“The North Korea Connection”

Nuclear smuggling: The French container ship had hardly left the port of Hamburg on April 3, before the state started to show an intense interest in the ship. The German government suspected that the cargo was destined for the North Korean nuclear industry. The fact that North Korea also goes shopping for its ambitious arms programme in Germany is on record. Just last year the Berlin Ministry of Economics warned the German industry about the more and more cunning attempts by the regime to obtain “Western goods and technologies” for building weapons of mass destruction. One piece of evidence for the North Korea Connection is that an emissary from the ailing nation appeared as a mediator at the German company Optronic to purchase an order of aluminium pipes. Aluminium pipes with very particular technical specifications are a key technology for the construction of so-called gas ultra-centrifuges, high-tech devices which can be used to manufacture highly enriched uranium for building nuclear warheads.

Der SPIEGEL looks at the feasibility of the EU deciding to install a foreign minister, and at German Foreign Minster Joschka Fischer’s chances of taking on that role at the EU.

“Project Move”

Corporate groups: The dismissal of Kajo Neukirchen, head of Metallgesellschaft, is settled. But in his final weeks, the controversial manager is planning to pull off a highly explosive deal: the complete break-up of the group, which could produce 50 million euros for Neukirchen alone. KKR and Goldman Sachs want to buy Gea and Dynamit – the two largest and most successful companies in MG Technologies, which has so far been a conglomerate of chemical and terotechnological companies – for some 3.5 billion euros. The two nuggets are then to become part of a new company, “NewCo”. The remaining MG companies, on the other hand, which require restructuring or which are operating at a loss, are to be bundled together as “RemainCo”. Neukirchen has left no doubt about his own future: the head of MG, whose dismissal was agreed upon just a few hours earlier, intends to become the boss of the highly profitable “NewCo”. As the head of “NewCo” he would have a share in the possible profits achieved by the group through the sale of individual companies, via a “management participation plan”.

“Poland Is Old Europe”

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with President Aleksander Kwasniewski about the role of his country in the war against Iraq, the special relationship between Poland and the USA, and the disagreement among Europeans over American claims to supremacy:

“In an alliance of four nations with combat troops in Iraq, we provided a force of 200. That was a very difficult decision for me, for the government and for the Polish general public. We were convinced of a real threat of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. We acted as a loyal and consistent partner to the alliance. … In the USA, almost nine million people point to their Polish roots. Warsaw is the only place with more Polish people living in it than New York State. So our feelings for America are very strong. In addition to this, we have never been at war with America, which cannot be said of our European neighbours. … If Europe wants greater independence, we need a rapid reaction force. Otherwise Nato will remain the decisive factor, and the USA happens to play the leading role there.”

“Turban and Kalashnikov”

Iraq: The Shiite clergy are self-confidently demanding their share of power in Baghdad. America’s nightmare could become a reality – a second theocracy in the Persian Gulf. As yet, the majority of Shiite leaders are reluctant to reach for arms in the looming conflict with the Americans. Even the leaders of the ultra-religious Dava Party, which was bloodily persecuted by Saddam, are waiting to see what happens. Like Bakr al-Hakim’s Sciri movement, they boycotted the first meeting of opposition forces organised by the Americans. Now they are wondering whether they ought after all to take part in a follow-up meeting.

“Brutal Colonialism”

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun about the consequences of the war on Iraq, the wounds inflicted on the Arab soul, and the danger of a clash of cultures:

“The Americans never act selflessly, never … Arab nationalism is dead, but fundamentalism has a long heyday ahead of it. The unity of the Arab world is a myth. … Iraq is a society of clans, of tribes. … The ground has not been prepared for democracy in the Arab world. … Many Muslims and Arabs tend to pity themselves as absolute victims, and from that they derive the justification for absolute resistance. I think it’s this loss of self, which comes from colonisation, that leads to a psychological trauma, a view of history and the world with more of an emotional than a logical emphasis.”

“The Curse of Saddam City”

Religion: As long as the dictator ruled, Baghdad’s Shiite quarter was the ghetto of the tortured; now it is the germ cell of a new force. The mullahs are seeing to law and order and want to extend their rule to the entire city. Saddam City is to have 120 mosques. For the last thirty years, the faithful have been praying and waiting for the concealed 13th imam to appear. Now, with the police stations and public offices in ruins, the mullahs are the only remaining authority.

“The Democracy Trap”

SPIEGEL essay by Erich Follath: Is this the freedom that we mean, if Iraqis should decide (perhaps entirely democratically) in favour of a Shiite, anti-liberal theocracy? Is America’s Christian-fundamentalist saviour-president, with his politics of well-meaning imperialism, walking into a democracy trap? People throughout the Middle East are embittered about the fact that an “American caliph” is to be in charge on the banks of the Tigris, including the many who have long become accustomed to a Western lifestyle. Even to the critics of the systems there, the idea that the US military could be planning further attacks is unbearable – and is, for example, hampering the democracy movement in Teheran, which arose from the country’s specific situation. A flourishing economy based on transparent laws is far more important than swift elections: in societies that have been liberated from tyrants and that do not have a tradition of tolerance, votes are usually cast along ethnic and religious dividing lines, and this can tear apart a nation. If an extreme Shiite movement were to win in fair and free elections, say at the end of next year – then Washington ought not to intervene.

“Knowing How the Mind Works”

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with memory researcher and Nobel laureate Eric Kandel about the discovery of the unconscious, the molecules of memory and mice with senile dementia:

“In the meantime we know that you are not actually aware of much of what you know. However your unconscious memory has nothing to do with sexual urges. … The contents of unconscious, or – as we brain researchers say – implicit memory are far more banal. When you learn to drive a car or play tennis, you perform the movements without thinking about them. … Our perceptions too are largely stored by our implicit memory. … One thing we do know is that there is a molecule which blocks the transmission of information from short-term to long-term memory. Only when the effect of this molecule is suppressed can new contents find their way permanently into one’s memory. Of course, the temptation to influence this switch artificially is huge – particularly since we know that the mechanism becomes less efficient in an ageing brain. … I don’t know whether our company will ultimately be the one to develop this pill; but I’m convinced that it will be on the market in five years’ time. The increase in our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease, for instance, is spectacular.”

“We Gave All We Had”

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with Everest conqueror Sir Edmund Hillary, 83, about the first ascent, the fame and the consequences:

“I realised that our achievement would be viewed in mountaineering circles as an interesting success. But I never dreamed that the general public would react with such excitement. … I don’t feel any sense of guilt about having climbed to the top with oxygen. However, I was always convinced that Everest would one day be manageable without cylinders. … Anyone who gets up there has accomplished an enormous feat, with or without oxygen cylinders. … If I were a young man again, I would be tempted by Antarctica.”

“Massacre in the Rain Forest”

Congo: The war is decimating the last gorillas – hunted by poachers, slaughtered by bush fighters, turned into sausage meat. In just a few years, these primates are likely to be extinct. Once, there used to be some 8000 eastern lowland gorillas, now only optimists believe there could be as many as 1000 left alive in the Kahuzi Biega National Park, in the eastern Congo. No one knows how much longer they will survive the unequal battle against human beings. Gorillas and humans share over 90 percent of their genetic code. The gorilla has more in common with its merciless, upright-walking dominator than with an orang-utan in the jungle of Sumatra. And yet only a small number of people are fighting the hopeless battle against the slaughter of the last eastern lowland gorillas.