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Ernst Albrecht (politician, born 1930)

Ernst Carl Julius Albrecht (29 June 1930 – 13 December 2014) was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union and a former high-ranking European civil servant. He was one of the first European civil servants appointed in 1958 and served as Director-General of the Directorate-General for Competition from 1967 to 1970. He served as Minister President of the state of Lower Saxony from 1976 to 1990. He was the father of the politician Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission.

Background
Ernst Albrecht was born in Heidelberg, the son of the psychologist, psychotherapist and medical doctor Carl Albrecht, who was known for developing a new method of meditation; the Albrecht family had been among the hübsche ("genteel") families of the Electorate of Hanover as doctors, jurists and civil servants since the 17th century, but his immediate ancestors had been wealthy cotton merchants in Bremen and members of the city-state's Hanseatic elite in the 19th and 20th centuries. His grandmother Mary Ladson Robertson was an American of prominent planter class origin from Charleston, South Carolina, and a descendant of James H. Ladson and several colonial governors.

European Commission, 1958–1970
Ernst Albrecht studied law and economics. In 1958 he moved to Brussels where he became one of the first European civil servants. He initially served as the Chef de Cabinet to the European Commissioner for Competition Hans von der Groeben in the Hallstein Commission, and in 1967, at the age of 37, he became the Director-General of the Directorate-General for Competition.

Business and political career
Albrecht entered politics in his native Germany when he was elected to the Lower Saxon Landtag (parliament) in 1970, and moved to Hanover with his family the following year. From 1971 to 1976, he was member of the management board of Bahlsen.

When Alfred Kubel resigned from the office of State Premier in 1976, Albrecht was unexpectedly elected as his successor. Since he received three more votes than his party had representatives in the Legislative Assembly, some members of the governing coalition SPD and FDP must have secretly voted for him. He was re-elected in state parliament elections in 1978, 1982 and 1986.In 1976, Albrecht made Hans Puvogel his minister of justice. During his tenure, Puvogel was particularly active in combatting notions of more liberal penal and rehabilitation systems. He had already set out justification for his stance in a 1935-1936 doctoral thesis. There, he wrote of the “inheritance of criminal tendencies”, of “constitutionally predisposed criminals” and “inferior people”, who would have to be “eliminated from the community”. “Only a person of value to the race” would have “a right to exist within the national community”.

The state government under Ernst Albrecht used every opportunity to court former Nazis. In a 1978 speech, Deputy Premier Wilfried Hasselmann (CDU) greeted the Association of Knight's Cross Recipients, a league of former Wehrmacht (Hitler's army) officers and SS men, certifying that they had “shown courage and given an example to others”. Hasselmann declared he was “deeply impressed by the solidarity of your order. You have fulfilled your duty as soldiers in an exemplary manner. This will continue to be evident to a younger generation”.

Albrecht is known for the decision to make the County of Lüchow-Dannenberg the state's "nuclear district"; only a radioactive waste dump at Gorleben was realized, however. During his tenure Albrecht was embroiled in an unusually large number of political scandals; most famously, the Celle Hole. In 1980, Albrecht launched a campaign for election as Chancellor, but he lost out to fellow conservative Franz-Josef Strauß. Albrecht did not contest the 1990 state elections. Instead, then-President of the Bundestag and Göttingen Member of the German Bundestag Rita Süssmuth was lead candidate. They had an agreement whereby, if re-elected, Albrecht would continue as Minister-President until 1992, then Süssmuth would take over. Süssmuth lost the 1990 state elections to Gerhard Schröder, who later became Chancellor.

Personal life
Albrecht married Heidi Adele Stromeyer (1928–2002) in 1953. They had seven children, among them politician Ursula von der Leyen and Hans-Holger Albrecht, President & CEO of the international telecom and media group Deezer. A daughter died at age 11 and one son at age 49 of cancer.

His brother was George Alexander Albrecht, a conductor. Ernst Albrecht had Alzheimer's disease since 2003, which was announced to the public in 2008. He died at the age of 84 in Burgdorf in December 2014.

title: Ernst Albrecht (politician, born 1930)


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Mountain laurel

Mountain Laurel or mountain laurel may refer to:

 * Calia secundiflora, Texas mountain laurel
 * Cryptocarya nova-anglica from eastern Australia
 * Kalmia latifolia, from eastern North America
 * Umbellularia californica, from north-western North America

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Mountain laurel


text:
Muhammad VI al-Habib

Muhammad VI al-Habib (محمد السادس الحبيب), commonly known as Habib Bey (الحبيب باي ; 13 August 1858 in Le Bardo – 13 February 1929 in Carthage) was the sixteenth Husainid Bey of Tunis, reigning from 10 July 1922 until 11 February 1929.

His father was Mohamed el-Mamoune Bey, the younger child of Hassine II Bey who had died young in 1861 without ruling when Habib was only three years old, and his mother was a Circassian odalisque named Fatma. His uncle Muhammad III as-Sadiq took charge of his education and married him to the niece of his Grand Vizier Mustapha Ben Ismaïl, his favourite courtier and mainstay of authority in the Regency of Tunis. Made Bey al-Mahalla (Heir Apparent) on 12 May 1906, he succeeded his cousin Muhammad V an-Nasir on 8 July 1922. He was made a Divisional General in the beylical army on the same day he became Bey al Mahalla and was promoted to Marshal when he succeeded to the throne.

Throughout his reign he did not seek to hinder the authorities of the French protectorate, in contrast to the approach of his predecessor. He came to the throne deeply in debt and without any support owing to his coming from a branch of the family that was not close to power. He therefore remained reliant on the good graces of the French Resident General, Lucien Saint.

Nevertheless, the aftermath of the First World War saw a change in relations between France and its colonies. About 80,000 Tunisians, mostly conscripted, had served in the French army, and about 20,000 had been killed or wounded. The Ottoman Empire, which until its dissolution had been the nominal suzerain of the Beys of Tunis, no longer existed. Ideas of self-determination were growing, and the Tunisian national movement regrouped in 1922 with the foundation of the Destour party. The French authorities took a number of political initiatives, establishing consultative councils including the Grand Council and regional (caïdat) councils and introducing new laws allowing some Tunisians to acquire French nationality. These initiatives galvanised the Destourians, prompting Habib Bey to advise Abdelaziz Thâalbi to leave the country if he continued to oppose them.

Habib Bey took part in the inauguration of the Grand Mosque of Paris in July 1926 along with Mouley Youssef of Morocco. He was also the first Tunisian ruler to have his name included in Friday prayers, replacing the Ottoman caliph.

Lucien Saint invited him and his sons Azzedine Bey and Lamine Bey to make a private visit to Marignac in July 1923 and again the following year.

He bought the Zarrouk palace in Carthage where he lived, by the sea, until his death. He was buried in the Tourbet el Bey in the medina of Tunis. He was succeeded by Ahmed Bey.

title: Muhammad VI al-Habib


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List of West European Jews

Apart from France, established Jewish populations exist in the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland. With the original medieval populations wiped out by the Black Death and the pogroms that followed it, the current Dutch and Belgian communities originate in the Jewish expulsion from Spain and Portugal, while a Swiss community was only established after emancipation in 1874. However, the vast majority of the population in the Netherlands and a large proportion of the one in Belgium were murdered in the Holocaust, and much of the modern Jewish population of these countries (as well as of Switzerland) derives from post-Holocaust arrivals from other parts of Europe. Here is a list of some prominent Jews in western Europe, arranged by country of origin.

