Never before have there been so many private collectors making extensive acquisitions of contemporary art. Are they the real key figures of a global art business?...
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Since they were published in September last year, the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons have excited responses from every corner. Below we've collected a daily press review, a philosophical analysis, a balanced appraisal by an Islamic scholar, an interview with a Lebanese poet, an open letter by eleven French writers, a statement of indignation and a piece on how it all began.
The twelve Muhammad cartoons
A new Rushdie affair? All of Europe is involved in the controversy over the Danish cartoons: French newspapers, Danish newspapers, Spanish, Belgian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, English, Swedish, German, Portuguese, Slovenian, Swiss, Czech, Austrian, Italian, Polish newspapers... A survey of the European press since December 9, 2005.
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Separating truth and belief
A clash of cultures? No, of mindsets. Philosopher Andre Glucksmann on truth and belief, and why the Danish Muhammad caricatures and cartoons about the Holocaust are two different things.
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Rousing the lethargic bull
Anyone familiar with Middle Eastern literature knows it abounds with jesters who heap scorn on God, the mullahs, and rulers. But if Western media show endless stereotypes of Muslims - hooded men with machine guns and faces distorted with rage - you should not be surprised when hatred escalates and turns violent. By Navid Kermani
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The right to blaspheme
The disconcerting thing about the cartoon conflict is having to remind people that we have the right to commit blasphemy, that picking on the parish priest has long been a national sport. When we talk about anti-Muslim racism, we ask: what race are we talking about? Is Islam genetically transmittable? An open letter by eleven French writers.
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On the heels of the anti-Western reflex
Lebanese poet and writer Abbas Beydoun talks to Bernhard Hillenkamp about the rioting in his country in response to the Danish Muhammad cartoons and the creation of a more general "Islamic" paranoia.
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"What next, bearded one?"
We are offended. Our traditional values have been quashed. Freedom of speech and reason are sacred to us. And let's not forget, the world isn't flat. A wake-up call. By Sonia Mikich.
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Who's afraid of Muhammad?
In September, the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten printed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Some Muslims were not amused. Jörg Lau explains how the seemingly innocent pictures caused an international crisis.
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RSS
Thirty years of superficial reporting by the Western press neglected the build up to the current turmoil in Tehran. Iranians are not risking their lives because of an alleged election fraud last June, but because they have endured thirty years of brutality, humiliation and frustration. By Haideh Daragahi
To advocate the Swiss minaret ban with the arguments of Anne Applebaum, Henryk Broder and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is to apply to the sort of fundamentalist logic which the west left behind - historically speaking - an amazingly short time ago. If we don't want to return to a pre-1648 world, Gustav Seibt argues, what we need now is two-way tolerance.
Claus Leggewie and Harald Welzer have written a book about the end of the world as we knew it. Jan Feddersen grills them on climate change and the role of democracy in a political system that has had no new ideas since the fall of the Wall.
UPDATE: Herta Müller wins the Nobel Prize for Literature 2009. Twenty years after Ceausescu's execution, his secret service is still active - only its name has changed. Secret files are being manipulated; shadowing and smear campaigns continue. For the first time, Romanian-born German writer Herta Müller describes her long history of Securitate persecution, uncertain of how much she has yet to endure.
In local elections at the beginning of the month, the Austrian state of Carinthia effectively granted a governing majority to a dead man. Eva Menasse looks at an idyllically beautiful corner of the world that has been dumbed-down to death. Photo by 
The fatwa against British Indian author Salman Rushdie was issued 20 years ago. Today, says Thierry Chervel, Islamism has the West more firmly in its grip than ever before – thanks to our left-wing intellectuals.
Tunisian-born writer Abdelwahab Meddeb depicts the pain and sadness afflicting Gaza, where the horror of the human race appears in all its nakedness.
The age of privatisation is over. Politics not the market is responsible for promoting the common good. Philosopher Jürgen Habermas talks to Thomas Assheuer about the necessity of an international world order. (Photo: Wolfram Huke)