroga has already exhausted himself in the battle against cocaine. The people are resorting to violent protest – while at the Andes’ largest procession in praise of the Virgin Mary they are praying for a miraculous multiplication of money. And the country does indeed need miracles. One such miracle would be if the rich nations were to realise that they are not alone in the world. That there are worse things in life than being without Evian water: namely having no water. That a disaster is looming in the Andes. And that the remission of the country’s outstanding foreign debts would be one prerequisite for averting it. Quiroga already made his mark ten years ago as a non-ideological finance minister. His privatisation programme comes straight from the textbook of world economists. However, contrary to expectations, it has so far only resulted in a rapid burst of impoverishment.

“Not All Life Is Sacred”

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with Peter Singer on the moral status of embryos, the right of new-borns to live, and the revolution in Western ethics:

“We are making decisions about what kind of life we want to perpetuate, and what kind we don’t, and that’s leading to a revolution in ethics. … The postulate that all human life is sacred no longer applies. … The things I’m talking about have been going on for a long time in every large hospital and every city in the developed world. … I am simply arguing that we should talk about it openly. … Whether or not an embryo is a form of human life isn’t morally important, but only the question as to what abilities and properties it has. Because that’s what its moral status is based on. … A key issue is when it begins to have a sense of pain. From that time on, the embryo deserves a certain degree of protection - just as an animal deserves this. … Many of those murdered by the Nazis certainly had a sense of self-awareness. Also, back then the parents were not informed. In particular, however, their motivation was totally different. Back then it was a matter of sorting out degenerate life, useless people. I am not arguing that the state should make the decision but that the parents should.”

“Striving for Infinity”

SPIEGEL interview with American pianist Herbie Hancock on terrorism, jazz and spirituality in music:

“I very soon began asking myself, how America had managed to provoke so much hatred, why it arouses so much resentment. We are not as innocent as we pretend … Jazz has not developed very much further in the last 30 or 40 years. … Why does the structure of jazz pieces always remain the same: melody, solos, melody? Those are questions that I am currently discussing with my friend, the marvellous saxophone player Wayne Shorter. … I’ve always been a technology freak, my pieces often blend acoustic and electronic elements. But the human factor must remain at the centre of it. Without humanism, without spirituality, music loses its inwardness.

“We Probably Needed to Be Woken Up”

SPIEGEL interview with actor Robert Redford on US patriotism, environmental protection and ageing:

“The people of our country have taken recourse to patriotism because it helps them to come to terms with the shock of September 11. The star-spangled banner is the symbol of unity and solidarity. It gives people the feeling that they are not alone with their pain and their fear. … I’m not as obsessed by age as the media. In America, ageing is considered almost illegal. In actual fact it can be wonderful. … Of course we need a form of national unity in times like this, but it would be very cynical if our loyalty and our support were now abused so as to push laws we don’t agree with through Congress.”

“Vascular Occlusion in the Intestines”

Drugs: Is the anticoagulant heparin being used too carelessly by clinics? In many patients the drug leads to dangerous complications. The reason for this is an allergic reaction, which in some patients results in precisely what administering heparin is supposed to prevent: a severe blockage of the blood vessels which spreads to the entire body. In ten to fifteen percent of cases, the outcome of such complications is fatal, and the risk of developing them is particularly high in the case of so-called unfractionated heparin (UHF). When low molecular weight heparin (LMH) is used, on the other hand, only 0.5 percent of patients develop complications.

“Spotlight on the Darkness of the Soul”

Psychiatry: Nürnberg is helping the despondent with an “Alliance against Depression”. Since the novel field trial began, the number of suicides in the town has decreased dramatically. In a field study unlike any other in the world, Ulrich Hegerl and David Althaus of the Psychiatric Clinic at Munich’s Ludwig Maximilian University want to find out whether the care of depressive people can be improved – not by employing more doctors and hospital beds, but by educating the public about the potentially lethal illness. Four to five percent of people throughout the world develop a depression. Among the 500,000 inhabitants of Nürnberg alone, 25,000 people are estimated to be affected. One person in seven suffering from severe depressions will eventually commit suicide. At the end of the project, Hegerl and Althaus intend to investigate whether the people of Nürnberg are indeed better informed. They will check whether family doctors are referring more patients to specialists, and whether pharmacies are selling more anti-depressives instead of tranquillisers and sleeping pills, which can lead to addiction. In the end they hope to be able to say exactly which measures have helped, and which haven’t.

“Expedition into the Realm of Molecules”

Biochemistry: Research groups are spending billions on unravelling the structure of human proteins – a race which is to lead to the development of tailor-made drugs. The most expensive supercomputers and the latest laboratory robots are being deployed. The research groups involved around the world are pursuing two totally different strategies in their attempts to push ahead with the decoding process at top speed. Some want to simulate the structure of the proteins using new types of supercomputers – others want to dramatically speed up the tedious classical x-ray analysis of proteins by using robots.

“We Steal Wherever We Can”

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with the Cologne publishers Angelika (42) and Benedikt Taschen (40), on their self-portrayal as the pop stars of the industry, and the couple’s world-wide success with books about art and eroticism:

BT: “We often produce books about topics that interest us personally, but which meet with resistance in the retail sector. … We have to convince the retailers that we believe in every single book. … We have brought books about art out of the elitist corner.”

AT: “Not everything that looks more pleasing or initially more commercial is in fact easier to sell – even when it’s a book about sex. On the contrary, many customers hesitate at first because of the unaccustomed aesthetics of our sex books. … I think it’s right to think in global terms, and with each project I try to imagine whether I could sell that topic in Japan too.”