"The Taboos Could Disappear"

SPIEGEL interview with former United Nations Secretary General Butros Butros Ghali, about the hardened fronts in the Middle East peace process:

"What's happening in Gaza is madness. Israel's prime minister Sharon still believes that the Palestinians can be subjugated for ever by means of military force. In Gaza, he missed a key opportunity to take a major step towards peace. That has now moved into the remote distance again, perhaps for many years. ... Even before that, the insight will catch on that true peace is better for the future of both peoples. If Israel's government prevents it with its eyes open, the Jewish state will in the long run become a copy of the South African Apartheid regime. In that case, terrorism won't stop until an Israeli de Klerk takes the appropriate historical steps. But I know that tough and intense discussions are already taking place on both sides. Peace will come, with or without Sharon. There is no other solution."

"We Need Respect for the Law"

SPIEGEL interview with economic expert Xu Xiaonian about the limits of growth and the compulsion to carry out reforms:

"China's growth is like a miracle, but that miracle could evaporate. Sustainable growth only comes about through technical and institutional innovation, which increases productivity. I haven't discovered much of that in China so far. ... We need structural reforms in order to be able to distribute the money more efficiently and to promote technical innovation. But most of all the government should no longer interfere in day-to-day business operations."

"I Was Just a Nobody"

USA: Guantanamo, the world's most controversial prison camp and for many the epitome of American despotism, is to change. Washington is staging hearings for terrorist suspects and carrying out modernisation measures in order to preserve the appearance of a rule of law. In future too, Guantanamo is to supply the strategic intelligence for the war against terrorism. The prisoners are used as a kind of reference book to check new names which turn up during interrogations, or as a catalyst to better understand the way in which fundamentalists think.

"Behind the Fence Is Where Happiness Lies"

Immigrants: Spain wants to prevent asylum seekers from entering its North African enclave Ceuta - and thus Europe - by means of a monstrous high-tech barrier. But it is only a matter of time before the project fails. Those who manage to overcome the barrier are entitled to a formal hearing before a Spanish court to have their status recognised. Ninety-seven percent of applicants are rejected. They are expected to leave Spain within 45 days. But the Andalusian plantations need cheap labour, so most illegal immigrants are tolerated by the authorities. The Perimetro is costing 50 million euros and is being subsidised by the European Union, because the bulwark protects not just the Spanish border, but also the outer boundaries of the EU. And not only against illegal immigrants, but also against terrorists.

"Archaic Battle"

Kenya: Since the elephant population has started to recover, the bloody conflict between man and beast has been escalating again. Fencing in the national parks, as some people are demanding, would prevent the migration of the wildlife and turn unique areas into huge zoos or safari parks. In the meantime, the only method that helps to check the havoc wreaked by the giants is for the harassed farmers to grow strips of chilli peppers around their banana and grain fields. Though elephants appear to be afraid of nothing, once they get a whiff of these spicy vegetables they take off in the opposite direction at top speed.

"Asian Greengrocer"

Extremists: Following the success of the NPD at the local elections in Saxony, security experts are afraid that the violence between the left and the right might spiral out of control. Both sides are arming themselves alarmingly. The NPD has evened the way for violent members from the Free Associations to progress to the top echelons of the party, while the anti-fascist Antifa is resuming its battle against right-wing extremism by all available means - an explosive mixture.

"Battening Down the Hatches"

Civil rights: The German government wants to award citizens and the media greater rights of information concerning public authorities. But the civil servant are resisting divulging any details of their regime.

"Unknown Neighbour"

SPIEGEL interview with planetologist Gerhard Neukum about the planned mapping of the Moon, the biggest secrets of Earth's companion, and the advantages of a manned lunar station:

"The Moon serves as a kind of model for all Earth-like planets. As long as we don't understand the Moon, we won't understand the other celestial bodies either. ... We still don't know how the Moon was formed. At the moment, the favoured scenario is one in which it was struck from the body of the young Earth by the impact of a foreign heavenly body. What speaks for this is that its composition resembles that of Earth's mantle. But we're still a long way from having proof of this. ... Nasa badly needs an exact map in order to prepare its further lunar missions - not least in order to find a suitable place for building a permanently manned lunar station, which is to be established in 15 to 20 years."

"What Is Coming Will Be Ugly"

Car industry: It is not the car industry as such that is in a crisis, but individual companies that slept through important trends. Opel and Volkswagen, in particular, now have to lower their costs drastically in order to become competitive once again.

"Red, White and Blue"

More than in any American presidential election campaign before, pop musicians have taken to interfering this year. Most of them are singing for John Kerry; but there are a couple of Bush rockers too.

"Fighting Dog and Overgrown Child"

Soccer: 18-year-old Wayne Rooney was the big discovery of the European Cup. Then he broke his foot. The injury has now healed, and his comeback was a spectacular success; yet life has changed enormously for the working-class boy from Liverpool. Wayne Rooney is loved by the masses, precisely because he lacks David Beckham's fashion fad; nor is he some well brought-up boy from a monastery school, like Michael Owen. Rooney embodies the prototype of British football culture. He has a butcher's haircut, sticking-out ears and a neck like a bull. He is the personification of the fairy tale about the poor street soccer player who makes it to the top. When Rooney, who speaks in broad dialect, was presented by United, journalists were not permitted to ask him any questions. Manager Paul Stretford had to promise that Rooney would not attend any media events for the time being. Coach Alex Ferguson plans to assign an experienced player to him as a mentor. And he has demanded that Rooney move house and live near the training grounds - away from the temptations of the city.

"Show of the Year"

TV corporations: The failure of "Anke Late Night", "Kämpf um deine Frau" and "Hire or Fire" does not only mean that some of the ProSieben-Sat.1 Group's strongly promoted prestige programmes have flopped. The disaster reveals that the top management surrounding Guillaume de Posch lacks a feel for the German television market. Their nerves are in fact on edge, because Haim Saban's next visit is imminent: this Tuesday the supervisory board is meeting in Munich, and it is chaired by Saban. One thing is certain: this will be the first crisis summit of his era. The only consolation for Saban's German governors is that if the chairman of the supervisory board wants to take to task the main person responsible for the new approach of ProSieben and Sat.1, the best place to do so is in front of the bathroom mirror. After all, Saban and his team rang in and enforced the new trend.

"Power to the Whippers-up of Words"

Awards: When Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek heard that she was to receive this year's Nobel prize for literature, she was charmingly shocked. However the intellectuals in the German-language cultural sector unanimously acclaimed the rather curious decision. In the German-speaking scholarly world, the "critical" and the "intellectual " mainstream is snuggling up together. It's almost like a home game. They are drinking wine from paper cups and agreeing with the Swedes and everyone else who is right in the head that they, too, are against the exploitation of women and against fascism.

"Shadow Play"

Architecture: A German and a Hungarian want to market a new building material with astonishing properties: transparent concrete. The translucent material was invented by the Hungarian Áron Losonczi, now 27, while he was playing around with various materials for his final research paper at the University of Stockholm. By way of an experiment, he cast layers of optical fibres into concrete. The result was a plain grey brick, but one that produced an astonishing shadow play when Losonczi placed a light source behind it. When the Aachen architect Andreas Bittis, 37, heard of the invention, he was captivated by the idea. In the meantime, Bittis and Losonczi are joint partners of a limited company called Litracon, short for "Light Transmitting Concrete"