SPIEGEL in-depth interview with Gerhard Schröder, among other things about Germany's role in the world and about Iraq.

Scandal: The disastrous decline of financial service provider MLP's share prices is turning into an absurd stock exchange drama. A former board member speaks of blackmail and has incriminated a manageress at the investment bank J. P. Morgan. The sordid scandal over the ousted board member of MLP Financial Services plc is the latest climax in the amazing story of the collapse of the former model company MLP. Speculations about artificially inflated profits, incorrect balance sheets and dubious client figures have virtually pulverised its share price over the past months. Officially, no comment is forthcoming on such matters. But the MLP group is clearly involved in the biggest crisis in its history. Its credibility has suffered enormously and within the company total uncertainty prevails.

"The Five Lives of a Murderer"

11 September: The terrorist has been dead for a year. His parents are convinced he will return home, and refuse to mourn him. They are helpless, like everyone who knew him: Ziad Jarrah was the most Western of the pilots. Why ever did he take part? Because Ziad Jarrah was wavering between the worlds and found some form of stability in the terrorist group Al Qaida. Because he had lived four lives, and on September 11, 2001, believed that the fifth would be the most wonderful of all.

"Money from Libya"

Secret services: Investigators are examining the varied life of a relative of Ziad Jarrah, one of the September 11 pilots. The man not only worked for the East German Stasi, but apparently also for Gaddafi - and for the West German intelligence service.

Investigations into Abdul Martin Tatari. What role does the Syrian secret service play?

Interview with Agus Budiman, a companion of Mohammed Atta.

Pakistan: Report on Pakistan's wild province Balochistan, where a large number of Al Qaida's fighting force are hiding out.

"Princess in the Provinces"

Opera: Katharina Wagner, the great-granddaughter of composer Richard Wagner, is entering the family business. In Würzburg she is producing her great-grandfather's "Flying Dutchman". If Katharina Wagner succeeds in convincing her audience on September 22, she will have overcome an important hurdle in the race to succeed her father. For a long time, the aged patriarch, who to the annoyance of many enjoys a life contract, has been trying to vest the power in his second family.

"I Take the Direct Route"

SPIEGEL interview with actress Franka Potente, 28, about the film "The Bourne Identity" which is now coming to Germany, and with which she achieved her breakthrough in US cinemas:

"When I heard the story of 'The Bourne Identity', I was a little hesitant at first. But then I realised that my role in this film provided me with a chance to give all those clichés about women created by that genre a resounding slap in the face. … I've never experienced anything so chaotic. The daily communications problems, the confusion when everyone has two assistants, all that is a thousand times more complicated than in Germany. The Americans always act as if nothing worked here because we are supposedly hopelessly old-fashioned. They have no idea! Everything works much better here. The bureaucracy over there - it can kill you."

"Why My Child?"

Medicine: People often stare at them as if they were some mythical creature: children who look like aged dwarfs. People with the rare disease progeria undergo accelerated ageing. Eleven young patients from all over Europe recently met in Germany. Many of them had never before met anyone else who suffers their fate. The disease they have only afflicts one child in four million. An illness that permits no illusions about a cure, no hope for improvement; whose outcome is fatal - always. And an illness whose cause is still unclear. Experts suspect a fault in the genetic information, a mutation that occurs spontaneously, unpredictably; sometimes in China, sometimes in North America, sometimes in Europe. In spite of the small number of patients, the large cell research labs in the United States and Europe are searching intensively for the causes. One of the reasons is that scientists hope their findings will provide new insights into one of the great mysteries of mankind: the secret of ageing.

"Detonating Gas in a Maze"

More and more car companies are building cars that are powered by fuel cells. But the transition to the hydrogen age is faltering. Although the new drives are ecological and highly efficient - as yet they are still far too expensive. DaimlerChrysler and Ford, who joined forces to develop the technology, had originally planned to sell the first models in 2004, but the manufacturers have long backed down quietly from that goal. There is still some time though. According to realistic estimates, hydrogen will only gradually start to supersede fossil fuels in about twenty years time.

"Lighting Trip to Peace of Mind"

Psychology: Scientist in Holland are treating traumatised people on the Internet. The therapists also offer to help burnt-out managers. The shrinks perform long-distance diagnoses and send electronic mail: it may sound like quackery, but in the USA it has long become part of Internet culture - though German psychotherapists are banned from providing it. Here, the virtual dialogue between helper and patient is not considered to be sound enough, because the danger of an incorrect diagnosis of a serious mental disturbance is thought to be too high. So far, reliable research results are still lacking.