Belgium

 * Natanel Yatziv, number one athlete in Belgium (Belgian born)
 * Charles Trau (born 2 August 2002)
 * Sacha Fogel, (Founder of Luminol)
 * Chantal Akerman (6 June 1950 – 5 October 2015), director-screenwriter
 * Zora Arkus-Duntov, father of the Chevrolet Corvette (Belgian-born)
 * Gérard Blitz, Olympic water polo medallist, co-founder of Club Med
 * Gérard Blitz, Olympic swimming and water polo medalist
 * Maurice Blitz, Olympic water polo medalist
 * Henri Cohen, Olympic water polo medallist
 * François Englert, Nobel Prize laureate in theoretical physics
 * Leopold Flam, philosopher
 * Louis Frank, politician
 * Diane von Fürstenberg, fashion designer
 * Jean Gol, politician
 * Nico Gunzburg, professor
 * Asriel Günzig, rabbi
 * Camille Gutt, finance minister; head of the International Monetary Fund
 * Paul Hymans, liberal leader; president of the League of Nations
 * René Kalisky, writer
 * Julien Klener, linguist
 * George Koltanowski, chess player
 * Claude Lévi-Strauss, anthropologist (Belgian-born; atheist of Jewish descent)
 * Alfred Loewenstein, financier (Jewish mother)
 * Ernest Mandel, marxist theorist
 * Bob Mendes, writer (Jewish father)
 * Ralph Miliband, political scientist
 * Jacques Ochs, Olympic fencing medalist
 * Chaïm Perelman, philosopher (Polish-born)
 * Ilya Prigogine, chemist (Russian-born), Nobel Prize (1977)
 * Gaston Salmon, Olympic fencing medalist
 * Henry Spira, animal rights activist
 * Elias M. Stein, mathematician (Belgian-born)
 * Marc Schlomo Jizchak Stern, Orthodox rabbi, cantor (de)
 * Gilbert Stork, chemist
 * Olivier Strelli, fashion designer
 * Samy Szlingerbaum, film director, writer, and actor
 * Guy Lee Thys, film director (Jewish mother)
 * Raymond van het Groenewoud, singer-songwriter (Jewish mother)
 * Sandra Wasserman, tennis player

Political figures

 * Alessandro d'Ancona (1835–1914), Senator and mayor of Pisa (1906–1907)
 * Graziadio Isaia Ascoli (1829–1907), linguist and Senator (1886–1890)
 * Luca Barbareschi (born in 1956), actor, director and former member of the Chamber of Deputies (2008–2013)
 * Emanuele Fiano (born 1963), member of the Chamber of Deputies since 2006
 * Giovanni Cantoni (1818–1897), physicist, member of the Chamber of Deputies (1867–1874) and Senator (1876–1880)
 * Furio Colombo (born in 1931), journalist, member of the Chamber of Deputies (1996–2001, 2008–2013) and Senator (2006–2008)
 * Luigi Cremona (1830–1903), mathematician, Senator (1879–1903) and Minister of Public Education (1898–1899)
 * Giuliano Ferrara, (born in 1952), Minister for Parliamentary Relations (1994–1995), member of European Parliament (1989–1994), journalist and founder of Il Foglio
 * Aldo Finzi (1891–1944), fascist member of the Chamber of Deputies (1921–1929)
 * Giuseppe Finzi (1815–1886), patriot and Senator (1860–1886)
 * Vittorio Foa (1910–2008), socialist trade unionist
 * Alessandro Fortis (1842–1909), Italian Prime Minister (1905–1906)
 * Augusto Graziani (1933–2014), economist and Senator (1992–1994)
 * Yoram Gutgeld (born 1959), economist and former member of Chamber of Deputies (2013–2018)
 * Anna Kuliscioff (1857–1925), Russian-born revolutionary feminist
 * Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909–2012), scientist and Senator (2001–2012)
 * David Levi (1816–1898), poet, patriot and Senator (1861–1880)
 * Luigi Luzzatti (1841–1927), Italian Prime Minister (1910–1911)
 * Ernesto Nathan (1848–1921), mayor of Rome (1907–1913)
 * Margherita Sarfatti (1880–1961), journalist and mistress of Benito Mussolini
 * Liliana Segre (born 1930), holocaust survivor and Senator for life since 2018
 * Sidney Sonnino (1847–1922), Italian prime minister (1906, 1909–1910)
 * Umberto Terracini (1895–1983), President of the Constituent Assembly of Italy (1946–1948), Senator (1948–1983)
 * Claudio Treves (1869–1933), politician and writer, grandfather of Carlo Levi
 * Leone Wollemborg (1859–1932), politician and former Minister of Economy

Religious and communal leaders

 * Samuel Aboab (1610–1694), prominent rabbi
 * Aaron ben Gershon abu Al-Rabi or Aronne Abulrabi of Catania (ca. 1400–1450), rabbinic scholar, cabalist and astrologer; called also Aldabi or Alrabi, Aaron was "the first Jew in the history to be invited during a Pontificate to discuss freely and without censorship about religious subjects and papal perplexities; Pope Martin V welcomed him in Rome
 * Barbara Aiello, American-born rabbi active in Italy
 * Benjamin Artom (1835–1879), Haham of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Great Britain
 * Umberto Cassuto (1883–1951), rabbi
 * Abraham Isaac Castello (1726–1789), rabbi
 * Leone Ebreo (1465–1523), Neoplatonic philosopher
 * Amos Luzzatto (1928–2020), writer and former president of the Italian Jewish Communities Union
 * Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (1707–1746), rabbi, scholar, mystic, also known as Ramchal
 * Samuel David Luzzatto (1800–1865), important rabbi and scholar, also known as Shadal
 * Raphael Meldola (1754–1828), rabbi
 * David Nieto (1654–1728), rabbi
 * Riccardo Pacifici (1904–1943), rabbi, murdered in Auschwitz
 * Joseph Pardo (1561–1619), rabbi
 * Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno (1475–1550), rabbi, philosopher
 * Elio Toaff (1915–2015), rabbi and former Chief of Italian Jews Community
 * Isaiah di Trani (ca. 1180–1250), talmudist, rabbi, also known as RID
 * Moses David Vali (circa 1697 – December 17, 1776) biblical commentator, physician, scholar, and Kabbalist from Padua.

Academics

 * Pedigree of Azzopardi
 * Faraj ben Salim, Sicilian physician and translator from Agrigento
 * Mosé Bonavoglia de' Medici, or Bonavoglio de' Medici (died 1447), Sicilian physician from Messina and Dienchelele (Naggid or Dayan kelali = Universal Judge of Sicilian Jews); his Hebrew name was Moses Hefez
 * Michele Besso (1873–1955), Swiss-born engineer
 * Caecilius of Calacte, Sicilian rhetorician from modern Caronìa
 * Laura Capón (1907–1977), physicist
 * Enrico Castelnuovo, art historian and medievalist
 * Gino Fano (1871–1952), mathematician
 * Robert Fano (1917–2016), physicist
 * Ugo Fano (1912–2001), physicist
 * Carlo Ginzburg (born 1939), historian
 * Giovanni Jona-Lasinio (born 1932), physicist (Jewish father)
 * Alberto Jori (born 1965), philosopher (Jewish mother)
 * Giorgio Levi Della Vida (1886–1961), linguist specialized in Semitic languages
 * Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909–2012), neurologist, Nobel Prize (1986)
 * Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909), criminologist
 * Salvador Luria (1912–1991), microbiologist, Nobel Prize (1969)
 * Samuel David Luzzatto (1800–1865), scholar and poet
 * Franco Modigliani (1918–2003), economist, Nobel Prize (1985)
 * Arnaldo Momigliano (1908–1987), Italian-born historian
 * Bruno Pontecorvo (1913–1993), physicist
 * Guido Pontecorvo (1907–1999), geneticist
 * Giulio Racah (1909–1965), physicist
 * Bruno Rossi (1905–1993), astrophysicist
 * Asher Salah (born 1967), historian
 * Cesare Segre (1928–2014), linguistics, semiotics
 * Emilio Segrè (1905–1989), physicist, Nobel Prize (1959)
 * pedigree of Sforno
 * Piero Sraffa (1898–1983), economist
 * Manfredo Tafuri (1935–1994), architectural historian, critic and theorist
 * Ariel Toaff (born 1942), historian
 * Andrew Viterbi (born 1935), inventor of the Viterbi algorithm
 * Bruno Zevi (1918–2000), architectural critic and historian

Mathematicians

 * Emilio Artom (1888–1952), mathematician
 * Eugenio Calabi (1923–2023), mathematician
 * Guido Castelnuovo (1865–1952), mathematician
 * Federigo Enriques (1871–1946), mathematician
 * Gino Fano (1871–1952), mathematician
 * Guido Fubini (1879–1943), mathematician
 * Beppo Levi (1875–1961), mathematician
 * Tullio Levi-Civita (1873–1941), mathematician
 * Beniamino Segre (1903–1977), mathematician
 * Corrado Segre (1863–1924), mathematician
 * Vito Volterra (1860–1940), mathematician

