The words are pronounced in awe of the lady, in admiration of the pragmatic acumen of the lady, in adoration of her political stance and she is held in high esteem indeed.

One instance of her political acumen and straight forwardness in action.

She visited China and had talks with President Hu Jintao in Peiking.

And she did not hesitate to offer official reception to Dalai Lama knowing it would anger China extremely. She stood by her principles.

And China, cancelled scheduled bilateral conferences with Germany.

Towards Israel, that troubled land: she openly declared :

“. . . feel a moral duty to protect Israel and would stand firm in the face of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its threats to wipe the Jewish state off the map;”

” . . . feel honor-bound to fight racism and to foster close ties between Germans and the Jewish community;”

She boldly accepted the most obvious historical fact which former Chancellors, almost always, side tracked:

“It took more than 40 years for Germany as a whole to accept the responsibility it carries to ensure the safety of Israel,” she added.

And went to declare: “Only by accepting Germany’s past can we lay the foundation for the future. Only in as far as we acknowledge our responsibility for the moral catastrophe of Germany’s history can we build a humane future.”

Isn’t that facing troublesome problems in the face?

No wonder she is admired by all and some wish they have had the spunk to say her words in the first place.

She does not skip away having declared her moral stand on a given problem, be it Israel or Iran.

This is not ‘lip service’ but gritty, firm stand on principles on the international political arena.

Her recent talks with Presidents Sarkozy and Bush show her determination.

Angela Dorothea Merkel, nee Kasner, was born on 17 July 1954, in Hamburg, Germany. More details of her are found in the link given in the Resource Box below.

Angela Merkel is the most powerful woman in the world at present.

She is only the third woman to serve on the G8 after Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain and Kim Campbell, Progressive Conservative Prime Minister of Canada (1993).

And in 2007 became the second woman to chair a G8 summit after Margaret Thatcher.

Her father, Horst Kasner, is a Lutheran pastor. And her mother, Herlind, a Teacher of English and Latin. Her mother is also a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.

She has a brother, Marcus, and a sister, Irene.

Angela grew up in the countryside 80 km north of Berlin, in the former East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR).

A former senior member of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union states in his book: ‘Angela’s family travelled freely from East to West Germany, as well as possessed two automobiles.’

This leads to the conclusion that Angela’s father has had a ’sympathetic’ ear of the former communist regime.

Like most pupils, of that time, Angela, was a member of the official, socialist-led youth movement Free German Youth (FDJ).

Her innate talents wouldn’t restrain her.

All in good order, she became a member of the district board and secretary of the movement, at the Academy of Sciences in that organisation.

Angela was educated at the University of Leipzig, where she studied physics.

Later she continued her studies and worked at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences, where she was awarded her doctorate based on a thesis on quantum chemistry.

Here she met and married the chemistry professor Ulrich Merkel. Five years later they divorced but she carries his name to date.

Although she married, Joachim Sauer, quantum chemist and full professor at Berlin’s Humboldt University , six years later, he prefers to persue his own interests than follow his spouse around in her campaigns or celebrations.

In fact it is said: Professor Sauer has a 14-hour workday; he just has a very tight schedule.” Nor, however, “does he want to carry her handbag.” She has no children, but Sauer has two adult sons.

Unlike other head-of-state spouses Sauer is rarely seen at his wife’s side as she carries out her duties as the world’s most powerful woman.

Her irrepressible humane feelings and talent of organizing got her involved in the growing democracy movement after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

She joined a the new party Demokratischer Aufbruch. None of the old ones were good enough for her.

Following the first (and only) democratic election of the East German state, she became the deputy spokesperson of the new pre-unification caretaker government.

That’s a quantum leap for a rookie politician. A writing on the wall for things to come.

In the first election after the reunification of both East and West Germany she was elected to the Bundestag. She has steadfastly remained the constituency’s elected member until today. As other wily politicians she did not change over, with success, to a more comfortable constituency.

Immediately after her east geman party merged with the west German CDU she was made the Minister for Women and Youth in Helmut Kohl’s cabinet. Then she was made Minister for the Environment and Reactor Safety.

Dizzy heights indeed. This ministry gave the protegee of Chancellor Helmut Kohl greater political visibility. Kohl gave her a pet name: “das Mädchen” (”the girl”).

Now comes her faster spin onto greater political heights that carried her to the zenith of Germany’s government.

Her spin up could be followed in greater detail through the 2nd link in Resource Box down.

Angela was named as Secretary-General of her party, CDU, when it was defeated in the 1998 elections. Not a placating appointment, after a defeat, to say the least.

But in the next year itself her mettle was messaged.

The defeated CDU, guided by her, won election victories in six out of seven regional elections. Thus she broke the strangle hold of the SPD-Green on the Bundesrat, the legislative body representing the states.

