"Longing for Greatness"

German government: In an effort to escape from the morass of his reform policies, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder wants to distinguish himself in foreign policy. This is the only way for him to achieve the desired historical greatness, a strategy paper written by his office claims. Schöder's meeting with President George W. Bush will be a test case. However, Schröder does not have much in common with this US administration and its religiously motivated President. Together with France, he wants to disagree with the United States, if necessary - at least when it comes to Iraq.

"Clocking in on a Leg"

Bundeswehr: The largest bureaucracy in the country wears camouflage. The German army is so self-absorbed that it can barely muster enough soldiers for foreign missions. Detailed regulations for life with the Technical Inspection Authority, separation of recyclable garbage and noise prevention apply to camps in Rajlovac, Prizren and Kabul, just as if they were located in Munster or Regensburg. Because officially there is no state of war, the German bureaucracy of peace rules. And it has been resistant to reform thus far.

"Inequality Doesn't Count"

SPIEGEL interview with former presidential adviser Glenn Hubbard, about the consequences of his tax reform, the criticism that it only favours the super-rich in America and the question as to what use interest rate cuts are:

"I know this sounds shocking to any European, but inequality in the distribution of affluence doesn't worry me in the least. What counts to me is not inequality but poverty, and what we can do to give everyone the opportunity to escape from it. ... As far as the current President Bush is concerned, I can only say that he is very attentive and interested, keen to know. He asks lots of questions and he knows exactly what he wants to know. In that sense, I had a certain advantage through having taught at university for so long, where you have to be prepared for students to tug you in a hundred different directions at once."

Repentant Reprobate

Terrorist attacks: The Libyan regime is buying itself out of old terrorist sins. Following reparations for the families of the Lockerbie victims, Germans, also, are to receive compensation. In 1986, three people were killed and more than 200 wounded in the bombing of the Berlin discotheque "La Belle". That probably has less to do with true repentance than with political and economic interests: Libya wants the UN and the USA to stop the trade embargos at last.

"We'll Manage That"

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with climatologist Hans von Storch about the causes of the Saharan summer, unfounded fears about the end of the world, and human adaptation to global warming:

"It's too simple to blame extreme meteorological events on climatic change. ... First of all, you always have to keep in the back of your mind that we climatologists are only offering possible scenarios. Things could turn out completely differently. But what is true is that the climate will probably become warmer. Everything suggests that this development has already begun. ... Until now, every call to adapt to the change in climate has unfortunately been condemned or represented as being immoral. ... Historically, people have always been convinced that the climate was changing for the worse on account of their sinful lives, but never for the better. This pessimistic conviction undoubtedly has religious origins. ... Societies will be unable to afford the unlimited protection of the climate. Hence we have to discuss to what extent we want to retard the change in climate, and how much effort we consider reasonable in order to achieve that end. That's a straightforward question of cost and benefit."

"A Recipe for Disaster"

SPIEGEL interview with the American military scientist Anthony Cordesman about the critical situation in post-war Iraq and the danger of a new armed encounter:

"If we don't succeed in setting up the rudiments of federalism within the next twelve months, in which the Iraqis are able to act by means of power sharing and not by means of violence, we won't manage it in 24 months or twelve years either. But even if we succeed with security and a constitutional council which is to guide the Iraqis to pluralism, we don't know, of course, what things will look like in Iraq in five or ten years. ... Achieving peace is an act of force. ... All the experts repeatedly warned against the hope of a glorious liberation. But this clique of neo-conservatives was sitting there without any experience in the region, and allowed exiles to feed them all the stuff that groups of exiles always do. What came out of that was these truly dangerous speculations. After all their historical experiences, the people in Iraq have no reason whatsoever to have any great sense of trust in the West. ... We must not plan an Iraq which will still be pursuing the kind of politics in five or ten years time that we have designed, which is led by leaders that we have chosen, and which operates an economic model that we have developed. That would guarantee failure. We can only offer to help them help themselves."

"Elections in the House of the Dead"

Guatemala: Efraín Ríos Montt is reaching for power - he wants to become president. The general, who is responsible for numerous massacres, is the preacher of a fundamentalist sect. The same Ríos Montt had hundreds of villages burnt to the ground in a space of just 16 months after the 1982 coup d'état, and gave orders for dozens of massacres, in which 17,000 "subversives" - most of them Mayan peasants - were killed. The CIA and the military authorities encouraged the formation of fundamentalist sects as a counterforce to Roman Catholicism, which was not only considered subversive, because of all its liberation theologians, but also a notorious ally of the indigenous population. Ríos Montt, the man of god, has good chances. Some 18,000 evangelist churches now exist in Guatemala, most of them promising immediate deliverance from debts, marital problems, drug addition, facial acne. New churches are added every day, many of them in Mayan regions. This constitutes a huge base. And not least of all: Ríos Montt and the military forces won the civil war - and who wouldn't feel happier siding with the victors?

"Always Been at the Wheel"

SPIEGEL interview with the Indian Minister of the Interior, Lal Krishna Advani, about the latest attacks in Kashmir and his ambitions for the office of prime minister:

"The infiltration of armed terrorists into our territory must finally be stopped, and their infrastructure in Pakistan must be destroyed: training camps, weapons, supply lines, finances and the entire communications network. So far, this has not been done."

"From the Moskva to the Neman"

Russia: A new age in tourism is to begin in the former East Prussian seaside resort of Rauschen and along the Amber Coast: with five-star hotels, waterworld parks, and shopping centres. The strings are being pulled by a handful of old Muscovite chums from the secret service, military and party authorities. Recently there have been rumours of bitter fights as to how to divide up the tranquil town, now called Svetlogorsk; rumours of burning cars and shops; and the notorious Muscovite Solnzevo mafia is claimed to be pressing ahead to the coast. Will the Russian exclave, once the symbol of the victory over Nazi Germany, in future also be an ideological outpost of Russia? Or will it be more like a natural bridge to the expanding Europe of the European Union?