Musicians

 * Mario Ancona (1860–1931), baritone
 * Abramo Basevi (1818–1885), composer and musician
 * Alvise Bassano, musician
 * Anthony Bassano, musician
 * Baptista Bassano, musician
 * Jeronimo Bassano, musician
 * Haim Cipriani (born 1961), violinist and reform rabbi
 * Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895–1968), guitar, classical and synagogal music composer
 * Giacobbe Cervetto (1680–1783), cellist and composer
 * Lorenzo Da Ponte (born Emanuele Conegliano, 1749–1838), opera librettist (born Jewish, raised Catholic)
 * Abramo dall'Arpa (died 1566), harpist
 * Abramino dall'Arpa (fl ca. 1577–1593), harpist
 * Aldo Finzi (1897–1945), composer
 * Obadiah the Proselyte, musician
 * Salamone Rossi (ca. 1570–1630), baroque composer
 * Victor de Sabata (1892–1967), conductor (Jewish mother)
 * Leone Sinigaglia (1868–1944), composer

Writers

 * Devorà Ascarelli, poet and translator
 * Giorgio Bassani, author
 * Angela Bianchini, fiction writer
 * Riccardo Calimani, fiction writer and historian
 * Enrico Castelnuovo, father of Guido
 * Moses Chayyim Catalan, poet
 * Lorenzo Da Ponte (born Emanuele Conegliano), opera librettist (born Jewish, raised Catholic)
 * Leonardo de Benedetti, physician and writer
 * Manuela Dviri, writer
 * Alain Elkann, writer and journalist, father of John, Lapo and Ginevra
 * Carlo Ginzburg, historian, writer, essayist and pioneer of microhistory
 * Leone Ginzburg, writer (born in Ukraine)
 * Natalia Ginzburg (born Levi), author (Jewish father), wife of Leone and mother of Carlo
 * Arrigo Levi, writer, journalist and TV anchorman
 * Carlo Levi, writer, painter and physician
 * Primo Levi, chemist and author
 * Carlo Michelstaedter, philosopher
 * Lisa Morpurgo Dordoni, writer, astrologer
 * Paolo Mieli, journalist, historian and director of Corriere della Sera
 * Liana Millu, writer
 * Alberto Moravia (born Pincherle), author (Jewish father)
 * Laura Orvieto, writer
 * Alessandro Piperno, writer
 * Umberto Saba, poet (Jewish mother)
 * Donato Sacerdote, poet
 * Rubino Romeo Salmonì, writer
 * Roberto Saviano, writer, journalist (Jewish mother)
 * Clara Sereni, writer
 * Italo Svevo (born Schmitz), author
 * Humbert Wolfe, poet and civil servant
 * Aldo Zargani, writer
 * Guido Bedarida, writer

Artists

 * Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, actress
 * Vito D'Ancona, painter
 * Cristiana Capotondi, actress (half Jewish)
 * Gioele Dix (b. Davide Ottolenghi), actor and comedian
 * Ginevra Elkann, film director, sister of John and Lapo
 * Arnoldo Foà, actor
 * Massimiliano Fuksas, architect (Jewish father)
 * Vittorio Gassman, actor (Jewish mother)
 * Alessandro Haber, actor
 * Carlo Levi, writer, painter and physician
 * Leo Lionni
 * Emanuele Luzzati, painter
 * Anna Magnani, actress (Jewish mother)
 * Amedeo Modigliani, painter and sculptor
 * Ernesto Nathan Rogers, architect, critic and editor
 * Moni Ovadia, theatre figure
 * Gillo Pontecorvo, director
 * Xenia Rappoport, actress
 * Bruno Zevi, architect

Business

 * Carlo De Benedetti (born 1934), industrialist, ex-CEO of FIAT, Olivetti, CIR Group, ex-deputy chairman of Banco Ambrosiano and ex-president of Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso
 * John (born 1976) and Lapo Elkann (born 1977), Vice Chairman of Fiat (Jewish father)
 * Adriano Goldschmied (born 1944), fashion designer known as the "godfather of denim" who created Diesel, Replay, and AG Adriano Goldschmied; currently directing Goldsign and men's Citizens of Humanity
 * Moses Haim Montefiore (1784–1885), financier and philanthropist
 * Adriano Olivetti (1901–1960), son of Camillo, industrialist and social activist
 * Camillo Olivetti (1868–1943), founder of Olivetti typewriters
 * Guy Spier (born 1966), author and investor

Other

 * Eugenio Calò (1906–1944), Jewish partisan awarded the gold medal for military valour, murdered by the Nazis
 * Angelo Donati (1885–1960), banker who protected Jews in Southern France during Italian occupation in 1942–43
 * Mario Finzi (1913–1945), partisan (murdered in Auschwitz in 1945)
 * Camila Giorgi (born 1991), tennis player
 * Riccardo Ehrman (1929–2021), journalist
 * Gad Lerner (born 1954), TV anchorman and journalist
 * Gillo Pontecorvo (1919–2006), filmmaker
 * Giorgio Liuzzi (1895–1983), Chief of the Staff of the Italian Army from 1954 to 1959
 * Renato Mannheimer (born 1947), pollster, president of IPSO
 * Maurizio Molinari (born 1964), journalist and essayist
 * Edgardo Mortara (1851–1940), boy kidnapped by Catholic Papal authorities
 * Fiamma Nirenstein (born 1945), essayist, journalist and MP for PDL (elected in 2008)
 * Enzo Sereni (1905–1944), Zionist and partisan, executed in Dachau concentration camp

Luxembourg

 * Hugo Gernsback, science-fiction pioneer (unconfirmed)
 * Emil Hirsch, reform rabbi
 * Gabriel Lippmann, French physicist (Luxembourg-born)
 * Arno Joseph Mayer, historian

Monaco

 * Franz Schreker, composer (Jewish father)

Switzerland

 * Maurice Abravanel, conductor
 * Jeff Agoos, US soccer international
 * Ernest Bloch, composer
 * Felix Bloch, physicist, Nobel Prize (1952)
 * Alain de Botton, writer
 * Albert Cohen, novelist
 * Arthur Cohn, film producer
 * Ruth Dreifuss, Swiss president (1999)
 * Camille and Henri Dreyfus, inventors of Celanese
 * Al Dubin, lyricist
 * Jean Dunand-Gotscho, sculptor, painter, lacquerer
 * Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel Prize (1921)
 * Edmond Fischer, biochemist, Nobel Prize (1992) (Jewish father)
 * Robert Frank, photographer
 * Meyer Guggenheim, businessman
 * Jeanne Hersch, philosopher
 * Frank Key, writer
 * Mathilde Krim, AIDS researcher (convert)
 * Dani Levy (born 1957), filmmaker, theatrical director and actor
 * Rolf Liebermann, Swiss music administrator and composer
 * Méret Oppenheim, surrealist artist
 * Rachel, stage actress (Swiss-born)
 * Tadeusz Reichstein, chemist, Nobel Prize (1950)
 * Tibor Rosenbaum, rabbi and businessman
 * Edmond Safra, banker
 * Jean Starobinski, literary critic
 * Sigismond Thalberg, pianist and composer
 * Regina Ullmann, poet
 * Charles Weissmann, biochemist
 * Alain and Gérard Wertheimer, owners of Chanel

Politicians

 * John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons
 * Leon Brittan, Conservative Member of Parliament and Home Secretary
 * Benjamin Disraeli, British Conservative Prime Minister; converted to Anglicanism at age 12
 * Greville Janner, Labour Member of Parliament
 * Tim Judah, journalist and historian
 * Peter Mandelson, Labour Member of Parliament
 * David Miliband, politician, Labour Party (UK)
 * Ed Miliband (2005–present), Labour MP for Doncaster North and former Leader of the Labour party
 * Charlotte Nichols (2019–present) Labour MP for Warrington North
 * Andrew Percy (2010–present), Conservative MP for Brigg and Goole
 * Lucy Frazer (2015–present), Conservative MP for South East Cambridgeshire
 * Ruth Smeeth (2015–2019), Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent North
 * Alex Sobel (2017–present), Labour MP for Leeds North West
 * Nicola Richards (2019–present), Conservative MP for West Bromwich East
 * Ian Levy (2019–present), Conservative MP for Blyth Valley
 * Dominic Raab (2010–present) Conservative MP for Esher and Walton

Actors

 * Tamsin Greig, actress and comedian
 * Tom Rosenthal, actor, comedian and writer
 * Georgia Slowe, actress
 * Sophie Okonedo, actress and singer
 * Paul Kaye, actor and comedian
 * Jason Isaacs, actor
 * Helena Bonham Carter, actress
 * David Baddiel, actor, comedian, writer and novelist
 * Rachel Weisz, actress
 * Matt Lucas, actor, comedian and writer
 * James Callis, actor
 * Sacha Baron Cohen, actor, comedian, writer, director and film producer
 * Edward Skrein, actor, rapper, film director and screenwriter
 * Daniel Radcliffe, actor and producer
 * Julian Morris, actor
 * Aaron Taylor-Johnson, actor and screenwriter
 * Gregg Sulkin, actor
 * Isobel Powley, actress

Religious and communal leaders

 * Elyakim Schlesinger, rabbi
 * Danny Rich, Liberal rabbi
 * Alexandra Wright, Liberal rabbi
 * Isidor Grunfeld, Orthodox rabbi
 * Miriam Berger, Reform rabbi

Other

 * Jacob Rothschild, banker

title: List of West European Jews


text:
Coeluridae

Coeluridae is a historically unnatural group of generally small, carnivorous dinosaurs from the late Jurassic Period. For many years, any small Jurassic or Cretaceous theropod that did not belong to one of the more specialized families recognized at the time was classified with the coelurids, creating a confusing array of 'coelurid' theropods that were not closely related. Although they have been traditionally included in this family, there is no evidence that any of these primitive coelurosaurs form a natural group with Coelurus, the namesake of Coeluridae, to the exclusion of other traditional coelurosaur groups.

