"The Dark Side of the West"

Contemporary history: Recent historical research verifies that Nato intelligence troops in eight Western European countries cooperated with right-wing terrorists and criminals during the Cold War. The eerie European-wide network existed right up until 1990. It reached into the highest government circles, into the US intelligence service CIA and the supreme command of the North-Atlantic defence alliance, Nato. "For more than four decades, during the Cold War, Nato maintained secret guerrilla commandos and arms caches in 17 Western European countries, without any parliament being informed about the fact," says Daniele Ganser, head of a research group at the Centre for Security Policy of the Technical University of Zürich, ETH. He has just presented the first comprehensive study dealing with the operation that went by the name of Gladio. What the historian found out in the course of four years of research reveals the dark side of the West: a clandestine parallel world whose inhabitants suspected communist machinations wherever they looked and considered virtually any means acceptable in order to avert these.

"The End of the Cover-up"

Government: With their revolt against the foreign minister, German diplomats have achieved just the opposite of what they had intended. Suddenly it is becoming clear that no ministry has suppressed the memory of its entanglement in the crimes of the Nazi regime as perfectly as the German Foreign Office.

"Fat Profits in Business"

Nutrition: McDonald's is turning 50 and making more money than ever - but nevertheless attempting to radically change its image. In the face of vociferous debates about poor diets, the fast-food industry is afraid of billion-dollar class actions. The fate of the cigarette industry is seen as a warning. There is a clash of powerful interests. With over 3.5 million employees, the fast-food corporations are the biggest providers of low-wage jobs in the USA. Market leader McDonald's has the largest marketing budget in the entire country. It is the most important customer of the meat and potato industry. On the other hand, there are the consequences for the public health system. Two thirds of adult Americans are overweight. Researchers at the University of Illinois say that obesity is now decreasing life expectancy more than heart disease or cancer. According to recent estimates this alone is costing the general public more than 100 billion dollars - a figure which threatens to eclipse all the campaigns launched by McDonald's, which would so much like to celebrate itself.

"Better's Better than Bigger"

SPIEGEL interview with McDonald's boss Jim Skinner about his battle against image problems and slow growth:

"Every individual is ultimately responsible themselves for what they eat and how balanced a life they lead. ... We didn't cause the problem of obesity. But we want to be part of its solution. ... Society is changing. And we have to offer our guests products before they themselves even suspect that they want them. ... Primarily we have to offer affordable food. In addition, everything has to be prepared with the McDonald's speed of service. And in the end it has to taste good too. ... Our plan is working. In 2004 we turned over 19 billion dollars, the best figure world-wide in 17 years."

"The End and the Means"

USA: Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo - the special legal conditions applying to terrorists, which the Bush administration pushed through, are no longer tenable. Courts of law are raising objections to them - as is conservative Senator John McCain. For eleven months now, Americans have been forced to live with the unsettling certainty that their own soldiers and intelligence agents, too, are capable of committing atrocities to break their prisoners' will. For a long time, Americans accepted infringements of the law as being the patriotic price of the War against Terrorism. In the meantime, though, courts have emerged which take a different view. The government recently fought a lawsuit in order to prevent secret documents about the torture incidents from being handed over to human rights organisations, and lost. Now tens of thousands of documents from the Pentagon and the FBI have become accessible, disproving the claim that such excesses were merely isolated cases.

"Prestige instead of Profits"

Television sports: This week will see the hot phase of the preparations for the 2006 World Cup, with a meeting of international media in Munich. Hoping for record viewing figures and millions from sponsors, the television networks are planning to broadcast an unparalleled flood of programmes. The legions of managers are coming to Munich at the invitation of Infront, a Swiss dealer in sports broadcasting rights, in order to have the detailed plans for the broadcasting of the world's largest sports event explained to them in detail for the first time. And though outstanding German sporting achievements seem rather doubtful at the moment - the 2006 World Cup will certainly offer superlatives, namely in terms of the prices paid for commercials and sponsorship. The price bonanza is aided by the fact that the amount or advertising space surrounding the live soccer images will be limited - very limited in fact. The public-sector networks are not allowed to broadcast commercials after 8 p.m. Advertising space is further restricted by the fact that the official Fifa sponsors have a preferential right to purchase commercials and sponsoring.

"The Perfect Pipe"

Globalisation: This summer the most important pipeline in the world will be put into operation, reducing the USA's dependence on Arab oil. For some it symbolises the omnipotence of the superpower, for the others it is proof of the cleverness of big companies.

