"We Want to Make It"

SPIEGEL cover story: A surge of anger forced Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to resign as Chairman of the Social Democrat Party. Whereas Schröder intended his resignation to strike a blow against the standstill, it could mark the beginning of the end of the reform process. The expectations of the new Chairman, Franz Müntefering, are clear: slow down, bottle up, redistribute.

"Time of Reckoning"

Domestic security: Following the dismissal of Ulrich Kersten, the head of the federal criminal investigation office BKA, and the acquittal of the Moroccan Abdelghani Mzoudi in the Hamburg terrorism trial, the German security authorities are in a deep crisis. The court ruling has not only made the German government an international laughing stock, it also has serious consequences for the fight against terrorism. About a dozen lawsuits dealing with September 11, which are still pending, could now be dismissed. And the purported fellow accomplice Mounir el-Motassadeq, who had already been sentenced, now has excellent chances of being released in the near future.

"Takeover from Within"

Deutsche Bank: The head of Deutsche Bank, Josef Ackermann, is right now handing out bonuses worth several billion euros to investment bankers. This is why he cannot cope with what he sees as the piffling reality of the Mannesmann trial in Düsseldorf, which, from his point of view, is dealing with trifling amounts. Under Ackermann's leadership, allocations from the bonus pool have become the principal instrument for ruling the bank. Those who produce a return on capital or on whose area of business great hopes are pinned, can share out huge premiums among their staff, many times higher than their normal annual salaries. Who actually creates lasting value in Deutsche Bank, is not quite as plain to see as Ackermann always likes to suggest. Although investment banking achieved 70 percent of revenues in 2003, it took a considerable effort to propel the company forward to become a leading investment bank. The money came from good, old Germany.

"Isolated View"

Managers: The defendants in the Mannesmann trial are holding a fairly over-the-top discussion about the value created by former CEO Klaus Esser; their arguments have little to do with reality. Esser, who has a PhD in law, explained to the court that his bonus (over 31 million euros) had in fact been far too low - he actually deserved "ten times as much" in line with "common business practice". In their testimonies before the court Esser and Josef Ackermann - consciously or unconsciously - completely ignore the economic realities. Only those who distrusted Esser's promises of a victory for Mannesmann AG and who sold their shares - contrary to his express recommendation - at the height of the take-over battle, were actually able to achieve a profit. Shareholders who followed the Mannesmann boss's advice, on the other hand, and who took his visions of a rosy future for the group seriously lost over 60 percent of the capital they had invested.

"Need to Hurry"

Interview with economist and head of the IFO institute Hans-Werner Sinn about the risk to the euro due to the dollar's weakness and the dangers of the EU's enlargement to the east:

"If necessary, the European Central Bank has two possibilities for slowing the upward trend of the euro. On the one hand it can lower interest rates. But that isn't advisable in the present situation. So all that leaves is to intervene on the currency market. If the dollar remains weak the ECB must sell euros in exchange for dollars. ... Within this year all new member countries will be tying their own currencies closely to the euro. The danger of currency crises cannot be dismissed lightly. That's why I'm in favour of these countries joining the monetary union very quickly too, once the minimum period of two years has elapsed."

"Schröder's Position is Sensible"

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with the reigning president of the European Council, Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern, about his battle for the European constitution, the problem of the double majority and the hidden conflicts within the Union:

"The fact is that Germany has a large population, Germany makes a large contribution to the EU - and that has to be reflected in the voting system. ... I am now in favour of the double majority, even though we were the only EU member to put the Treaty of Nice, which took a different stance, to a public referendum and this referendum only had a positive outcome the second time round. ... All the heads of state know that the constitution has got to come in order to stabilise the EU in the long run. The question is, are we going to try to manage this in the short term, or is it only a long-term goal. ... When we broke up in Brussels, everyone believed there were only two, at most four, points that were still open. That wasn't true, there are far more. As long as one side sees 15 or 16 open issues and the other only sees three, we won't make any headway."

"Fat Kids, Small World"

Nutrition: Green Party member Matthias Berninger, Under-Secretary in the Ministry for Consumer Affairs, is part of a fact-finding delegation touring the United States in the hopes of finding measures to counteract the growing number of overweight German children. The German guests are whisked from one meeting to another. They talk about this and that. The children don't get enough exercise, watch too much television, eat fast food. Something ought to be done. It is a broad subject. Is the Atkins diet effective? Who knows.

"Flooding on the Computer"

Climate: Flood disasters, record-breaking summers, tornadoes - the future of the global climate looked dramatic; though no one knew any exact details. But now scientists are for the first time calculating the climate change on the spot. New forecasts, which also take into account the influence of plants, are sparking a rethinking of crisis management plans. Grasses, shrubs and trees are busy weather-makers. They not only act as large evaporators for the water in the soil. In particular they remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide, CO2, from the air. The plant world serves as an intermediate storage site for this greenhouse gas, and at the moment it is still large enough to retard global warming. But that could well change.

"Dangerous Laxness"

Epidemics: Aids is becoming a dramatic problem in Eastern Europe. Male and female prostitutes from Rumania and Bulgaria are leading to an elevated risk of infection in Germany too. According to a study by the United Nations organisation UNAIDS, the rate of infection in the East is up to seven times higher than in the West of the European continent. Between the Oder River and the Ural mountains, between the Black Sea and the Baltic, the virus is currently harboured by more than 1.5 million people; and many of them are men who are barely 20 years old.

"Frightful Pain"

Authors: The best-selling Israeli writer Zeruya Shalev survived a suicide attack. Now she is once again having doubts about the sense of writing. She talks of a "dramatic change in the plot of my life". The shock has thrown the writer back into a creative crisis which she believed she had finally overcome. When the intifada broke loose in the autumn of 2000 she was incapable of writing for months, particularly because of the suicide attacks which kept coming closer and closer. She, who so masterfully sketches the shadowy worlds of the human psyche in her books, has great trouble finding words for the dimensions of horror that she herself experienced.

"Magician of Light"

Art: An exhibition in Cologne is honouring an almost forgotten genius, the Dutch painter Johan Barthold Jongkind, one of the inventors of Impressionism in Paris. Jongkind is comparatively unknown, and certainly one of the neglected great names in the history of art. This is surprising if only because the big stars of Impressionism all revered the difficult man as one of their great examples. It was not so much the beauty of nature that he wanted to make visible, but rather the experience of that beauty. As an art critic wrote back in 1863, for Jongkind everything was about impressions.

"Death on the Hook"

Animals: Tens of thousands of albatrosses and petrels die every year on the long lines of deep-sea fishermen, though remedial action would be simple. So-called "tori" lines, ropes fitted with fluttering ribbons that hang down from the ships' sterns, scare the birds away from the danger zone. Furthermore, lead weights on the fishing lines can ensure that the hooks are dragged down underwater more quickly. The problem is, only a minority of fishermen use these simple and cheap methods of bird protection.

"Girlie Show in the Desert Sands"

Car racing: Bernie Ecclestone, the head of formula one racing, is looking towards Asia in search of a new source of revenue. This year the GP circuit will for the first time include China and Bahrain. The sheikhs want to use the races to promote their tiny nation: as a holiday destination and centre of finance. However Bahrain runs the risk of overstretching itself with its premiere appearance as an exotic formula one venue. The former emirate has virtually no prior experience in staging motor sport events.