Classification
Before the use of phylogenetic analyses, Coeluridae and Coelurosauria were taxonomic wastebaskets used for small theropods that did not belong to other groups; thus, they accumulated many dubious genera. As late as the 1980s, popular books recognized over a dozen "coelurids", including such disparate forms as the noasaurid Laevisuchus and the oviraptorosaurian Microvenator, and considered them descendants of the coelophysids. A wastebasket Coeluridae lingered into the early 1990s in some sources (and appears in at least one 2006 source) but since then it has only been recognized in a much reduced form.

In 2003, O.W.M. Rauhut, using a cladistic analysis, found Coeluridae to include Coelurus (Late Jurassic, North America), Compsognathus (Late Jurassic, Europe), Sinosauropteryx (Early Cretaceous, Asia) and an unnamed Compsognathus-like form (Early Cretaceous, South America; this dinosaur has since been placed in the new genus Mirischia). Rauhut considered coelurids to be a monophyletic group of basal coelurosaurs, characterized by evolutionary reversals in some aspects of the vertebrae to the more primitive theropod condition. However, he and other authors have not since found this result. Phil Senter proposed in 2007 that Coelurus and Tanycolagreus were the only coelurids, and were actually tyrannosauroids.

Coeluridae received a formal phylogenetic definition in 2015, when it was defined as all species more closely related to Coelurus fragilis than to Proceratosaurus bradleyi, Tyrannosaurus rex, Allosaurus fragilis, Compsognathus longipes, Ornithomimus edmontonicus, or Deinonychus antirrhopus by Hendrickx, Hartman and Mateus. It remains unclear whether or not this group contains any species other than Coelurus itself, and while Tanycolagreus is often included, support for this relationship has been weak in most of the studies that recovered it.

In 2024, Cau recovered Coeluridae as the basalmost family of maniraptoromorphs, including few of its traditional members; in addition to Coelurus, it contains Shishugounykus (traditionally a basal alvarezsaur), Phuwiangvenator and Vayuraptor (sometimes considered to be early megaraptorans), Fukuivenator (sometimes considered to be a basal therizinosaur), and Migmanychion. The results of his phylogenetic analysis are displayed in the cladogram below:

title: Coeluridae


text:
Category:Vauxhall vehicles

This category contains automobiles sold under the Vauxhall marque.

title: Category:Vauxhall vehicles


text:
Gerhard Glogowski

Gerhard Glogowski (born 11 February 1943) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Education
Born in Hanover, Glogowski finished public school in Bonn and later completed an apprenticeship as toolmaker. In parallel, he attended night school where he finished his Abitur. Then he studied at the University of Economics and Politics in Hamburg until the end as a graduate economist.

Political career
Glogowski grew up in Bonn, his father was a chauffeur of the SPD politician Herbert Wehner and Erich Ollenhauer.

Since 1960, Glogowski is member of the IG Metall.

Glogowski started his political career in 1972 as Mayor of the city district of Waggum in Brunswick. He changed in 1976 upon the chair as Lord Mayor of Brunswick until 1981 and again from 1986 until 1990.

In the meantime, Glogowski was elected as an MP of Lower Saxony in 1978. He maintained the position until 2004.

After the state election in 1990, he was interior minister of Lower Saxony from 21 June 1990 until 27 October 1998 in Gerhard Schröder's cabinet. He succeeded Schröder as Prime Minister of Lower Saxony from 28 October 1998 until 26 November 1999. Glogowski stepped back from this office after various financial irregularities had become public; among other issues, he was accused of accepting coffee and beer for a private party from local companies.

Life after politics
After seven and a half years as president of Eintracht Braunschweig, Glogowski was elected honorary president of the club in 2007.

On 18 December 2007, the Council of the City of Brunswick voted for Glogowski to be awarded the honorary citizenship of Brunswick. The appointment took place on 11 February 2008.

In 1998, Glogowski declared about the far-right political parties in Germany:

""There is no difference between NPD, DVU and Republicans (German REP). To me they are all part of the right-wing radical swamp. That means it's like sorting shit by smell.""

title: Gerhard Glogowski


text:
Category:SEAT vehicles

This category contains automobiles sold under the Volkswagen Group marque, SEAT.

title: Category:SEAT vehicles


text:
Moncef Bey

Muhammad VII al-Munsif, (محمد السابع المنصف; 4 March 1881 in La Manouba – 1 September 1948 in Pau) commonly known as Moncef Bey (المنصف باي) was the Bey of Tunis between 19 June 1942 and 14 May 1943. He was the penultimate ruler of the Husainid dynasty.

Youth

As a young man Moncef Bey distinguished himself during the events of April 1922 when he supported the nationalist Destour movement and prevailed on his father Naceur Bey to receive its representatives. He was invested as Bey al-Mahalla on 30 April 1942 and succeeded his first cousin once removed, Ahmed Bey, on the latter's death on 19 June of the same year.

Relations with the Vichy regime
On 2 July 1942, Moncef Bey was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur by the Vichy regime. Nevertheless, his attitude on the throne was not one which France found easy to deal with. Thus, in a memorandum of 2 August 1942 to Marshall Pétain presented by his Grand Vizier Hédi Lakhoua he reaffirmed his belief in Tunisian sovereignty, undiminished by the French protectorate. He insisted on the establishment of a consultative legislative Council in which Tunisians would predominate; access to civil service roles for Tunisians, and measures against poverty and unemployment. He also wanted compulsory schooling in Arabic, the nationalisation of key enterprises, and a range of other measures of a broadly nationalist character.

On 12 October 1942 at the Eid al-Fitr ceremonies in the palace of La Marsa, Moncef Bey expressed his surprise that there was not a single Tunisian among the senior government personnel who were attending with the French Resident General, Admiral Jean-Pierre Esteva. Esteva replied 'seuls les Français sont aptes aux postes de commande' ('only the French are suited to positions of authority'). The Bey then sent a telegram to Marshal Pétain asking for Esteva to be recalled. and tension continued to mount between the Bey and Esteva In December 1942, a confrontation blew up during a session of the Council of Ministers between Esteva and the Minister of Justice Abdeljelil Zaouche, after the Minister expressed reservations about funding for the National Gendarmerie and Esteva angrily rejected any criticism of the gendarmerie. Moncef Bey considered that the Resident General's tone was an insult to his representative and thus to his own person.

Axis troops arrived in Tunisia on 19 November 1942 and the Tunisian Campaign turned much of the country into a battlefield. Moncef Bey was confronted by demands from Pétain to remain loyal to France and from Roosevelt to allow free passage for Allied troops. Moncef Bey proclaimed Tunisian neutrality while secretly informing Roosevelt that Tunisia would support the Allies. He also refused an offer from the Italian ambassador Bombieri to repudiate the Treaty of Bardo and enter into a new treaty with Italy.

On 1 January 1943 the Bey named as his new Prime Minister Mohamed Chenik, who was described as 'half-American' by the German representative Rudolf Rahn. Chenik headed a government which included the Destourian Salah Farhat, the neo-destourian Mahmoud El Materi and an independent, Aziz Djellouli.

Protector of the Jews
His predecessor Ahmed Bey was often referred to as 'the Bey of the French' and signed several decrees prepared by the Vichy regime which were detrimental to the Jewish community in Tunisia. Moncef Bey on the other hand was referred to as 'the Protector of the Jews' and made efforts to ensure that these decrees were not put into effect. He also refused to sign any other anti-Jewish decrees, including those requiring Jews to wear the yellow star, or to undertake forced labour, or to exclude Jews from certain activities. Between November 1942 and May 1943, while Axis troops occupied the country, he intervened repeatedly to protect his people, particularly the Jewish community, from their exactions.