There followed the infamous party financing scandal that compromised many leading figures. Helmut Khol himself was broiled in the affair.

Angela did not sit back and mope in an apathetic gloom. She jumped into the fray.

She criticized her former mentor,Helmut Kohl. A bold move. She advocated a fresh start for the party without him.

She was elected to replace the chairman, becoming the first female chair of her party.

She won against great odds.

She a female by gender, Protestant by religion, comes from predominanatly protestant northern germany, was selected to lead a political party diametrically opposed to her in its construction.

Her party, CDU, is a male-dominated, socially conservative, with deep Catholic roots, and strongholds in western and southern Germany.

However, her meteoric rise to fame took a severe blow when her own party and coalition partners were out-manoeuvred politically by CSU leader Edmund Stoiber.

He had the privilege of challenging Schröder for the Chancellorship. He squandered a large lead in the opinion polls to lose the election by a razor-thin margin.

Now Angela becomes the leader of the conservative opposition in the lower house of the German parliament, the Bundestag.

She began to support substantial reform strategy for economic and social system. She was considered pro-market, pro-management, pro-nuclear, pro-american than her own party. A novel stand to take indeed.

Angela advocated removing barriers to laying off employees and increasing the number of working hours in a week. In her view existing laws made the country less competitive because companies cannot control labour costs when business is low.

She favoured Germany’s nuclear power to be phased much slower than previous administration had planned.

She preferred a stronger transatlantic partnership and German-American friendship.

She did not hesitate to defy strong public opposition to come out in favour of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. She justified it as “unavoidable” and accused Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of anti-Americanism.

She became the mother of ’skeptical friendship’ when she said: We need the united states, we must work with them but not going to be their lap dog.

She made it very clear, in a straight forward manner: America remains a great ally of Germany but that doesn’t mean we favour Guantanamo Bay, renditions, torture, etc.

In the Turkish Membership in the European Union she criticised the government and favoured a “privileged partnership” instead.

By these unpopular, but pragmatic steps, she was branded as a ‘right-winger’ and an ‘american lackey’. But she weathered the storm and won in the end.

Besides, as a female politician from a centre right party, and a scientist she was compared by many to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and referred her as “Iron Lady”, “Iron Girl” and even “The Iron Frau”.

Thatcher too had a degree in chemistry.

Angela has many firsts to her credit :

1… the first female German chancellor

2… youngest chancellor ever

3… the first from East Germany

4… the first born after World War II

5… and the first with natural sciences.

It was not all plain sailing to chancellorship. She endured her share of distress and disturbances.

Her quality of resilience in the face of defeat is admirable.

She is not at all flamboyant, not showy, not obtrusive, but always gets the job done diplomatically behind closed doors.

It is said that she always writes when others are speaking. A meticulous note taker would, naturally, be short on ’small talk’.

And the victim of malicious rumours started by ‘empty heads’ who tend to talk rather than act.

Economic competence was her central theme in the 2005 national elections. But she confused ‘gross’ and ‘net’ income twice during a televised debate.

She took severe haranguing from the german media for this hiccup of a scientist in an economic field.

But she swung back and regained popularity, when she announced that she would appoint Paul Kirchhof, as Minister of Finance.

Kirchhof was a leading fiscal policy expert. In addition, he was a respected, former judge at the German Constitutional Court. Selection by Merit won her day.

Angela Merkel speaks fluently in three languages. A gift most national leaders of the world lack. She is fluent in German, her mother toungue, English and Russian.

In her office Merkel has a picture of the German-born Russian Empress Catherine the Great, who is described by Merkel as “a strong woman”.

Three of her famous quotes indicate her mind set :

“The question is not whether we are able to change but whether we are changing fast enough.”

“Whoever decides to dedicate their life to politics knows that earning money isn’t the top priority.”

And the third says it all: “We must never forget our responsibilities as politicians to our country and its citizens. We must always remain humble before our people.”

On the innovative side too she is second to none. Merkel launched her video podcast via the Bundeskanzlerin website, making her the first head of government to launch a regular video podcast.

In her field of chemistry and physics she has authored and co-authored many books. And they are highly regarded by her peers.

Her sparkling meteoric rise is one side of the coin.

Some consider her an opportunist who shed her reform programs the minute they were no longer expedient for keeping her in power.

However there are others that speculate she is a brilliant tactician … given the straitjacket imposed by her coalition, she is using her new green and left-of-center politics to expand support among middle-of-the-road voters in order to crush the Social Democrats in the 2009 election.

She rose in ranks at a terrific pace. As minister for women’s affairs, minister of the environment, general secretary, party leader, parliamentary group leader, and many more.

She was quick on the up take and picked up the power that other men, before her, like former chancellor Helmut Kohl and former general secretary Wolfgang Schaeuble, left behind.

