"A One Hundred Percent Mistake"

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres about the fatal consequences of the air raid on Gaza, his loyalty to Sharon and the crisis in the Worker’s Party:

“The result shows clearly that we used the wrong weapon. The death of Shehada caused more harm than good. … There’s only one path to peace: security and responsibility have to be restored. … We have to improve the situation of the Palestinian population, we are already working at that. … Arafat has lost his credibility throughout the world. … As long as I feel that I can change something and help to create a balance, I will stay … Sharon cannot do everything he wants to either. We are in a crisis, so people think it’s the end of the world. The world isn’t going to come to an end, but crises do.”

"Army of Agitators"

Extremism: The Federal Government and local governments are exploring the possibility of outlawing German branches of Hizbollah and Hamas. But the security services are worried that they might be defeated in court. The problem is how to ban an organisation whose followers, though verbally radical in this country, are otherwise extremely law-abiding. German intelligence experts suspect that the task of members here in Germany is, instead, to collect funds for the Middle East. It seems likely that the more or less voluntary donations are also used for the military campaign at home. But the authorities are unable to furnish any proof of such payments.

“Reshuffling the Chairs in the Parliamentary Chamber”

Bundestag: Fewer ideologists and more pragmatists, fewer teachers, more economists and management experts - the lower house of the German parliament is changing its face. With the departure of Helmut Kohl’s generation, the ’68 generation will in future be the senior citizens of the smaller parliament. Only one MP in four will be a newcomer. Eight weeks before Germans go to the polls, the shape of the new parliament is already emerging. The fifteenth German Bundestag will be smaller, consist of more women, and be more pragmatic, but not much younger.

“Basbakanimiz Schröder”

Election campaign: The political parties are courting naturalised foreigners more lavishly than ever before on the eve of the general elections – with posters, brochures and carefully selected model immigrants. Few German politicians can afford to ignore this group of voters. However, in the Bundestag and the local parliaments migrants only form a small minority – and that is likely to remain the case.

The new German defence minister Peter Struck is visiting the German troops in Afghanistan.

“The Discovery of Slowness”

Eastern Europe: A dozen years after the big change-over, the candidate states for EU membership are dominated by post-Communist and left-wing governments. Afraid of unemployment and social unrest, they are postponing selling off ailing state-run enterprises – and pose a threat to EU enlargement. Millions of employees throughout Eastern Europe continue to depend on the state-run sector. As it is, opinion pollsters have found that faith in democracy has dropped dramatically almost everywhere in Eastern Europe. Following years of deprivation during restructuring, only a minority of the population has profited materially. According to the World Bank, the number of those in Eastern Europe who are extremely poor has increased five-fold since 1990. In Bulgaria, over 30 percent of the population live below the subsistence level, in Rumania as many as 80 percent.

EXCLUSIVE: “A Certain Emptiness in My Wallet”

Espionage: The discoverer of the forged Hitler diaries, Gerd Heidemann, has kept quiet about his close contacts to the secret Reich of the former East German Ministry of State Security (Stasi) up to the present day. He served the Stasi under the names “Gerhard” and “Rose” – and was just as unsuccessful a spy as he was a journalist. The publication of the forged diaries in 1983 in the illustrated weekly “Stern” led to an uproar in the German media.

“Treasures in the Back Yard”

Archaeology: Alexander the Great once turned Bactra, the rich, fabulous city on the Silk Road, the old caravan route to India, into a legend. French researchers have stumbled across the remains of the ancient city in Afghanistan – but looters got there first. It appears that under the Taliban the theft of antiquities and artwork were just as much a part of the tolerated shadow economy within the impoverished population, as were growing poppies or trading in arms. The excavations in Bactra will take a long time, because the remains of the Greek city are buried far below later archaeological layers. Nevertheless, the director of the famous Musée Guimet for Asian art, Jean-François Jarrige, considers the “archaeological potential” of Bactra extremely promising. As a result of its geographical location at the intersection of the trade routes between Persia, India and China, he says, the city played a central, strategic role for over one and a half millennia.

“Sometimes I’m Close to Tears”

Interview with Hong Kong film director John Woo about America’s patriotism and his American war film “Windtalkers”:

“The conquest of the island of Saipan in the summer of 1944 was undoubtedly the most gruesome massacre of the entire Pacific war. … I hate war. I have wanted to make a war film for a long time, so as to show audiences this horror in all its vividness. … While preparing for the film I got to know various Navajo chiefs, and also a few of the last surviving Navajo soldiers. You can sense how earnest they are when talking about being prepared to die for a cause. They are incredibly proud of their country.”

“More Beautiful than Reality”

Interview with the photographer Douglas Kirkland about his meetings with Marilyn Monroe and the present-day star industry:

“Of all the people I have photographed, Marilyn Monroe was the most unusual person, simply someone who was out of the ordinary. … The eroticism is still clearly visible in the pictures. She was no longer this perfect, perfected Marilyn like in earlier photographs; she was a beautiful, vital, sensuous woman. I think she wanted to prove to the world once again how much she enjoyed life. … Hollywood is organised quite differently now: back then no production company was as big and powerful as Disney and AOL Time Warner have become in the meantime. The studios are parts of huge enterprises, governed by their market value. … It was and still is a brutal business.”