Deposition and exile

When Allied troops occupied Tunis, the French colonial lobby around Henri Giraud, including the former Resident General and Vichy minister Marcel Peyrouton, found a pretext to accuse the Bey of collaborating with Axis forces. After Esteva fled, General Alphonse Juin became acting Resident General. On 13 May 1943, on the orders of Giraud, Juin demanded the Bey's abdication, but he refused. The following day he was removed by a decree from Giraud and flown out of the country by the French airforce. He was succeeded by his second cousin, Lamine Bey, on 15 May 1943.

Moncef Bey was sent to Laghouat in southern Algeria, where he formally abdicated on 8 July. He was then moved to the small town of Ténès, in the north of the country and on 17 October 1945 he was moved again to Pau where he remained until his death on 1 September 1948. His remains were brought back to Tunis and he was buried with full honours in the Jellaz Cemetery unlike other ruling members of his family, who were mostly buried in Tourbet el Bey.

He is commemorated today in the Place Moncef-Bey in La Marsa, formally named on 1 September 2012 by President Moncef Marzouki.

Family and private life
Muhammad VII al-Munsif was the son of Muhammad V an-Nasir. He married Lalla Traki Beya, daughter of Muhammad IV al-Hadi (and thus his second cousin) in October 1900 in Sidi Bou Saïd. She was the mother of his four children:

 * Prince Salaheddine Bey (1902-1938)
 * Prince Mohammed Raouf Bey (1903-1977)
 * Prince Omar Bey (1904-1938)
 * Princess Lalla Farida (1911-?)

After Lalla Traki's death in 1919 he married Lalla Zoubaida (née Azzouz) and then another cousin, Lalla Habiba (1888-1969), whom he divorced. His last wife was Lalla Arbiya in August 1942, and she followed him into exile, dying in 1974.

title: Moncef Bey


text:
Patni Computer Systems

Patni Computer Systems Limited was a provider of IT services and business solutions founded by Narendra Patni. It merged with IGATE Corporation in 2011 and operated under the name IGATE Patni until 2012. The company has employed over 18,000 people in 23 international offices across the Americas, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region, as well as offshore development centres in eight cities in India. Patni's clients included more than 360 Fortune 1000 companies.

Acquisition by iGATE Corporation
On 10 January 2011, iGATE announced that it had reached a definitive agreement to buy shares of the major shareholders of Patni Computer Systems Limited. These shares comprise 63% of Patni's total outstanding shares. This created an enterprise with close to $1b in revenues and 25,000 in headcount.

The proposed acquisition of the shares was subject to regulatory requirements and iGate was required to make an 'Open Offer' to acquire additional 20% of Patni's shares from the open market. Changes in the shareholding took place upon fulfillment of all the obligations under the Open Offer process.

Acquisitions and OEM agreements

 * April 2003: Acquired "The Reference Inc.", a company incorporated in Massachusetts, USA for a consideration of about US$7.5 million, through its wholly owned US subsidiary, Patni Computer Systems Inc. The Reference Inc. has provided Patni with specialised skills and domain expertise in the financial services industry segment.
 * August 2004: Patni and InteQ Corporation announced an OEM agreement which would enable Patni to provide more extensive Infrastructure Management Services (IMS) and further tap into the expanding IMS market estimated to reach $19.5 billion by 2007.
 * November 2004: Acquired "Cymbal Corporation" for a sum of inr 3000000000 million. Cymbal's acquisition allowed Patni to enter the IT services market in the telecom vertical, gaining expertise and operations in the provision of services to clients in the telecommunications industry.
 * June 2006: Acquired "ZAiQ Technologies", a design and verification company, in Woburn, Massachusetts. Through the transaction, Patni obtained ZAiQ's Application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design capabilities and Intellectual Property (IP), as well as expertise in Field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and System-on-a-chip (SoC) technologies.
 * July 2007 : Acquired Europe-based "Logan-Orviss International (LOI)", a leading independent specialist telecommunications consulting services company. The consideration includes an upfront cash payment on completion of the transaction as well as performance-linked incentive payments on achieving financial targets over a three-year period. LOI ended a profitable year with revenues of Euro 11.8 Million in 2006.
 * July 2007 :Acquired N.J.-based "Taratec Development Corp." through Patni Computer Systems Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of the company, for an aggregate price of $27.2 million in cash including contingent consideration. With more than $20m in annual revenue, Taratec is a leading consulting company in the life sciences industry providing integrated business, information technology, and regulatory compliance products and services.

title: Patni Computer Systems


text:
Talk:Jassa falcata

Untitled
The article and the title says falcata but the table says factata twice. Is this a typo or a variant name the article neglects to mention? —Muke Tever 15:17, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

title: Talk:Jassa falcata


text:
Sigmar Gabriel

Sigmar Hartmut Gabriel (born 12 September 1959) is a German politician who was the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2017 to 2018 and the vice-chancellor of Germany from 2013 to 2018. He was Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 2009 to 2017, which made him the party's longest-serving leader since Willy Brandt. He was the Federal Minister of the Environment from 2005 to 2009 and the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy from 2013 to 2017. From 1999 to 2003 Gabriel was Minister-President of Lower Saxony.

He represented Salzgitter – Wolfenbüttel in the Bundestag.

Gabriel is a member of the Seeheimer Kreis, an official internal grouping of the party with liberal economic positions.

Early life and education
Gabriel was born in Goslar, West Germany, son of Walter Gabriel (1921–2012), a municipal civil servant, and Antonie Gabriel (1922–2014), a nurse. Gabriel's parents divorced in 1962, and for the next six years he lived with his father and grandmother Lina Gabriel, while his sister lived with their mother. After a lengthy custody battle his mother was awarded custody for both children in 1969.

Gabriel's father was a Lutheran originally from Hirschberg im Riesengebirge in Silesia (now Poland), while his mother was a Catholic originally from Heilsberg in the Ermland (Warmia) region of East Prussia who had most recently lived in Königsberg; both parents came as refugees to West Germany during the flight and expulsion of Germans at the end of the Second World War. Sigmar Gabriel has described his family history as a "wild story of flight and expulsion" and noted that his parents dealt with the trauma of expulsion in different ways. According to Gabriel, his father was physically and emotionally abusive to him and was an enthusiastic supporter of the national socialist ideology "until his dying breath;" However, Walter Gabriel never saw active service during the war due to suffering from polio. His mother was involved in relief and solidarity work for Poland during the period of martial law in Poland.

Sigmar Gabriel attended school in Goslar, and served as a soldier in the German Air Force from 1979 to 1981. He studied politics, sociology and German at the University of Göttingen from 1982 and passed the first state examination as a grammar school teacher in 1987 and the second state examination in 1989.

Political career
Gabriel joined the SPD in 1977 and soon held a number of positions in local politics. In 1990, he was first elected to the State Parliament of Lower Saxony, where he led the SPD parliamentary group from 1998 until 1999.

Minister-President of Lower Saxony, 1999–2003
On 15 December 1999, after the resignation of Gerhard Glogowski, who had succeeded Gerhard Schröder in office, Gabriel became Minister-President of Lower Saxony. He had previously won an internal party vote against Wolfgang Jüttner and Thomas Oppermann. He served until 4 March 2003. During these years, he was widely presented as a protégé of Schröder, and even as a possible successor as chancellor.

After being voted out of office in 2003, Gabriel became the SPD's "Representative for Pop Culture and Pop Discourse" from 2003 to 2005, for which he was bestowed the nickname Siggi Pop.

Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, 2005–2009
He was elected in Salzgitter – Wolfenbüttel in the 2005 federal election.

From 2005 to 2009 Gabriel was the Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in the first cabinet of Angela Merkel (CDU).

During his time in office, Gabriel promoted the International Renewable Energy Agency. He also led the German delegation to the 2006 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Nairobi. In 2007, when Germany held the presidency of the Council of the European Union, he led the negotiations between European Union environment ministers on an ambitious effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels. That same year, he accompanied Merkel on a two-day visit to Greenland to see the Ilulissat Icefjord, a UNESCO world heritage site, and the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier in order to get a firsthand look at the effects of global warming.