At school, it is said in jest, she stood on a diving board, waiting to jump. She stood for a long time. And she took the plunge when the lesson was almost over.

A minister resigned and he went over to Angela for a discussion.

She asked him, “What’s bothering you?”

The minster walked out saying: “It’s impossible to talk to you sensibly.” The conversation lasted one minute.

German industry is growing at double-digit rates now. Some unsocialist economic reforms are the cause.

One million Germans found employment. The jobless rate was cut in two years from its all-time high of 12 percent to less than 9 percent today.

Those over 50 years who had little chance of ever landing a job too are now finding employment.

Germany is once again turning into a nation of growth in Europe.

France under Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany with Angela Merkel have moved closer to US since the Iraq invasion.

The curious thing of the whole thing is that the big three of Europe are reaching a positive position of similarity. Thanks to the unstinting chipping from behind the scene by the unobtrusive architect named: Angela Merkel.

She is pragmatic and cannot help being curt with feet draggers. It is the quality in any strong minded fast moving person.

And Angela is all that. ]]> http://germany-destination.com/news/2008/02/07/the-world-leaders-the-world-loves-the-chancellor-of-germany-angela-merkel/feed/ http://germany-destination.com/news/2008/02/07/getting-married-in-germany-things-you-should-know/ http://germany-destination.com/news/2008/02/07/getting-married-in-germany-things-you-should-know/#comments Thu, 07 Feb 2008 11:17:00 +0000 info articles http://germany-destination.com/news/2008/02/07/getting-married-in-germany-things-you-should-know/ Normally the requirements for non-German citizens to be married in Germany are numerous and can be difficult to meet. The concept of the quick legal marriage as found in Las Vegas is not available in Germany. The best solution to avoiding problems is to have a professional wedding agency arrange the wedding, as they should be aware of all the German requirements. Here are some guidelines for you to follow:

Local Requirements Check with the American and German embassies for local requirements.

Official Documents Needed in Germany Have your passports with you at the ceremony. You will need a long form of your birth certificate - the one with your parent’s names. Have in your possession divorce decrees, annulment decrees, or death certificates if any are pertinent.

Ledigkeitbescheinigung This is a certificate that states there are no impediments to the marriage as both the bride and groom are single. (Ledigkeit - Single) (Bescheinigung - Certificate).

Earnings and Bank Statements The fee for the marriage is commensurate to your financial status. Also, while not required, both the bride and groom may want to see each others documents before the ceremony!

Only Civil Weddings Are Legal The couple must apply to one of four alien registry offices before a Standesamte can perform the ceremony. Religious ceremonies can only be performed after a civil ceremony. Unlike in the United States, you cannot simply get married in a church and be legally married. You must first get married at the registrar’s office and then you can have your church wedding later. Don’t be alarmed though - many of these offices are decorated nicely with flowers and warm atmospheres. Don’t expect to find stained glass and religious themes as they try to keep things as neutral as possible.

One piece of advice: Remember that the ceremony will be in German so it may be handy to have a translator with you.

An Alternative if the requirements for a wedding in Germany seem to be burdensome, consider a three-week vacation in Germany. Select an unforgettable location and record the proposal on film.

If you know that your phone will work in Germany you should find out how much you will have to pay to use it, it can be expensive if it is not a German phone. If you plan to stay in Germany for two weeks or more it may be in your best interest to just buy the cheapest cell-phone that runs off of pre-paid cards you can find. You should be able to find one for around 50 EUR at most phone shops, ie. Telekom, With a pre-paid phone you can use a normal long distance calling card by dialing 0800callatt and reach back home for a reasonable rate.

One good thing about cell-phone use in Germany is that you are not charged for incoming calls. If your friend back home has a good rate to call Germany, have him/her call you and you will not have to pay a penny.

In the very worse case scenario, if you have an emergency, you can contact the police at any time with any cell-phone, with or without a SIM card by just dialing 110. All phone service providers are configured to transmit the signal dialed from 110 even if your phone is not activated and/or does not have a card.

So the beer festival is being held in Berlin for the 57th time. It starts on the 28th of September and finishes on the 14th of October. At Ara, Mozel and Rein this period is a time of grape gathering and young wine festivals. These festivals attract to the regions not only German but also foreign tourists. The festival “culinary fall at the Lane river” is considered one of the most colorful one and it is held within a month: from the 1st till the 31st of October. Here at the “Limburg-on-Lane” is possible to taste Hessen wines and local food of this federal place.

From the 2nd till the 15th of October in Neustadt (Reynald-Pfalz) is being held the main German festival of wine.

But in Weymar situated in Thuringen the 354 onion market – the biggest national festival of the region will be held from the 12th till the 14th of October.

