"A Lost Boy"

Terrorists: The Jordanian citizen Shadi Abdallah is the key witness in German lawsuits against Al Qaida defendants. But there are increasing doubts over the credibility of Bin Laden's former bodyguard. He testified against Mounir al-Motassadeq and Abdelghani Mzoudi, both suspected of involvement in the September 11 attacks, claiming to have seen them in Afghan terrorist camps. And the German public prosecution currently needs him in the trial of five alleged followers of the top Iraqi terrorist Mussab al-Sarkawi in Düsseldorf. But Abdallah does a mediocre job in playing the part of key witness. He has provided his opponents with more and more reasons for doubting his credibility. His convoluted life story, a psychological assessment, subsequent corrections of earlier statements and apparent disparities make it easy to attack him now. At the same time Abdallah is enjoying quite an international career, because few others are as knowledgeable as he concerning Al Qaida's Who-is-Who. Now the US government also wants to use Abdallah as a witness.

"Shoulder by Shoulder"

Foreign Policy: Gerhard Schröder and Russia's President Vladimir Putin cultivate their own, almost child-like cult of friendship. Vile reality is shut out. When journalists brought up sensitive issues at the large press conference last Tuesday in Sleswig-Holstein, they were smiled at question after question - or told off. The war in Chechnya? The dismantling of the Russian oil conglomerate Yukos? Nothing was allowed to disturb the harmony between the two leaders.

"Putin's Ground Zero"

SPIEGEL cover story: the raid by Islamic terrorists on a school in Beslan was the most brutal attack of the year - an act of barbarity which disappeared quickly from the headlines in the West, however. To this day thousands of Ossetians are suffering the consequences of the hostage-taking, to this day the Russian authorities have done little to clear up the incident. A team of SPIEGEL reporters has been to North Ossetia, Igushetia and Chechnya to investigate the background of the incident and the perpetrators.

"Where Angels Stop in Wonder"

Zambia: White farmers are leaving Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa - north of the Zambezi they are welcome. Many of them have dared to make a fresh start and are producing record harvests. Some 300 Zimbabwean farmers have settled in former Northern Rhodesia and are running 150 farms - with tremendous success. For the first time since 1978 Zambia, which actually suffered a famine just two years ago, will be exporting more maize in 2004 than it imports.

"Romantics under Arms"

History: History books portray Alexander the Great as an ingenious military commander and "globaliser", who brought together the Orient and the Occident. Recent research reveals a more sinister picture: the man had a violent temper, drank himself into a coma and celebrated human sacrifices.

"This Is Mouse from Cottbus"

Internet: Thousands of radio enthusiasts are already operating their own broadcasting stations on the Internet. For listeners, the advantage is the vast amount of music that can be collected for free. The variety of music available on the Web is already enormous. One of the assembly points of the movement is the radio headquarters of Shoutcast.com, which lists thousands of stations of every kind. Listeners have nothing to complain about: they are offered a huge variety and it costs them nothing. Anyone who wants to put together a collection only needs to record away busily; and the software available for this purpose is diabolically efficient.

"Too Dumb to Drive"

Cars: From belt beepers to drowsiness detectors, the automobile industry is increasingly introducing innovations that disempower drivers - and get on their nerves. Engineers have long identified the users of vehicles as the biggest flaw in the system, and are fighting drivers' weaknesses wherever they can - in other words, virtually everywhere. But some innovations do actually make a lot of sense, because human being are demonstrably too dumb to drive.

"A Monument to Trittin"

Companies: The Allgäu brewery "Zötler Brauerei" is regarded as being the oldest family enterprise in Germany. It survived peasant uprisings, fought off mergers and switched to producing weak beer during the wars. Although the current family owners, the Zötlers, only took over the vats in Rettenburg three generations ago, they have long internalised the brewery struggles of their predecessors: in July 1605, peasant rebels beat up the landlord Hans Bach, notorious as the governor of the spiritual authorities. But Bach survived and even wrung damages out of the peasants. He seems to have been as resilient as the brewery, which in the course of its history survived three fires, the Plague, the Thirty Year War against the Swedes and two World Wars. Today the brewery employs a workforce of 60, turning over ten million euros: business is going well, in part because the brewery is as yet too small to worry its big competitors.