Opposition leader, 2009–2013
Following the SPD's defeat in the federal election of 2009, Franz Müntefering resigned from the position of party chairman of the Social Democratic Party. Gabriel was nominated as his successor and was elected on 13 November 2009. He was re-elected as party chairman for a further two years at the SPD party conference in Berlin on 5 December 2011, receiving 91.6 percent of the vote.

During his early years as chairman, Gabriel pushed through internal party reforms. He abolished the party steering committee in favor of an expanded executive committee and led the regular party conventions, the most important meetings for the party. He also played a critical role in founding the Progressive Alliance in 2013 by canceling the SPD payment of its £100,000 yearly membership fee to the Socialist International in January 2012. Gabriel had been critical of the Socialist International's admittance and continuing inclusion of undemocratic "despotic" political movements into the organization.

For the 2013 federal election, Gabriel was considered a possible candidate to challenge incumbent Chancellor Angela Merkel but deemed too “unpopular and undisciplined” at the time. As a consequence, he and the other members of the party's leadership agreed to nominate Peer Steinbrück after Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the party's parliamentary leader, withdrew from the contest.

During the election campaign, Gabriel became the first SPD leader to address a party convention of Alliance '90/The Greens; in his speech, he called for a red–green alliance to defeat Merkel in the elections.

Vice-Chancellor and Federal Minister, 2013–2018
In 2013, Gabriel turned the Social Democrats’ third successive defeat to Angela Merkel in the federal election into a share of government, after successfully navigating the three-month process of coalition negotiations and a ballot of about 475,000 party members, who endorsed the accord. At the time, he was widely considered to have negotiated skillfully, particularly considering the relative weakness of his party, which had received just over 25 percent of the vote in the elections, against more than 41 percent for Merkel's conservative bloc.

At an SPD convention shortly after the elections, however, Gabriel and the other members of the party's leadership were punished by delegates who re-elected them to their posts with reduced majorities; he received 83.6 percent of members’ ballots after 91.6 percent at the previous vote in 2011.

Gabriel, who serves as vice-chancellor in the third Merkel cabinet, took on responsibility for Germany's energy overhaul as part of a newly configured Economy Ministry. Since late 2016, he has been a member of the German government's cabinet committee on Brexit at which ministers discuss organizational and structural issues related to the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union.

As Minister of the Economy in 2014, Gabriel tried to choke the exports of the German defence industry.

Speculation about Gabriel's future as leader of the SPD has been brewing since he registered just 74 percent in a party delegates' vote of confidence in December 2015 – the lowest for an SPD leader in 20 years. On 24 January 2017 Gabriel announced that we will not run as candidate for chancellor in 2017; instead, he proposed that Martin Schulz become candidate and replace him as party chairman.

Gabriel also announced that he would succeed Frank-Walter Steinmeier as Minister for Foreign Affairs. He took office on 27 January 2017, the previous Parliamentary State Secretary Brigitte Zypries followed Gabriel as Federal Minister of Economic Affairs and Energy.

At the Munich Security Conference in February 2017 Gabriel called on NATO members, rather than focus mainly on traditional defense, to focus more on the "root causes of conflict" such as "poverty and climate".

Gabriel proposed in March 2017 that expenses such as development aid should be considered as part of the NATO 2% GDP defense expenditure guideline. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg later responded that development aid cannot be part of defence spending.

As Foreign Minister Gabriel has said Germany's "arms will remain outstretched" to the US to continue the trans-Atlantic alliance between the two countries. However he has said that Germany will step into global markets the US abandons and take on a bigger role on the international stage if Donald Trump continues his protectionist and isolationist policies.

Life after politics
Since leaving public office, Gabriel has taken on various paid and unpaid positions.

In 2018, Gabriel was among six of 11 candidates nominated by Siemens to join the board of directors of Siemens Alstom, a planned merger of two railway companies; he ended up not taking the office when the merger was prohibited by the European Commission amid competition concerns. Also in 2018, the German government's ethics committee rejected his request to join the supervisory board of Kulczyk Investments, citing potential conflict of interest. In 2019, he rejected an offer to become the head of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) after media reports that he was in line for the post caused a public outcry and prompted accusations of nepotism.

In June 2019 he said Donald Trump is right to criticize China and to negotiate with North Korea.

Gabriel has been chairman of the Atlantic Bridge and member of the Trilateral Commission as well as the European Council on Foreign Relations. He has also been a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group since May 2018 and since March 2019 the advisory board of Deloitte. In the summer semester of 2018, he was a lecturer at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and for three weeks in the fall of 2018 a visiting lecturer at Harvard University. Since November 2019, he has been working at Eurasia Group as a political consultant.

On 24 January 2020, Deutsche Bank nominated him for a seat on the supervisory board of its financial institution. This announcement caused partly critical reactions. For example, Abgeordnetenwatch demanded a grace period of three years for such a change, arguing that it would harm the understanding of democracy if Gabriel less than two years after his departure as vice chancellor "now silvering his address book to Deutsche Bank, which he could fill so bulging only as a representative of the people". On 20 May 2020, Gabriel was elected as a member of the Integrity Committee of Deutsche Bank to the supervisory board of the same company.

By his own account, Gabriel worked as a consultant for Tönnies Holding from March to the end of May 2020. According to Gabriel, he was to find out what trade restrictions were planned for meat products when exporting to Asia in the wake of African swine fever and how export permits could still be obtained.

Since 2020, the German-Israeli Future Forum Foundation has run the Sylke Tempel Fellowship program under Gabriel's auspices. From 2021 to 2022, he was a member of the Trilateral Commission’s Task Force on Global Capitalism in Transition, chaired by Carl Bildt, Kelly Grier and Takeshi Niinami.

Corporate boards

 * Heristo, Member of the Supervisory Board (since 2023)
 * Bosch, Member of the International Advisory Committee (since 2022)
 * Thyssenkrupp Steel Europe, Chair of the Supervisory Board (since 2022)
 * Siemens Energy, Member of the supervisory board (since 2020)
 * Deutsche Bank, Member of the supervisory board (since 2020)
 * Eurasia Group, Senior Advisor (since 2019)
 * Deloitte Germany, Member of the advisory board (since 2019)
 * KfW, ex-officio Member of the Board of Supervisory Directors (2013-2018)
 * RAG-Stiftung, Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Trustees (2013-2017)
 * Volkswagen, Member of the supervisory board (1999-2003)

Non-profits

 * Peace of Westphalia Prize, Member of the Jury (since 2022)
 * Bonner Akademie für Forschung und Lehre praktischer Politik (BAPP), Member of the Board of Trustees (since 2009)
 * German Association for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (BVMW), Member of the Political Advisory Board (since 2018)
 * European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), Member (since 2018)
 * International Crisis Group, Member of the Board of Trustees (since 2018)
 * Trilateral Commission, Member of the European Group (since 2018)
 * Denkwerk Demokratie, Member of the Advisory Board
 * Deutsche Nationalstiftung, Member of the Senate
 * Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), Member
 * Til Schweiger Foundation, Member of the Advisory Board
 * World Economic Forum (WEF), Member of the Global Future Council on Geopolitics (2018-2019)
 * Aktion Deutschland Hilft (Germany's Relief Coalition), Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Trustees (2017-2018)
 * Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Deputy Chairman (2005–2009)
 * German Energy Agency (DENA), Member of the supervisory board (2005–2009)
 * Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine, Member of the Board of Trustees (2005–2009)
 * IG Metall, Member
 * Lions Club, Member

Foreign policy
Gabriel has been staunchly against German soldiers remaining in Afghanistan. In 2010, he called for an independent assessment that would determine whether the U.S. counter-insurgency strategy would succeed. However, he voted in favor of extending German participation in the NATO-led security mission ISAF in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.

On the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, Gabriel participated in the first joint cabinet meeting of the governments of Germany and Israel in Jerusalem in March 2008. In 2012, after having visited Hebron and the Palestinian territories, he said the Palestinians in those areas were systematically discriminated against and called Israel an "Apartheid Regime".

While German members of parliament call out Iran's human rights violations and Nazanin Boniadi, advocate for the Center for Human Rights in Iran, described "systemic gender apartheid" where women advocating equal rights are regularly imprisoned, homosexuality is illegal and can carry the death penalty, Gabriel became the first top level German government visitor to Iran in 13 years as well as the first senior figure from any large western country's government to visit the country since it struck an agreement on its nuclear program, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, only days earlier. Travelling with a delegation of German industry representatives keen to move back into the Iranian market, he met with President Hassan Rouhani, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh.

