Book traces fate of Cold War defectors who went the 'wrong way'

Sprint queen returns to action in Glasgow after shattering tainted record in London

Danny Boyle's triumphant Olympic opening ceremony has been hailed as one of the most inspiring TV moments of all time second only to the moon landing, according to an audience survey.

Indians did not actually say – as Viv Richards once did after India had beaten the West Indies on an underprepared track in Chennai – "come home and we'll show you". But it was implied after MS Dhoni's men lost the series in England 4-0 last year. Well, England have come, and it is India who are being shown up. It might be too early to write India off in the Kolkata Test, but if the England players take time out to check the price of champagne here, it is understandable.

The Sex Pistols made a deep impression on Frank Willmann. He first listened to their music at home in communist East Germany at the age of 14. By the time he was 17, he belonged to the group of around 900 East German punks who were subjected to almost daily humiliation and insults from the regular police, the Stasi, and ordinary citizens. “We were banned from all the pubs, discos and youth clubs and on the street we were called scroungers,” he recalls.

Greeks and Ukip unite to condemn the award for ‘transforming’ a warring continent

The east Berlin district of Prenzlauerberg is famous for being hip, environmentally conscious and for having one of the highest birth rates in Germany.

The story of Peter Fechter sums up the Cold War's brutality more than most. Fifty years ago this week, the 18-year-old trainee bricklayer was gunned down in a hail of bullets fired by border guards while trying to flee from East Berlin over the city's infamous wall to what was then capitalist West Berlin.

Brandenburg has been stung into action against the far right after a series of incidents at hotels

Answered this week by Andrew Adonis

The old border crossing from East to West, now a tacky tourist trap, is polarising opinion – over its suitability for a museum site

Planning for a soccer equivalent to cricket's IPL has proved difficult, despite the game's popularity, says Andrew Buncombe in Delhi

When writing a recent novel, I spent time thinking about the concept of identity; the idea that people can fool not just their close associates, but even themselves, and literally become the person they believe they are. It became increasingly clear to me that nobody ever really knows another person. And my mind kept returning to John le Carré's 'A Perfect Spy', where the world of spies and double-spies becomes a metaphor for the treachery of the human heart, where identity can become lost and confused in a web of hidden corridors.

The appeal of property in Germany's premier city is outstripping London and Paris