Die Welt, 01.02.2006

Die Welt is the sole German paper to cover the Danish affair of the Mohammed caricatures on its front page. In September the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten carried a series of Mohammed caricatures that aroused protest in Denmark and abroad. Yesterday Carsten Juste, the paper's editor in chief, apologised in an open letter to all Muslims. Die Welt publishes the cartoons, but not online (here the original caricatures). Correspondent Reiner Gatermann writes: "Denmark is in shock. Two cultures are on a collision course. The political parties have agreed on a truce and are withholding attack on the government, which needs peace of mind to find a solution to the conflict."

Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmoniker are back from New York, where they played four concerts at Carnegie Hall. Rattle speaks with Volker Blech in an interview about changing concert tastes and his love for contemporary music ("I play only contemporary music - some of it is by Mozart"). Asked if some works strike fear in his heart, he answers: "Yes. The true answer is: every great masterpiece. You have to be afraid of them, it's very important. Sometimes the fear is greater, for example with Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. For each and every one of us this is a large, incognisable summit. We should always approach such works with a good mixture of fear and adoration. Sometimes this can lead to very pleasant surprises."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 01.02.2006

Michael Althen has seen James Mangold's "Walk the Line", a portrait of Johnny Cash, and writes that Joaquin Phoenix has played the role of a lifetime. "It's just fantastic how Phoenix manages to slip into Cash's shoes, which must have been a size too big for him; how his cleft lip so to speak takes the place of Cash's scars and deeply-cut features; how he seems to give a crooked grin when he sings; how he lifts his shoulders and holds up his guitar like a gun; how he captures the entire aura of a man who sang his songs with such a stony face you'd think he'd done a year's time for each and every one."


Süddeutsche Zeitung, 01.02.2006

Sonja Zekri describes the curse of natural resource wealth which leads, in most countries, to everything other than democracy and wealth. Africa is drowning in wars, Arabic sheiks bribe their societies in order to remain in power and in Russia, "inner torpor matches the desire to be a superpower and both are flanked with fabulous oil and gas revenues. The case of Khodorkovsky showed that for Putin, pipelines and prison bars serve as communication channels, he's using Russia's energy reserves to apply pressure on Ukraine with an unprecedented shamelessness. The West, equally dependent on these imports, is not exactly insisting on the maintenance of human rights standards." Zekri refers to a dossier in the Economist on the topic.


Die Tageszeitung, 01.02.2006

Nils Werber learns from Federal Court judge Udo di Fabio and his handbook "Integrationsarbeit" (integration work) that immigrants shouldn't only integrate, they should learn to identify with Germany. Ghettos should be avoided at all costs. "'Indications of crisis' in the integration process are to be found in the 'increase in ethnic concentration on the apartment market, the stability of inner-ethnic social contact (the rise of parallel societies)' and the 'lack of identification with the host country, across the generations.' Ethnic concentration leads to parallel societies and where these are maintained in a stable cultural framework, identification with the 'majority society of the host country' is not possible."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 01.02.2006

There is method in how British sculptures are being stolen, writes Georges Waser. "As the English police report, no less than twenty bronze sculptures have disappeared in London and surroundings – for example Tunbridge Wells and Hawkhurst in Kent – in the last six months. Their value ranges from a few thousand to three million pounds (Henry Moore's 'Reclining Figure'). All of them are monumental works, sculptures that, for their sheer size, were considered 'unstealable' until now. Because, so the argument goes, what collector or dealer would want to buy these easily recognisable works of art?" True, the thieves can't sell the works, but they can melt them down! Henry Moore's "Reclining Figure" would fetch 5,000 pounds as scrap metal.