In one of the strongest comments by Germany to push for a federal solution for Ukraine, Gabriel told German weekly Welt am Sonntag in August 2014 that a federal structure was the only option to resolve pro-Russian unrest in the country. He added that Germany's priority was to prevent direct conflict between Russia and its southern neighbour. Commenting on the international sanctions regime against Russia, Gabriel stated in early 2015 that “we want to help resolve the conflict in Ukraine but don’t want to force Russia to its knees.” He later suggested that Europe consider easing sanctions in exchange for cooperation in Syria. Ukrainian-American historian Alexander J. Motyl has accused Gabriel of "appeasement" and "a complete betrayal of everything democratic socialists claim to stand for."

In September 2015, amid the European migrant crisis, Gabriel visited the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan to learn more about the plight of Syrians fleeing the violence in the ongoing Syrian civil war that erupted in 2011. Gabriel publicly urged Saudi Arabia to stop supporting religious radicals, amid growing concern among about the country's funding of Wahhabi mosques in Germany which are accused of breeding dangerous Islamists.

In January 2016, Gabriel participated in the first joint cabinet meeting of the governments of Germany and Turkey in Berlin. Later that year, he called any accession of Turkey to the European Union in the near term an "illusion."

After the G7 summit in 2017, Gabriel stated that the United States, with Donald Trump as president, has "weakened" the West and that the balance of power has now shifted. The remark comes days after Merkel stated, in an apparent policy shift, that "Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands".

In June 2017, Gabriel criticized the draft of new U.S. sanctions against Russia that target EU–Russia energy projects, including Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. In a joint statement Gabriel and Austria's Chancellor Christian Kern said that "Europe's energy supply is a matter for Europe, and not for the United States of America." They also said: "To threaten companies from Germany, Austria and other European states with penalties on the U.S. market if they participate in natural gas projects such as Nord Stream 2 with Russia or finance them introduces a completely new and very negative quality into European-American relations." Gabriel is a supporter of the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation which campaigns for democratic reformation of the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system. He argued the U.N. needed to be made "more effective, transparent, and democratic through a reform of its structures and decision-making procedures".

In February 2018, Gabriel accused Russia and China of trying to "undermine" the liberal Western world order. He said that "Nobody should attempt to divide the European Union: not Russia, not China and also not the United States." In September 2018, Gabriel said that "Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians experienced unfathomable suffering in World War II. We have a responsibility there."

In March 2018, after his departure as German foreign minister, Gabriel published an opinion piece about the future of the relations between Turkey (under AKP rule) and the West, where he advocated for an inclusive stance towards Turkey and criticized the policy of the United States in that regard. In February 2020, he joined around fifty former European prime ministers and foreign ministers in signing an open letter published by British newspaper The Guardian to condemn U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, saying it would create an apartheid-like situation in occupied Palestinian territory.

Economic policy
On the occasion of the G20 summit in 2011, Gabriel joined Ed Miliband, the leader of the UK's Labour Party, and Håkan Juholt, the chairman of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, in suggesting a “new deal” for economic growth. They also said G20 leaders should commit to the introduction of a financial transaction tax for all major financial centers and an agreement to separate consumer and investment banking.

In a letter to the European Commissioner for Trade, Karel De Gucht, Gabriel stated in March 2014 that “special investment-protection provisions are not required in an agreement between the E.U. and the U.S” on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Instead, he later called for a public trade and investment court to replace the current system of private arbitration, and to enable appeals against arbitration rulings. Meanwhile, he has continuously warned against overblowing expectations for an economic boost from TTIP but maintained that the pact was needed to set high common standards for consumers. By August 2016, Gabriel said talks on TTIP had "de facto" failed.

In September 2014, Gabriel rejected the inclusion of an investor-state dispute settlement clause in the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union, prompting a renegotiation that delayed the entry into force of the agreement. Following the renegotiations, he championed CETA to demonstrate the center-left party's business credentials.

In a 2014 meeting with French economist Thomas Piketty, whose best-selling work Capital in the Twenty-First Century calls for a wealth tax, Gabriel rejected such a progressive levy on capital as “crazy” for business. He also argued that a wealth tax would generate no more than 8 billion euros ($9.9 billion) a year.

Together with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, Gabriel presented a joint proposal in 2015 to set up a common eurozone budget.

Energy policy
Following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, Gabriel harshly criticized the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying it had promoted “the construction of nuclear plants in all parts of the world, even in war and crisis regions. That needs to stop.”

In 2015, Gabriel opposed a European Commission proposal for regional power-capacity markets, according to which utilities are paid for providing backup electricity at times when power generated by renewable sources, such as the sun and wind, cannot supply the grid. A free market backstopped by an emergency reserve will be cheaper and work just as well as capacity markets, Gabriel told Handelsblatt. He later warned against a hasty exit from coal-fired power generation, concerned that such a move could pile more pressure on producers still wrestling with the planned shutdown of nuclear plants by 2022.

Arms exports
Early in his tenure as Federal Minister of Economic Affairs and Energy, Gabriel vowed a much more cautious approach to licensing arms exports, unnerving the sizeable defense industry and signaling a change in policy from the previous coalition government under which sales rose. In August 2014, he withdrew permission for Rheinmetall to build a military training center east of Moscow.

Gabriel was bound by pledges to his SPD to reduce arms sales to states that abuse human rights and the rule of law or where such sales may contribute to political instability. He stated that controls over the final destination of small arms sold to such nations are still insufficient. However, he also indicated that the government would not universally block deals with countries outside of Germany's traditional alliances. Deals with such countries could be approved because of "special foreign-policy or security interests." In late 2015, his ministry approved a merger of German tank maker Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) with the French armoured vehicle maker Nexter. Gabriel has been criticized by opposition leaders and the press for failing to prevent several deals that resulted in a significant rise in German arms exports during his tenure,  although a paradigm shift (lifting of the prohibition against arms exports in zones of war and crisis) already occurred before that.

Digital policy
In May 2014, Gabriel and France's economy and digital minister Arnaud Montebourg sent the European Commissioner for Competition, Joaquín Almunia, a letter criticizing the settlement of a three-year antitrust probe into Google; Gabriel later “warmly welcomed” the launch of EU antitrust charges against Google in April 2015.

In September 2014, Gabriel called Google, Amazon.com and Apple Inc. “anti-social” for skirting appropriate taxation. In early 2015, Gabriel and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron wrote in a joint letter to Vice-President of the European Commission Andrus Ansip that the growing power of some online giants “warrants a policy consultation with the aim of establishing an appropriate general regulatory framework for ‘essential digital platforms.’”

In 2016, during a series of Chinese bids for German engineering firms, Gabriel publicly called for a European-wide safeguard clause which could stop foreign takeovers of firms whose technology is deemed strategic for the future economic success of the region.

Human rights
In April 2014, human rights lawyer Mo Shaoping was blocked from meeting Gabriel during his visit to China, despite the minister saying ahead of the meeting that he wanted to meet critical voices.

During a 2015 visit to King Salman of Saudi Arabia, Gabriel launched an unusual public effort to persuade Saudi authorities to free imprisoned writer Raif Badawi and grant him clemency, amplifying Germany’s political voice in a region in which its influence had largely been limited to economic issues in years past. He had been urged by MPs and human rights organizations to take up Badawi's case before his trip. His outspoken criticism of Saudi justice was unusual for Western leaders visiting the country, a close ally for the West in fighting terrorism and Islamic State militants, particularly given Germany’s status as Saudi Arabia’s third-largest source of imports. While the U.S. State Department had previously also criticized the Badawi sentence, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry did not talk about the case publicly when he visited Riyadh only days before.

During a subsequent trip to Qatar, Gabriel called on the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani and other senior officials to do better in protecting foreign household workers who face abuse from their employers.

Thilo Sarrazin
In 2010, Gabriel called the speeches of Thilo Sarrazin, his party colleague who wrote critically about immigration by accusing Muslims of refusing to integrate and of “dumbing down” German society, "verbal violence". He stated that although Sarrazin described many things that were accurate, his conclusions did not fit into the egalitarian “ideals” of Social Democracy anymore.

Kaiser’s takeover
In 2016, a German court nullified Gabriel's controversial decision to grant a special permission for the country's biggest supermarket chain Edeka to buy grocery store chain Kaiser's, owned by Tengelmann Group. The judges raised questions about the minister's "bias and a lack of neutrality" in the case, saying he had held secret discussion during the decision making process.

