"A Question of Inurement"

Niger: Thousands of children are threatened by starvation. Although aid agencies have warned of the pending catastrophe for months, the government has done nothing.

"Aerial Warfare over Berlin"

Internal security: Abstruse demands have been rife since an amateur pilot dived to his death in front of the German parliament. But neither helicopter gunships nor missiles can make the capital secure. Military operations to support the police force at events like Cologne's World Youth Day in the middle of August or the 2006 FIFA World Cup are intended as a means of reassurance rather than as a way of increasing security.

"The Country Needs Confidence"

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with Michael Diekmann, chairman of Allianz's managing board, about a judge's admonishment of life insurance companies, his hopes for the general elections and the sell-out of the German corporate world:

"All the major parties are at least aware of the reforms that are necessary. Now the election campaign revolves around the question: should we preserve what we have, or should we take the more arduous route - at the risk of certain things getting temporarily worse? ... At shareholder meetings these days you have about 30 percent of shareholder's present. That isn't particularly convenient for companies which are in a difficult position at the time and which know, at the same time, that investors are able to concentrate their interests. However I think that the growing pressure for efficiency that is being exerted by the capital markets is good for the domestic economy, to make it move. The times of the German corporate world are over once and for all. ... I still consider Dresdner Bank to be a strategically important point along our way to becoming a full-service financial group. Everywhere in Europe competence in financial services is most often attributed to banks."

"Galmond's Network"

White-collar crime: The Commerzbank has been suspected of money-laundering because it held in trust a firm for a Danish lawyer living in Hamburg. However, the bank is only a small part of a world-wide system.

"A Gesture to Osama bin Laden"

Interview with Egyptian terrorism expert Issam Darras about the attacks of Sharm el-Sheikh:

"Generally speaking, I doubt whether there is any connection between the diabolic attacks on the commuter trains in Madrid in March 2004, the most recent bomb attacks in London, and the events in Sharm el-Sheikh. ... It is the spirit of Osama that inspires the terrorists. ... But Al Qaida is no longer concerned with preparing attacks. The younger cadres of the self-proclaimed Qaida groups in Egypt, Pakistan, England or elsewhere take care of that. ... Even after the attacks of London and Sharm el-Sheikh, which cannot be justified in any way by the Muslim faith or by so much as a single line of the Koran, the terrorism will continue. We probably haven't anything like reached the peak of the violence by Islamic extremists."

"A Schizophrenic War"

Narcotics: While narcotics investigators and social workers in Germany are waging a desperate war against heroin, the German army in Afghanistan is having to look on as the cultivation of poppies flourishes more than it has for years. Almost 90 percent of the world's opium comes from fields in the Hindu Kush.

"Millions from the Jackpot"

Diplomats: Arguments surround the future US ambassador to Berlin - the multimillionaire's own company is profiting by anti-competitive tariffs, which German companies are being forced to pay.

"We Don't Want to Overtake You"

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with Austrian chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel about his reforms as an example for Germany's crisis-ridden economy, the necessary restructuring of the EU and a tougher war against terrorism in Europe:

"Ninety percent of our more than 30,000 companies are small and medium enterprises. That has always been a shield which made us invulnerable to economic crises. They need to be fostered and nurtured. Large-scale enterprises are the driving force behind an economy, and give rise to innovation. But it is the small ones that create jobs. ... I'm not worried about Germany as a business location. It would be quite absurd if Germany and Austria weren't considerably better off after the fall of the Iron Curtain than they were before. We'll manage it. ... We have got to scour through all the EU directives at last and determine which of them are necessary and which are superfluous. Exaggerated rules have got to go. If not, Europe will be unable to survive. ... There are 100 or 200 terrorist cells in Europe at the moment, which could strike at any time. We can only get these networks under control through international cooperation. We have to determine where the funding is coming from, who has been in training camps, where the explosives are coming from. All that can only be done on a European level. The idea of a free trade area is just as dead as the idea of a European super-state."

"The German Special Way"

Linguistics: In years of painstaking work, researchers at the Max Planck Institute have drawn up a world atlas of languages - the first comparative overview of human communication. The atlas is to help blaze trails through the global linguistic jungle. Which features are particularly common, which only occur very rarely? How can regional peculiarities be explained? To what extent do languages influence one another? For a long time, linguists attributed related structures in languages to a common origin. But the atlas reveals that correlation is just as frequently based on contacts between neighbouring, often entirely unrelated tongues.

"Embracing in the Sand"

Wildlife: In California, fish hop ashore to mate. Behavioural scientists face a mystery. The beach visitors are called "grunions". Normally they are scarcely ever seen, either by anglers or deep-sea fishermen. No one knows exactly where in the sea they live, or how. But every year from March to August they drag themselves right up onto dry land approximately every two weeks. On the beach the grunions perform the world's oldest ritual: the females spawn, the males fertilise. Only a handful of fish species reproduce on land, and no other makes such a fuss of it.

"A New Home for the Queen"

The German capital: Berlin's "New Museum", which was partially destroyed in the war, is being rebuilt as the national treasure trove, at a cost of some 300 million euros. But the reconstruction of the magnificent building in the heart of the "Museum Island" is the subject of fierce debate: should it be allowed to be complete, or must it always reek of a ruin? In the 1990s, the architect David Chipperfield won the competition because he intended to restore the building "as completely and authentically as possible". Now there can be no question of that any more. Berlin's Department of Historical Monuments has quietly talked the Briton into a very different concept. And that aims at ruin and decay. The wounds inflicted by the aerial warfare are to remain visible. The opponents are up in arms about this "reliquarisation of war damage". As with Dresden's Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) they are calling for a "scientific reconstruction" of the ruins.

"Crooks' Code of Honor"

Literature: 65 years after Isaac Babel was executed by Stalin's henchmen, the life and missing heritage of the genius from Odessa continue to pose many questions. Increasingly however, researchers scattered throughout the world are uncovering new details about the eternally anachronistic Soviet writer. This community of enthusiasts, which is as small as it is dedicated, is increasingly trying to focus attention on Babel's life as well as his works. Gregory Freidin, a Slavonicist of Soviet origin and translator of Khrushchev's memoirs, has turned Stanford University in California into a centre for Babel research. He is working on a biography entitled "A Jew on Horseback". Universities in the Israeli town of Beersheba and the Siberian city of Omsk are also collecting fragments of the mosaic that makes up Babel's life. The German Slavonicist Reinhard Krumm has now presented the first ever comprehensive Babel biography.

"Nothing about Me Is Fake"

Interview with Chinese movie star Bai Ling about cannibalism, good looks and her part in the film "Dumplings":

"I found it hard to get a feeling for my part, because there's never been anything like it before. I regard the figure I play as being a symbol of modern society; of all the souls wandering around aimlessly, searching for something to give their lives security and meaning. Mei - the cook I play - gives these lost people the self-confidence they lack. ... I wish people would break away from this obsession with youth. Everyone radiates beauty in their own way."

"Message in a Bottle from Baghdad"

Films: With German assistance, the first feature film project from post-war Iraq has reached completion. The material was collected between autumn 2003 and spring 2004, some of it documentary-style forays through the ravaged city, some of it interviews with survivors, some enacted scenes centring around a film director. These are now the foundations of the German-Iraqi cinema film "Underexposure". The title stems from the fact that while shooting the film, apart from the elementary fears about its survival, the team faced the anxiety that when it was developed (at a Kodak lab in Beirut), all the old celluloid might turn out to be "underexposed", meaning that all their efforts, the risks they had taken, and all their passion would have been in vain.