"That Was Just the Beginning"

SPIEGEL interview with Jena astronomer Ralph Neuhäuser, 38, about his hunt for planets outside our solar system and the world's first ever photograph of such a heavenly body:

"For years we have been specialised in young stars with a maximum age of 100 million years and have been specifically searching for planets around such young stars. ... The advantage of these objects is that young stars are surrounded by young planets and those are still so hot that they can be imaged comparatively well using infrared sensors. ... They can also indirectly give us insights into how our Earth was formed. ... 'Lup B' was just the beginning. Because 'GQ Lup' might be an entire planetary system."

"Low-Cost Flight with a Tail Wind"

Aviation: A German pilot wants to emulate Lindbergh this week and fly across the Atlantic. His small aircraft runs on diesel oil. The fuel costs will come to just 100 euros. The new mechanical wonder from Germany makes do with viscous diesel oil and even with the kerosene that large passenger jets run on. Business is correspondingly good. In Lichtenstein/Saxony, 150 people are now busy assembling the new engines. This year they are planning to produce 700 units. The US competition seems burnt out by comparison. Lycoming makes bulky cast-iron blocks that have remained virtually unchanged since the 1950s.

"Reading Glasses in the Front Grille"

Cars: Mercedes' new S-Class will be a seeing car. Radar and infrared sensors scan the surroundings for potential hazards - and are to assist drivers in braking.

"Deadly Germ from a Cave"

Viruses: Almost 200 Angolans have died of the Marburg virus to date. The world's biggest outbreak of this mysterious pathogen could finally reveal where it comes from. His experience with previous outbreaks has taught Matthias Borchert, a German epidemiologist who lectures in London, what to look out for: a cave. In all earlier cases, the epidemic seems to have originated in a cave. "The Marburg virus probably lives there unchecked in some animal, and then jumps across to a human being," Borchert explains. The country has been impoverished by civil war and is now gripped by panic. People from the north are fleeing from the epicentre of the epidemic, among them nurses and doctors. The already desolate health-care system threatens to collapse altogether.

"Club of the Painting Monks"

Exhibitions: They set out to seek God in art - in the "Holy City" of Rome. With their praying pictures, the Nazarenes, as the German painters were known, created a new aesthetic in the 19th century. Once smiled at condescendingly, it is now being celebrated in Frankfurt. One thing in particular is to be demonstrated by the "Religion Macht Kunst" exhibition (at Frankfurt's Schirn Kunsthalle from 15 April until 24 July): the remarkable modernity of these ancestors. The quality of their painting is only a side issue. However it fits well in a situation in which religion - or the yearning for spirituality that can provide meaning, for spiritual orientation beyond material benefits, for guiding values and standards - is in demand once again. The Nazarenes were indeed a product of rebellion - and that certainly makes them seem modern. The Viennese Academy of Art was too narrow for their liking, its curriculum too rigid and the neo-classical art that was taught there too cold. Under protest they left the school, packed their bags and made a pilgrimage to Rome. The young painters were the first autonomous group of artists to define itself in these terms, bound together by a clearly outlined programme to which they had mutually committed themselves in spirit.

"Guilty Because I Survived"

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with writer Edgar Hilsenrath, who has remained relatively unknown in Germany despite selling millions of books abroad - but the new edition of his works is likely to change that:

"In Germany, there's a sort of atonement towards Jews, by attempting to portray them as a noble race. But the Jews in the ghetto were no more noble than people anywhere else in the world. To anyone accusing me of portraying Jews as peculiar, pitiful and mean in my novel "Night", I can only respond: I wasn't describing the Jews at all in "Night", but simply the poverty in the ghetto. ... I grew up in Halle and moved to Bukovina in 1938 with my mother and my brother, to live with my grandparents because things were becoming dangerous for us in Germany. ... The whole atmosphere became unbearable. My school in Halle was a real Nazi school, every day I got into fights with the other boys, they gave me nasty nicknames and the teachers picked on me. ... The Bug was a river further in the East, the German SS stood on the far bank. The Romanians deported many Jews across the river, and the SS shot them immediately. We knew that. But one didn't think about it. ... My father was very much against my writing. He wanted me to become a furrier. But as you see, I didn't do as I was told. ... I'm simply not on very good terms with fame at all. It's not a fair business."

"Russian Doubles"

Tennis: An ambitious, but sinister, character and his talented daughter are conquering the tennis world. As of this week, Maria Sharapova is number 2 in the rankings, and the belle is worth ten million dollars to the advertising industry. But how long will the almost 18-year-old continue to bear her father making all her decisions for her? Maria Sharapova, 17, is the supernova of international women's tennis. Sharapova looks so good, that she already signed a contract as a model a year and a half ago, with the same agency as Heidi Klum. She plays such aggressive tennis that she won her first Grand Slam tournament in Wimbledon in July, and became world champion in Los Angeles in November. Her father, Yuri, escorts her everywhere, like a shadow. The trained engineer is a fanatic, relentless with himself and with others; a stocky, sinister figure who arranged for his daughter to be drilled to become a champion.