Personal life
Gabriel has a daughter, Saskia, born in 1989, with his former girlfriend, who is of Jewish origin and whose grandparents were murdered in Auschwitz. Gabriel was subsequently married to his former high school student Munise Demirel, who is of Turkish origin, from 1989 to 1998, and they had no children. In 2012 he married dentist Anke Stadler, with whom he has been in a relationship since 2008; their daughter Marie was born in 2012. His daughter Thea was born on 4 March 2017.

In December 2016, Gabriel underwent bariatric surgery in Offenbach to shrink his stomach and help manage his diabetes.

title: Sigmar Gabriel


text:
Stefan Quandt

Stefan Quandt (born 9 May 1966) is a German billionaire heir, engineer and industrialist. As of October 2021, his net worth is estimated at US$23.2 billion and ranked at number 89 on Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Early life
Quandt was born in Bad Homburg to Herbert Quandt, a German industrialist and prominent Nazi, and Johanna Quandt. He earned a degree from the University of Karlsruhe where he studied economics and engineering, from 1987 to 1993.

Career
From 1993–1994, Quandt worked for the Boston Consulting Group in Munich. From 1994 to 1996 he worked for Datacard Group of Minneapolis as a marketing manager in Hong Kong.

BMW
On his father's death in 1982 Quandt inherited 17.4% of BMW, the company his father had saved from bankruptcy in 1959. From further purchases he later owned 23.7% of the company. In 1997, he joined the company's supervisory board.

Following his mother’s death in 2015, Quandt’s voting stake in BMW temporarily increased to 34.19 percent, above a 30 percent threshold which triggered a compulsory takeover offer under German rules. He subsequently asked the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) to be excused from these rules. In 2018, Quandt became BMW’s largest single shareholder when his direct ownership increased with shares inherited from his mother, giving him a so-called “blocking stake” of 25.83 percent, worth 13.4 billion euros ($16.6 billion). He currently serves BMW as a deputy chairman of the supervisory board.

Delton
Quandt also inherited from his father substantial holdings in other companies, many of which he has been running through his holding company, Delton AG, since 1989. These include:
 * 76.8% of CEAG, (small power supplies and recharging devices for mobile phones)
 * 87.6% of Logwin AG (formerly Thiel Logistik, a logistics and freight forwarding company)
 * 100% of Biologische Heilmittel Heel GmbH, which makes homeopathic preparations
 * 100% of CeDo Household Products, which makes freezer bags, plastic and aluminium wraps and foils, bin liners, and coffee filters

With his mother, Quandt owned 18.3% of Gemplus International, a large digital security company, before its merger to form Gemalto in 2006.

Aqton
With a second holding company, Aqton SE, Quandt manages other investments, including in renewable energies:
 * Heliatek, organic solar panels
 * Solarwatt, manufacturer of PV panels, solar batteries and energy management solutions
 * Kiwigrid, grid based renewable energy solution for utilities
 * BHF, financial services

Philanthropy
Through the non-profit Aqtivator, Quandt supports projects for children, youth, and families with a focus on education, integration, and equal opportunity.

Corporate boards

 * Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Member of the Supervisory Board (since 2019)
 * Dresdner Bank, former Member of the Supervisory Board
 * Gerling Konzern Allgemeine Versicherungs, former Member of the Supervisory Board

Non-profit organizations

 * Friends of the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Chair of the Board (since 2015)
 * Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Member of the Supervisory Board (since 2013)
 * BMW Foundation, Member of the Board of Trustees
 * Eberhard von Kuenheim Foundation, Member of the Board of Trustees
 * Johanna Quandt Foundation, Member of the Board of Trustees
 * Stiftung Charité, Member of the Board of Trustees

Political activities
Following the 2013 elections, Quandt – together with his mother and his sister – made donations to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) totaling 690,000 euros. Ahead of the 2017 elections, he gave 50,000 euros each to both the CDU and liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP).

Personal life
In autumn 2005, Quandt married Katharina, a software engineer. They have a daughter, born on New Year's Eve that same year. He generally keeps a low profile. They live in Frankfurt, Germany.

The Silence of the Quandts
The Hanns-Joachim-Friedrichs-Award winning documentary film The Silence of the Quandts by the German public broadcaster ARD described in October 2007 the role of the Quandt family businesses during the Second World War. The family's Nazi past was not well known, but the documentary film revealed this to a wide audience and confronted the Quandts about the use of slave labourers in the family's factories during World War II. As a result, five days after the showing, four family members announced, on behalf of the entire Quandt family, their intention to fund a research project in which a historian will examine the family's activities during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship. The independent 1,200-page study researched and compiled by Bonn historian, Joachim Scholtyseck, that was released in 2011 concluded: "The Quandts were linked inseparably with the crimes of the Nazis". no compensation, apology or memorial at the site of one of their factories, have been permitted. BMW was not implicated in the report.

title: Stefan Quandt


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John Zaffis

John Zaffis (born December 18, 1955) is a paranormal researcher born and based in Connecticut, United States. He starred in the SyFy paranormal reality TV show, Haunted Collector, and runs the Paranormal and Demonology Research Society of New England, which he founded in 1998.

Career
Zaffis has over forty years of experience as a paranormal investigator. Research has taken Zaffis all over the United States as well as Canada, England, and Scotland. He lectures at colleges, universities, and libraries throughout the United States, although usually not under academic auspices. Zaffis currently runs the Museum of the Paranormal located in Stratford, Connecticut. He also starred in and wrote the documentary film Museum of the Paranormal, which was released in spring 2010 and produced by New Gravity Media. His first book, Shadows of the Dark, was co-written with Brian McIntyre and published in 2004 through iUniverse.

A documentary film on his work and personal life, called John Zaffis: The World Within and produced by CORE Films (which also produced the paranormal documentary series Scared!), was released on September 3, 2010.

Haunted Collector
Zaffis starred in a documentary TV series on Syfy called Haunted Collector, which premiered on June 1, 2011. It features him, his son, his daughter, and three other crew members searching for ghosts in certain buildings people call upon him to investigate. The premise of the show is that the crew finds an item in the building that may have some sort of connection with a haunting. The show was initially cancelled in November 2013. It has subsequently been renewed and as of October 2016 is releasing new episodes on Destination America.

Other media appearances
Zaffis has made appearances on Unsolved Mysteries, Fox News Live, and the Discovery Channel documentaries Little Lost Souls and A Haunting in Connecticut. He currently co-hosts the Paranormal Nights radio show with Brendan Keenan. Zaffis was also in two episodes of A Haunting ("The Possessed" and "Ghost Hunter") where the main characters of both episodes are possessed by harmful demons. In the 2008 docudrama The Possessed, he plays himself as the demonologist. Zaffis also appeared and was interviewed in the 2009 Ghost Adventures episode at the Remington Arms factory. He also appeared in the 2009 Scared! episode filmed at the Grand Midway Hotel.

Zaffis has appeared six times on the long-running radio program Coast to Coast AM from 2005 to 2007. Often, he is a guest and co-host on the Beyond Reality Radio program hosted by The Atlantic Paranormal Society's Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson.

He has also appeared in several episodes of the Travel Channel's paranormal reality TV program, Ghost Adventures, as well as on ABC's investigative program, 20/20, and on Piers Morgan's cable talk show broadcast on CNN.

Personal life
Zaffis admits that he was initially very skeptical of the existence of ghosts, until one Wednesday evening when he was sixteen and saw a transparent apparition at the foot of his bed shaking its head back and forth. When he told his mother of the incident, Zaffis learned that his grandfather, when he was alive, always shook his head when he was upset about something. In the next few days, Zaffis' grandmother, who lived with him, died. This incident piqued his interest in the paranormal and set him about talking to authorities on the subject and reading about the paranormal. Zaffis spent his first years studying under his uncle and aunt Ed and Lorraine Warren, both demonologists.

What he learned from his aunt and uncle exceeded his original interests in ghosts and haunted houses. Zaffis became interested in demonology at a young age, which led into his involvement with cases of spirit possession and exorcism and working with prominent exorcists in that field. He has studied the work of Roman Catholic priests, monks, Buddhists, rabbis, and Protestant ministers. Zaffis has also taken part in and assisted with the work of well-known exorcists like Bishop Robert McKenna, Malachi Martin, and Reverend Jun.

According to fellow paranormal investigator Jason Hawes, co-star of the reality television series Ghost Hunters, Zaffis counseled him after he began seeing apparitions at the age of twenty. Hawes credits Zaffis with his subsequent career as a ghost hunter.

title: John Zaffis