"Outcry in the East"

SPIEGEL cover story: In a coalition of repressed perception, the Chancellor and his challenger Angela Merkel are turning a blind eye at the depressing situation in Germany's eastern states. The East and the West are increasingly moving apart in social and economic terms, yet the political parties are sticking to their old recipes - for fear of the unpredictable East German electorate. The new power of the east is its unpredictability; and the candidates understand the consequences. They don't talk of the problems of the East, they talk of its sensitivities. They talk about challenges and opportunities, about the differences that need to be overcome as quickly as possible, about solidarity and the life achievements of the East Germans. They are playing safe. Systematically they fail to say what is really at stake in the East, that a social and economic time bomb is ticking away in Germany's eastern states.

"Putting the Cart Before the Horse"

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with FDP foreign policy expert Wolfgang Gerhardt about military strikes against Iran, statesmanlike diplomacy, and the chances of a coalition between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP:

"I see no danger of a war in Iran on the horizon. France, the UK and Germany have opted for the path of negotiations and are going to stick to that, supported by America. ... The USA has also made its peace with India and Pakistan, which achieved their status as nuclear powers in violation of the non-proliferation treaty. If that was accepted in their case, one cannot take military steps against another country, especially when it's still engaged in negotiations. ... It isn't necessary to agree with the Bush administration on every issue. ... The United Nations has got to become faster, more powerful and thus more important. ... I have always envisaged a European seat [on the Security Council]. ... Europe needs a constitution, but not a tome that deals with everything imaginable. ... We, the CDU/CSU and the FDP, will win the elections, because this combination is the clearest alternative."

"A Black Eye"

Terrorism 1: The sentence passed on Mounir al-Motassadeq is intended by his Hamburg judges to prove that the German constitution and state are equipped to fight against Islamists, despite all doubts.

"Wine, Whiskey and Weapons"

Terrorism 2: Luai Sakra, a former asylum seeker in Germany, is believed to have supported the terrorists of September 11, even though the intelligence services had him under surveillance very early on. What Sakra has revealed to the officers during his interrogation paints the picture of a career the likes of which is very rarely seen in the world of the jihadi. Should the details be true, they would close the existing gaps in the reconstruction of the worst-ever terrorist attack - but they also pose new questions, which German investigators set out to answer last week. Did Sakra, who lived in the Southern German town of Schrambach as an asylum seeker between September 2000 and May 2001, get support from other helpers in Germany? Are there other, hitherto unidentified accessories with whom the Syrian was in touch? Turkish media report that the CIA had already approached the Syrian twice in the year 2000 and tried to tempt him with money, to get Sakra to cooperate with the US overseas intelligence service.

"The Black Shadow of War"

International law: The International Criminal Court in The Hague is trying to fulfil mankind's dream of peace brought about through justice. The United Nations has assigned the ICC its first case: it is to pass judgement on the barbarian mass killings in Darfur. At least 300,000 people have been killed there; according to experts the barbarian civil war in Sudan is the cruellest war of our times. This trial might prove the feasibility of something that has been attempted again and again since the Nuremberg Trials at the end of World War II, with only moderate success till now: that justice can be used not only to achieve internal security, but also to achieve peace. And everyone at the International Court realises that all of this, world history so to speak, could be decided by this one case, which has only been on the burlwood table of Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, up on the 14th floor, for two months now: the Sudan case.

"Sweet Varieties"

Raw materials: The price of petrol keeps climbing to new record levels. One of the reasons for this is the limited capacity of out-dated US refineries. Crude oil is available in sufficient - though not ample - quantities, but unfortunately it is of the wrong kind. Crude oil from the Persian Gulf is usually heavier and contains more sulphur, and converting it is more laborious. Most refineries have not yet been refitted for the process, but in the long run they will be obliged to undergo conversion. The world's largest reserves lie in regions that mainly produce the more acidic variety.

"Indefatigable"

Side-bar to the cover story: Over and over again it looks as though Karl Marx were dead and buried; yet each time he is resurrected. He is as much a part of capitalism as are its crises, because he dissected the system of "appropriation of surplus-value" as no one else has - yet always remained nice and Utopian. Suddenly, reports and political debates once again contain quotations concluding that capital has now reached the point where Marx saw it 150 years ago - driven, global, universal. In a recent SPIEGEL opinion poll, Marx met with a surprising degree of approval, not only in the east: Karl Marx's criticism of capitalism "still makes sense today", according to 50 percent of West Germans, and as many as 56 percent felt that socialism is "a good idea, which has 'only been poorly implemented' until now" - and his approval ratings were even higher among younger respondents.

"We're in a Great Position"

Entrepreneurs: Low wages and cheap land are attracting not just big companies to Poland. More and more small and medium-sized German enterprises are also trying to make their fortunes here. Foreigners have been allowed to set up or buy firms in Poland since the early 1990s. To do so they needed a Polish partner, or else they had to set up a limited liability company. With Poland's accession to the European Union, these restrictions have been removed. Particularly the tax office is very accommodating to foreign investors: Polish corporation tax is a blissful 19 percent.

"Prattling, Shrilling, Shouting"

Internet: The world of books and the Internet are moving closer together. Over the coming years, on-line retailer Amazon intends to digitise hundreds of thousands of books, the search engine Google is aiming for as many as 15 million. How can Europe stand its ground against the dominance of the American Web giants? The potential is enormous: this is a first step towards a sort of universal library whose doors are open day and night to anyone, whether in Göttingen or in an Internet café in Johannesburg. In April, half a dozen heads of state called upon the President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso to draw up an action plan. But the wheels of European bureaucracy turn slowly. Indeed the question is whether the Europeans are capable of fighting back at all. It seems more likely that the race between America and Europe, between the private and the public sector, will ultimately lead to some form of cooperation. Libraries and publishers would supply content, which they could not tap into alone anyway, and Google would provide the money and the technology.

"Rump Steak without Cattle"

Nutrition: Scientists are striving to produce meat in a Petri dish. In future, steaks, hamburgers, salami and liverwurst could well be grown in bioreactors - benefiting both animals and the environment. The basic idea behind so-called in-vitro meat sounds astonishingly simple: meat consists largely of intermeshing muscle cells, interspersed with fat cells and connective tissue. If these cells could be grown in a laboratory and assembled in the correct proportions, test-tube meat would become a reality. The patent specification on the basis of which research is now being conducted in the Netherlands explains that the product would have the structure and flavour of lean meat, but without animals having to suffer and without any of the religious, ethical or environmental concerns that currently exist.