Stage designers is developing more and more into the most important element of stage productions. It is set designers or ?spatial artists? like Johannes Schütz, Muriel Gerstner, Stéphane Laimé and Olaf Altmann who are ?to blame? ? they are the ones who can turn an evening at the theatre into a total work of stationary art....
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Pope Benedict XVI's Regensburg speech gives no rational ground for the commotion now being stirred up from Pakistan to Europe. In our globalised, individualised and thoroughly economicised world, the purely technical use of reason threatens to bring about a value gap. That the Pope should try to close this gap with religious means may not have proved effective, yet this is exactly where all believers should find common ground. By Stephan Hebel
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Lebanon used to be a blessed harbour in a brutal region - with beautiful women, fat wallets and parliamentary democracy. But appearances were deceiving. The country has become a battlefield where all conflicts are carried out in microcosm. Lebanese author Selim Nassib writes an instructive history of the Lebanese inferno, fired by other peoples' wars as well as its own.
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Since the conflict flared up in Lebanon, many voices in Europe and the Middle East have been seeking to make head or tail of the goings on. We give a press review from the German feuilletons as well as several interesting articles in their entirety. Selim Nassib tells the history of Lebanon as battlefield. Imre Kertesz, Navid Kermani and Tjark Kunstreich ask whether it's possible to discuss Israel and the Lebanon conflict without referring to the Holocaust.
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Post-Holocaust morality and the violence of today: Navid Kermani says Israel weakens itself if it builds on military might, and forgets its past as victim.
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Israel is not only defending its territorial security, it is fighting an Islamic anti-Semitism which European politics are determined to ignore. When it comes to the crunch, the Europeans' "critical dialogue" and culturally-obsessed interpretations, not to mention their playing down of anti-Semitism, have contributed to keeping the Israeli-Palestinian conflict alive. By Tjark Kunstreich
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French philosopher Andre Glucksmann exposes the apocalyptic notions that haunt 21st century minds, coloring perceptions of the war in Lebanon. But does anyone really believe that Islamic extremists would lay down their arms after erasing Israel from the map?
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Even Chechens agree by now that the post-war era has begun. Sonja Zekri visited the country where artists have to stand their ground between a frenzy of construction and a cult of personality.
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Since the latest conflict in the Middle East flared up, many voices in Europe and the Middle East have been seeking to make head or tail of the goings on. We give a press review from the German feuilletons, as well as links to keynote and background pieces in the European and international press.
Updated on Thursday, 14 September.
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Indian author Kiran Nagarkar thought he knew a thing or two about terrorism, having recently written a novel about "God's Little Soldier." But when the terrorists struck last week in Mumbai he was left with a feeling of disbelief, dismay and incomprehension.
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Iranian journalist and activist Akbar Ganji has spent the last six years in a Tehran jail for his open criticism of the regime. Here in an interview with Katajun Amipur, he talks about the greatest obstacle to democracy - oil - and the moral support Iran needs from the West to make reform possible. (Photo Mansour Nasiri)
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Nothing is forcing the Western democracies to crown the Petro Czar. The only thing supporting the Russian economy is the price per barrel. Its industry is stagnating, and Russia needs the West more than vice versa. The powers meeting in St. Petersburg today have to choose: either they prolong an enormous misunderstanding even after its death, or they bury it altogether. By Andre Glucksmann
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Austrian author and playwright Peter Handke's political stance on Serbia has not been easy for Western intellectuals to swallow. With the recent scandal of the Heinrich Heine Prize - which was awarded to Handke and then retracted - the writer's views are back in the spotlight. In an in-depth interview with Martin Meyer and Andreas Breitenstein, Handke tries to clarify his understanding of what happened in the break-up of the former Yugoslavia.
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The Clearstream Affair is just the most recent symptom of a crisis that has been dogging the French Republic for three decades. The time for a "rupture" is at hand. By Andre Glucksmann
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Twenty years after Chernobyl, Belarussian writer Svetlana Alexievich talks to Sonja Zekri about the new face of evil and the lessons to be learned from the reactor
catastrophe.
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Italians go to the polls on Sunday. Do Europeans realise what is at stake, or does Italophilia blind them to Berlusconi's brutal power games? Outside Italy, people fail to see that this "puppet" would already be behind bars in most European countries, and that its legal system and press freedom are on a par with Guatemala and Mongolia. But who could come next? Friedrich Christian Delius paints a dire portrait of Italy's ailing democracy.
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