From the 19th of October till the 4th of November is being held the most ancient festival of Germany - the Bremen market. First time it took place 950 years ago and is considered the most national celebration of the southern Germany.

Germany is not the only European country where in Autumn a lot of festivals and celebrations are held. This is actually a strong touristic season for this country.

With some of the largest cities in Europe, Germany offers all travellers a unique experience.

The south of Germany is ideal for the outdoor and adventure type. Within Germany’s border lies a portion of the Alps’ Mountain range; two of Europe’s largest rivers: the Rhine and the Danube; and the scenic Black Forest.

In any of Germany‘s cities a relaxing holiday can be enjoyed at any time of the year. Their large cities are ideal for shoppers. Weekly markets are held in all towns and the Christmas markets usually start at the end of November.

The currency of Germany is the Euro, and visitors from outside the EU zone are entitled to a VAT refund on any non-edible goods that are bought in German shops.

The German people are known for their efficiency, and this is reflected right through their transport system. Their rail system is first class and makes travelling from city to city a true pleasure. Most of the large German cities have an underground rail system with a frequent snappy service.

The climate of Germany differs - in the east the summers are very warm and the winter months are very cold. In the north the weather is very cool during the summer and the winters stay mild.

Autumn is the most popular time to travel to Germany. Most German cities hold culture festivals during September and October. If you travel to Germany during the month of October make sure you visit the city of Munich - here you can experience the largest beer festival in the world and sample some of the best beers that are brewed in Germany.

Music festivals are normally held during the summer and autumn months. Special music festivals are held yearly for famous composers. For Beethoven the festival is normally held in Bonn and in the state of Thuringia a festival is normally held for Bach.

Winter holidays are extremely enjoyable in Bavaria, the largest of Germany’s 16 states, where you can enjoy a skiing break in the Alps and the Black Forest.

With over 2000 museums, Germany has a rich culture in art and literature. Eight Germans have won the Nobel Prize for literature. The month of October also holds another large festival - in the second week of October, Frankfurt holds the largest book fair in the world which attracts writers and publishers from all parts of the globe.

So if you are travelling to Germany you have 14 international airports to choose from - where connecting flights can be made to most German cities.

Neuschwanstein is very familiar to many people because the Sleeping Beauty castle in Disneyland is modeled from it. This castle was begun in 1869 only to be left unfinished in 1886 because of the death of Louis II of Bavaria. It was built as the most famous of three royal palaces in the Bavarian Alps of Germany.

One of the most significant features about this castle is how ahead of its time it was. It had running water on all floors, toilets that were equipped with automatic flushing and a warm heating system for the entire building. Aside from that, it is a beautiful masterpiece that sits on a high point above the Pollat River Gorge for a spectacular viewing.

Another magnificent castle in South Germany is Hohenzollern Castle. For a thousand years, this castle has been the ancestral seat of the House of Hohenzollern, which produced the last emperors of Germany. The castle offers amazing panoramic views of the Swabian Alb and is one of the most beautiful and most popular castles in Germany. It plays host to a wide array of tourist events including concerts, theatres, weddings and more.

If you travel to West Germany you can find the only hilltop castle on the Rhein still existent, Marksburg. This castle has some buildings dating from the 13th to the 18th century consisting of several groups of buildings, ramparts and more all sitting atop a rocky cliff overlooking the river. The museum is breathtaking inside and other tourist events include wedding celebrations, concerts and special events.

Lastly, in North Germany Schwerin Castle set the benchmark for historicist architecture in Europe. The current building was constructed from 1845 to 1857, but still contains older wings. The inside is filled with antique sculptures and paintings, and the museum contains exquisite art objects, paintings, sculptures and more.

Although there are far more castles in South Germany, all throughout Germany contains historical castles worth taking time to visit. The castles throughout Germany are one of the key factors for the amount of tourism that Germany receives, and it is well deserved. All that is left now is for you to take a look at history yourself and plan a trip to Germany.

Some Germans just search the big adventure in the distance. Others are dissatisfied with political decisions in Germany, the cold and rainy weather or simply the kind of living in Germany. However an emigration should be well prepared. It`s not as easy as it seems to be. Often it takes some time, till someone gets a job in the new country. Many Germans have to come back, because they have not enough money for the beginning. Good chances have pensioners, because of their regular income. ]]> http://germany-destination.com/news/2008/02/07/emigrate-from-germany/feed/ http://germany-destination.com/news/2007/06/13/dependencies-bibliography/ http://germany-destination.com/news/2007/06/13/dependencies-bibliography/#comments Wed, 13 Jun 2007 19:25:42 +0000 info About Germany http://germany-destination.com/news/2007/06/13/dependencies-bibliography/ DEPENDENCIES 

Germany has no territories or colonies. 

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