William Underhill

Science is a fickle master. Only a few years ago nuclear scientist Marco de Baar came close to quitting. His enthusiasm for his chosen field--nuclear fusion--was undimmed, but the prospects were bleak.

Developer Irvine Sellar is thinking big. On the drawing board: a soaring £500 million pyramid right beside the Thames, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano. "We believe that we are creating a building for London that Londoners can be proud of, and one that reflects Britain's position in the world," says Sellar.

David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, washes dishes in the family kitchen. Laundry dries in the background, and a child calls out for attention.

The battlements are authentically medieval, the food distinctively Tuscan. But wander into the industrial district of Prato and the culture switches abruptly.

North Korea is a geostrategic nut that—as diplomats from Beijing, Seoul and Washington have learned—is not easily cracked. What might be done to rein in North Korea's nuclear program?

When Nicky Oppenheimer speaks of his fears for the diamond industry, the world listens. For three generations, his family has dominated the global trade through their control of industry giant De Beers.

Shades of 1956. It began with a mass rally. Then a stone-throwing mob of right-wingers and hoodlums broke into the offices of MTV, Hungary's national TV station, demanding the government's resignation. "It is very, very depressing," says Attila Kert, the Budapest news director, saddled with a €400,000 bill. "This is not the true face of Hungary."Maybe not, but Hungary's true face has been hard to discern.

The Danish angler never saw his killer. Earlier this summer the 62-year-old (whose name was never released by Danish authorities) was fishing with a friend in the Baltic Sea when a microscopic marine bug entered his system, probably through a cut or scrape.

He's the only member of the British cabinet with enough 21st-century savvy to post a blog. His good humor and optimism attract almost as much praise as his brainpower.

As an observer of the British royal family in crisis, Patrick Jephson has few peers. From 1987 until his resignation in 1995, he served Princess Diana first as an equerry (aide) then as her first and only private secretary.Jephson's role made him an intimate witness to the disintegration of her marriage and the breakdown of her relationship with the Buckingham Palace hierarchy.

The campus architecture suggests Arabia, and the surrounding sands stretch to the horizon. But for 350 students, this is a tiny patch of Scotland in the Dubai desert.

Gunter Grass has always liked the pulpit. For more than 40 years, the German author has preached atonement to his fellow countrymen and lectured their leaders on the need to confront openly the misdeeds of the Nazi years.

Eastern Europe is losing its youth--not to age, but to the West. More than 60,000 citizens have quit Latvia since the country joined the European Union two years ago, opening up the labor markets of its neighbors.

It's high summer in London and the city's charms have never seemed so potent. The sun has been shining, the sidewalks are crowded with foreign tourists (whose ranks rose eight percent in the first six months of the year) and stores report that business is healthy.

For several million Spaniards, work began in earnest during the mid-1990s. That's when increasingly business-friendly governments took an ax to the country's traditional (and highly restrictive) labor laws.

By the numbers, Latvians should be smiling. Two years after joining the European Union, the tiny Baltic republic has emerged as the bloc's economic front runner.

Andrew White's parish has been described as the most dangerous on earth. For the past eight years, the 41-year-old Anglican priest and British citizen has been a regular visitor to Baghdad, conducting services and working for peace between the various religious communities there.

Peter Sutherland knows all about the risks and rewards of globalization. The Irish lawyer and politician has served not only as boss of the World Trade Organization but also as a European Union commissioner.

For a Bulgarian, Vasil Ivanov made a risky career choice. He became an investigative reporter for a national TV station, learning plenty about corrupt officialdom and the country's flourishing underworld.

James Lovelock has a modest explanation for his success. At the age of 86, the grand old seer of the environmentalist movement is high on the best-seller lists again with an account of the coming eco-apocalypse.

More than a million guests have attended her garden parties, she's played hostess at over 90 state banquets, visited almost 130 countries and chatted with an unnumbered horde of awed citizens.As she celebrates her 80th birthday Friday, Queen Elizabeth II can take pride in an unrivalled record for meet-and-greet hospitality, an achievement matched only by her ability to defeat her subject's curiosity.

Politics in Dubai is a family affair. And sometimes so is business. Take the case of His Highness Sheik Ahmed bin Saeed Maktoum, chairman of the Emirates Group, a travel conglomerate wholly owned by the state of Dubai.

Good news for Euro-skeptics: a spiritual forefather has been uncovered--an ax-wielding barbarian from the boondocks of first-century Germany, no less. Almost 2,000 years ago the tribal chieftain Arminius thrashed three Roman legions that had strayed into his forests--stopping the civilizing force of the Roman Empire from spreading east of the Rhine and changing the course of history forever.

Charleroi figures on few tourist itineraries. The slag heaps on the skyline stand as monuments to happier times when the town was a center of Belgium's iron and coal industries.

It was every lobbyist's dream. French President Jacques Chirac was persuaded to help, and so was Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell lent a hand, as did Chancellor Gerhard Schroder of Germany.

For Vladimir Spidla, it was sweet vindication. Ever since the European Union took in 10 new members some 20 months ago, he has been preaching the merits of open borders to an audience that wouldn't listen.

Martin Landtman is thinking big. As project director of Finland's next nuclear-power station, he's responsible for his country's largest-ever industrial investment.

The clock tower looks out over a 38-hectare campus graced by an ornamental lake and a pillared central hall. Add a little ivy and it could be almost any respected seat of learning in the West.

Ambassadors are a cagey bunch. Publicly, they speak in the coded language of diplomacy. But what are the somber suits really thinking? Try this: the new members of the European Union are "rude" and "ungrateful." The bloc's Common Agricultural Policy is "the most stupid, immoral state-subsidized policy in human history, give or take Communism." The notion of EU solidarity is "discredited, inefficient and socialistic." The union's bureaucracy is "bollocky" and the European Parliament,...

Tony Blair knows all about loyalty. Without complaint, the British prime minister has taken years of flak for supporting the U.S. on Iraq. In the last month alone he's been tarred as George W.