"The Charming Criminal"

Cover story: Albert Speer was the most powerful minister and at times the closest confidant of Adolf Hitler. After his release from prison in 1966 he presented himself as the good Nazi - and became a symbol for millions of hangers-on. Now historians have been researching the true story.

"The Hunt for the Sheik"

Terrorism: Abus Musab al-Sarkawi only narrowly escaped American special units. The arrest of the world's most dangerous terrorist would be an enormous triumph for US President Bush. Interrogations of Sarkawi's followers have for the first time given a glimpse of the inner workings of the resistance.

"Male, Single, Out"

Refugees: Germany's regional governments want to increase the pressure on Afghans to return to their home country voluntarily, by carrying out demonstrative deportations. In fact, many of them will soon have the right of residence.

"Sense from the Deep"

Memory: Next week, the Holocaust Memorial is to be opened in Berlin - an impressive exhibition in the "Place of Information" underneath the concrete steles is giving meaning to the abstract work of art.

"The Invisible Force"

Nepal: The high-handed King Gyanendra is reduced to ruling by means of emergency laws. The government was deposed by the king on 1 February in a surprise coup. Critics have been thrown into prison in droves. However, most of Nepal's districts are controlled by Maoist combat units. The rebels want to abolish the monarchy. They regard themselves as representing the interests of those 42 percent of Nepalese citizens who barely earn one dollar a day. No one knows how many civilians have been executed, tortured or mutilated. The Nepalese conflict was triggered by the hopeless poverty, particularly in rural areas. The plight of the peasants kindled the rebellion; but their rage has been heightened by the feudal structures, which have remained in place since the unified state was founded in 1768, the indifference of the politicians and their tendency to succumb to corruption.

"Prisoner of the Moment"

Brain research: For 20 years now, Clive Wearing has been forgetting within a few seconds what just happened. Thousands of times a day, the Briton thinks he has just awakened from deep oblivion. In a biography, his wife has now described how eerie the world seems to him. Clive Wearing was a music producer for the BBC and the choirmaster of a renowned ensemble, the London Sinfonietta. All that has been wiped out. His life before his illness has left only a few traces. Wearing contracted a virus called herpes simplex. In Wearing's case it ate its way into his brain. The man was in a coma for more than two weeks; and when he returned to life, NMR images revealed what was left of his brain: devastation in several regions - including the hippocampus, where new memories are stored. Today Clive Wearing lives in a home for people with brain damage, together with his piano. Until now, the shock of not having a past has obliterated what little bit of the present he has been granted. But now the man without a memory appears to have come to terms with the great novelty of his life. All day long he has just awakened, is truly awake - and behold, everything is as it should be.

"Riding into the Sunset"

UK: According to opinion polls, Tony Blair and his New Labour Party can expect to be victorious for the third time in a row. But public interest in the empty election campaign is low. People do not see any alternative to New Labour - and why should they? The economy has been booming for ten years, unemployment is low and, after all, no one wants to introduce socialism. The post-democratic campaign is only concentrating on contested constituencies, with the help of sophisticated computer programs that draw up electoral profiles right down to the individual street, row of houses and courtyard.

"Masterpieces from the Wastepaper Basket"

Archaeology: For over a hundred years, experts in Oxford have been deciphering a huge fund of antique papyruses - often including poetic works hitherto believed to have been lost. New photographic methods are now making it possible to decipher even virtually illegible fragments. Instead of trying to take super-sharp colour photographs using top-notch scanner cameras, as in the past, which can then be enlarged on screen and pieced together without harming the original, researchers have recently started using a so-called multi-spectral lens: 25 filters sort the light into narrow ranges of wavelengths, from ultraviolet through to well within the infrared region.