"The Last Chance"

Terrorism: The legal aftermath of the attacks of September 11 before Hamburg's High Court and Court of Appeal is threatening to turn into a fiasco for the German government. Not a single German investigation in connection with the 9/11 attacks has ended in success for the prosecution. In the trial of Mounir al-Motassadeq, the witnesses that have been summoned to testify include the head of the German domestic intelligence services Heinz Fromm, and former CIA boss George Tennet. Those US senators who presented the American 9/11 report in mid-July will presumably also be invited to Hamburg. It will be one of the trials receiving the most world-wide attention, next to that against Sadam Hussein. The structure of the prosecution's case has collapsed once before, in February when Hamburg's High Court acquitted Abdelghan Mzoudi. The foundations were not firm enough. And the situation is becoming bleaker and bleaker.

"A Special Type of Homesickness"

Displaced persons: Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's direct words in Warsaw angered the leaders of displaced persons organizations. A radical minority now more than ever insist on a return of their former property, whereas the organizations' leaders are distancing themselves from the hardliners.

"Fear of the Bogeyman"

Foreign citizens: What is really behind Otto Schily's idea of an asylum camp in North Africa? As a rescue plan for the shipwrecked, it is honourable; as the core of a new, tougher refugee policy it will not work. The battle over the camps is dividing the governing coalition, the SPD and the CDU, it is even dividing the refugee organisations. Schily's idea is that refugees fished out of the sea should be collected beyond the borders of the European Union and immediately distributed again among the African countries, and as such it is not so far-fetched as not to have a chance of succeeding. On the contrary, the EU Commission actually took up the issue back in June. On the other hand: his camp idea is no good as a solution to Europe's immigration problems. As Schily pictures these camps, with no prospect of a ticket to Europe, they offer economic refugees nothing that would prevent them from climbing straight back into their boats.

"In the Land of the Beardless Prophets"

Uzbekistan: Once again, suicide attacks are shaking Tashkent in Central Asia - just at the time when the regime of US ally Islam Karimov is beginning a show trial against Islamist opponents.

"Letter Behind the Fountain"

Italy: In a small town in Sicily, the Mafia is trying out a new economic approach: the inhabitants, even the unemployed and pensioners, are having to pay "protection money". While those at the top of the Cosa Nostra juggle with billions made on trafficking drugs, weapons and women, and transfer capital world-wide, the local foundations of the Sicilian Mafia are becoming more down-to-earth. Each according to his own means, but all according to our needs - that is the new motto in the provinces.

"Everything Is Going to Be All Right"

SPIEGEL interview with the Mayor of Athens, Dora Bakojannis, 50, about the Olympic Games in an insecure world, the forecast of the Delphic Oracle and the surplus of entrance tickets:

"Who would have thought it possible, beforehand, that we would need a security programme costing over a billion euros? ... Nevertheless, there will be a cheerful Olympic atmosphere, I'm sure of that. ... The Delphic Oracle says: ‘Everything is going to be all right'. ... We are going to meet the goal of filling all the stadiums to a level of at least 70 percent. Because the Greek people are in the habit of deciding at the last minute whether to go to the stadium or to the regatta course."

"Deny, Deny, Deny"

Olympic Games: Interview with Richard Pound, head of the World Anti-Doping Agency about the new testing methods used in Athens, the fraudulent mentality of US athletes and the end of humane sports:

"In view of the state-operated doping in the former Eastern Bloc, people in the United States always felt victimised. When America assumed absolute supremacy in sports, it saw no reason to query what was going on its own doorstep. ... For too long we have focused only on the athletes. Now we are realising that not just the athletes, but entire teams are involved in the fraud: scientists, doctors, dealers in pharmaceuticals. You could describe it as organised crime. ... We have to make children right back in school understand that fraud cannot be the way to go. We need information campaigns which make it clear that in the long run fraud will destroy sports."

"Pills for Forgetting"

Medicine: A new type of drug continues to be extolled as offering hope against Alzheimer's. But a study by the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany now reveals that the expensive pills do not help the patients.

"In the Line of Fire"

Muslims: For the first time, a professor is training people to teach Islam at state-run schools. But because the various Muslim associations have different interpretations of the Koran, he finds himself falling between several stools. The newly set-up chair at the Westphalian Wilhelm University in Münster is one of the trickiest scientific positions in Germany. If Muhammad Sven Kalisch fails, that would also threaten plans to teach the Islamic religion in the near future, one of the most important integrational projects for immigrant offspring. So far - apart from a few isolated trials - there have been no lessons in Islam for the 700,000 Muslim pupils at German schools, as there are for Roman Catholic and for Protestant children. It was not until the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 that many local governments increasingly started tackling the problem, because they no longer wanted to leave religious education to the scarcely controllable Koranic schools.