"The Price of the New Europe"

SPIEGEL cover story: Enlargement will fundamentally change the European Union. The candidates for accession are challenging the established members of the club with low wages and low tax rates. Germany must be prepared - or else it will be one of the losers in the new Europe.

"The Amputated World Corporation"

Corporate groups: With his company's withdrawal from Mitsubishi, Daimler-Chrysler boss Jürgen Schrempp is forced to abandon his dream of a global car-making corporation. The next step would be only logical: to bid Chrysler - and Schrempp - farewell.

"We Need Strong Nerves"

SPIEGEL interview with Lech Walesa, Nobel peace prize-winner and former leader of Solidarnosc, about EU enlargement to the east and the distrust of many Poles against the West:

"We always thought the West would set up a sort of Marshall Plan after the end of communism in order to help the countries here. But that didn't happen. That's why there is still deep distrust against the European Union."

"Arafat Has Failed"

Interview with Hamas leader Osama Hamdan, 41, about Israel's offensive against his organisation:

"Israel's prime minister Ariel Sharon wants to exterminate all of us, man by man. Since last Tuesday, my name has been on the list for liquidation - just as the names of the other Hamas leaders. ... We have taken precautions, the fight will continue. ... Hamas's executive cadres are located between Damascus and Beirut. Israel will never find us. ... Every Palestinian knows that Oslo is dead. We only have one alternative now: to continue the fight against Israel with all the means at our disposal. Negotiations with Sharon? Never."

"We Should Correct Ourselves"

SPIEGEL interview with historian Wang Hui about Beijing's modernisation and the social crisis in the country:

"The gulf between rich and poor is becoming wider and wider. In many regions, peasants have been deprived of their land in order to build new factories, exclusive residential areas and golf courses. Over 150 million people are wandering around China in search of work. If nothing is done, there will eventually be some sort of explosion. ... At the moment, China has neither genuine trade unions nor farmers' organisations. The majority of the population is therefore largely excluded from political and social life."

"Exciting World Factory"

China: For years, Beijing has been reporting huge growth rates, but now the unchecked upswing is making even the Communist Party leaders anxious. However, in the meantime the economy of the Middle Kingdom has an effect on the fates of many nations. It is too early yet for exaggerated optimism, because the data conceal the drawbacks of the economic boom. China's functionaries are all too keen to doctor the statistics. The government wants to slow the overheated pace carefully to about seven percent. It has instructed state bankers to apply stricter standards to real estate projects. Instead of nearing the goal of a class-less society, such as the party once promised its subjects, rifts have arisen between the rich and the poor like in pre-Revolutionary days.

"Involuntary Dream Team"

Monetary policy: Having been appointed as an outsider, Axel Weber has met with unanimous approval in the German Federal Bank, even from the defeated vice president. Both of them face some tough tasks.

"New Babylon"

Russia: Moscow is in the middle of a building boom. The protection of historic monuments and the cautious renewal of the townscape are falling by the wayside. And in every instance, Lord Mayor Yury Lushkov has the final word. His speciality is the replacement of originals by close-but-not-quite copies. His urban planning ideology is deception, an "as if". The hegemony of his personal taste is now putting a heavy burden on Moscow - from the concrete block of the Cathedral of the Redeemer, whose copy was built in piecework, through the gigantic, clumsily folksy statues of his favourite sculptor Surab Zereteli, to the three-story consumer caverns below Manezhnaya Square, whose garish pushiness resembles the gold-plated toilet bowls of the Russian nouveaux riches.

"Pleasures Like in a Restaurant"

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with Roger M. Buergel, director of the forthcoming Documenta 12, about the sensuous unity of art and life, his demand for aesthetic brilliance and his doubts about spectacles such as the MoMA Show in Berlin with its hordes of visitors:

"If a banquet has to get by without intellectuality and without sharpness, it quickly becomes stale. Pleasure has something to do with the mind too; just as beauty does. That's why I don't like pure exhibition spectacles; I get annoyed when art is simply consumed."

"The Black Promise"

Oil industry: Oil was supposed to be the source of affluence and democracy in the new Iraq. But chaos and terror are preventing a new economic beginning. Worse still: the quarrel over the oil is fanning the flames of the struggle for power.

"In Search of the Methuselah Gene"

Medicine: Scientists from Kiel, Bologna and Beijing are going to an enormous effort in minutely examining the genes of very old people. They want to use them to unravel the secret of healthy ageing. Initial findings suggest that chronic inflammations determine how old a person will live to be. The degree to which humans age therefore depends crucially on the immune system they are born with. On the one hand it must be strong enough to keep bacteria and viruses in check; on the other hand it must not be so strong that the immune cells turn against their own body and cause inflammations in it.

"Trainee versus Benjamin"

Good people: The office of the Commissioner for Integration is now even passing judgement on literature. Its first victim is Walter Benjamin, a German philosopher who committed suicide 64 years ago. Allegedly, Benjamin totally failed in his portrayal of the history and living conditions of "gypsies", his writings are said to be inappropriate, especially for "educating children". This degree of literary competence in a public office whose activities are largely only symbolic can hardly be regarded as merely 'overstepping its limits' - it is quite simply presumptuous.

"Resounding Last Judgement"

Musical theatre: "Credo", a new anti-terror oratorio, is to have its first performance this Friday, partly in Belfast, Jerusalem and Istanbul, and as a whole in Karlsruhe. About one third of the work, which lasts 100 uninterrupted minutes, is not being performed at the premiere venue Karlsruhe, but simultaneously and live in Belfast, Istanbul and Jerusalem. From there, the individual contributions - mainly musical parts, but also scenic contributions - must be transmitted via satellite to the stage screens in the Baden State Theatre, and fitted into the performance going on there to within fractions of a second. When the Karlsruhe director Achim Thormwald and the Italian composer and conductor Andrea Molino discussed the joint project in the spring of 2001, they were soon gripped by the idea of addressing the world-wide ethnic and religious conflicts and putting them up for discussion in a new kind of multimedia musical.

"Apologies from the Printer"

Interview with computer scientist Rosalind Picard about her work with 'feeling' computers and the correct manners between man and machine:

"Any interaction between human beings and machines should abide by the same rules that govern interactions between individual human beings. ... 'Affective computing' is roughly at the same point as speech-recognition was in the 1960s - at the beginning. But developments are much faster today. In ten years' time, dealing with feeling computers should be an everyday affair."

"Private Coaching for Hollywood"

Soccer: It took a while before FC Bayern's pros understood how to use a striker like Roy Makaay. Now the goal scorer is admired for his efficiency. His next aim is to kick the Germans out of the European Cup with the Dutch national team.