title: Rabindranath Tagore

text: Later, with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal – many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore's style – Tagore absorbed new poetic concepts, which allowed him to further develop a unique identity. Examples of this include "Africa" and "Camalia", which are among the better known of his latter poems.


title: Rabindranath Tagore

text: Tagore was a prolific composer with around 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as "rabindrasangit" ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricized. Influenced by the "thumri" style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal color of classical "ragas" to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully, others newly blended elements of different "ragas". Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not "bhanga gaan", the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavors "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.


title: Rabindranath Tagore

text: In 1971, "Amar Shonar Bangla" became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written – ironically – to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: cutting off the Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a cunning plan to stop the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. "Jana Gana Mana" was written in "shadhu-bhasha", a Sanskritised form of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn "Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata" that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.


title: Rabindranath Tagore

text: For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the "Modern Review" observed that "[t]here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". Tagore influenced "sitar" maestro Vilayat Khan and "sarodiyas" Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan.


title: Rabindranath Tagore

text: At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red, green color blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange color schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, including scrimshaw by the Malanggan people of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and woodcuts by the German Max Pechstein. His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.


title: Rabindranath Tagore

text: In 1937, Tagore's paintings were removed from Berlin's baroque Crown Prince Palace by the Nazi regime and five were included in the inventory of "degenerate art" compiled by the Nazis in 1941–1942.


title: Rabindranath Tagore

text: Tagore opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists, and these views were first revealed in "Manast", which was mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier Ōkuma Shigenobu. Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in "The Cult of the Charkha", an acrid 1925 essay. According to Amartya Sen, Tagore rebelled against strongly nationalist forms of the independence movement, and he wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn from abroad. He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a "political symptom of our social disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can be no question of blind revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".


title: Rabindranath Tagore

text: Such views enraged many. He escaped assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument. Tagore wrote songs lionizing the Indian independence movement. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favored by Gandhi. Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".


title: Rabindranath Tagore

text: Tagore renounced his knighthood in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, he wrote


title: Rabindranath Tagore

text: Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. Visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, Tagore conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore employed a "brahmacharya" system: "gurus" gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.


title: Rabindranath Tagore

text: On 25 March 2004, Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings. On 7 December 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University. It inspired the fictional film "Nobel Chor". In 2016 a baul singer named Pradip Bauri, accused of sheltering the thieves, was arrested and the prize was returned.


title: Rabindranath Tagore

text: Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: "Kabipranam", his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois (USA); "Rabindra Path Parikrama" walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker". Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 "Rabīndra Rachanāvalī"—is canonized as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".


title: Rabindranath Tagore

text: Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution; in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. In colonial Vietnam Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicist Nguyen An Ninh Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech Indologist Vincenc Lesný, French Nobel laureate André Gide, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal. Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.


title: Rabindranath Tagore

text: By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer Octavio Paz; and Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised "The Crescent Moon" and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry". Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have [...] Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who [...] pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.


title: Rabindranath Tagore

text: Tagore was deemed over-rated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Several prominent Western admirers—including Pound and, to a lesser extent, even Yeats—criticized Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore [...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English." William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?" He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]", bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th [c]entury." The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical", and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:


title: Rabindranath Tagore

text: Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: "House of the Thakurs"; anglicised to "Tagore") in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007. It is the house in which Tagore was born, and also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.


title: Rabindranath Tagore

text: Rabindra Complex is located in Dakkhindihi village, near Phultala Upazila, from Khulna city, Bangladesh. It was the residence of Tagore's father-in-law, Beni Madhab Roy Chowdhury. The Tagore family had close connection with Dakkhindihi village. The maternal ancestral home of the great poet was also situated at Dakkhindihi village; the poet's mother Sarada Sundari Devi and his paternal aunt by marriage Tripura Sundari Devi were born in this village. Young Tagore used to visit Dakkhindihi village with his mother to visit his maternal uncles in her mother's ancestral home; Tagore visited this place several times in his life. It has been declared as a protected archaeological site by the Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh and converted into a museum. In 1995, the local administration took charge of the house and on 14 November of that year, the Rabindra Complex project was decided. The Department of Archeology carried out the renovation work to make the house a museum titled ‘Rabindra Complex’ in the 2011–12 fiscal year. The two-storey museum building has four rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the ground floor at present. The building has eight windows on the ground floor and 21 windows on the first floor. The height of the roof from the floor on the ground floor is 13 feet. There are seven doors, six windows and wall almirahs on the first floor. Over 500 books were kept in the library and all the rooms have been decorated with rare pictures of Rabindranath. Over 10,000 visitors come here every year to see the museum from different parts of the country and also from abroad, said Saifur Rahman, assistant director of the Department of Archeology in Khulna. A bust of Rabindranath Tagore is also there. Every year on 25–27 Baishakh (after the Bengali New Year Celebration), cultural programs are held here that last for three days.


title: Rabindranath Tagore

text: The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works. Tagore Web also hosts an edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg and . More sources are below.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German former politician and scientist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she previously served as Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union from 2000 to 2018. Merkel was the first female chancellor of Germany. During her tenure as Chancellor, Merkel was frequently referred to as the "de facto" leader of the European Union (EU), the most powerful woman in the world, and since 2016 the leader of the free world.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel was born in Hamburg in then-West Germany, moving to East Germany as an infant when her father, a Lutheran clergyman, received a pastorate in Perleberg. She obtained a doctorate in quantum chemistry in 1986 and worked as a research scientist until 1989. Merkel entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989, briefly serving as deputy spokeswoman for the first democratically elected Government of East Germany led by Lothar de Maizière. Following German reunification in 1990, Merkel was elected to the Bundestag for the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. As the protégée of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Merkel was appointed as Minister for Women and Youth in 1991, later becoming Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in 1994. After the CDU lost the 1998 federal election, Merkel was elected CDU General Secretary, before becoming the party's first female leader and the first female Leader of the Opposition two years later, in the aftermath of a donations scandal that toppled Wolfgang Schäuble.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Following the 2005 federal election, Merkel was appointed to succeed Gerhard Schröder as Chancellor of Germany, leading a grand coalition consisting of the CDU, its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Merkel was the first woman to be elected as Chancellor, and the first Chancellor since reunification to have been raised in the former East Germany. At the 2009 federal election, the CDU obtained the largest share of the vote, and Merkel was able to form a coalition government with the Free Democratic Party (FDP). At the 2013 federal election, Merkel's CDU won a landslide victory with 41.5% of the vote and formed a second grand coalition with the SPD, after the FDP lost all of its representation in the Bundestag. At the 2017 federal election, Merkel led the CDU to become the largest party for the fourth time; Merkel formed a third grand coalition with the SPD and was sworn in for a joint-record fourth term as Chancellor on 14 March 2018.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In foreign policy, Merkel has emphasised international cooperation, both in the context of the EU and NATO, and strengthening transatlantic economic relations. In 2008, Merkel served as President of the European Council and played a central role in the negotiation of the Treaty of Lisbon and the Berlin Declaration. Merkel played a crucial role in managing the global financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the European debt crisis. She negotiated the 2008 European Union stimulus plan focusing on infrastructure spending and public investment to counteract the Great Recession. In domestic policy, Merkel's "Energiewende" program has focused on future energy development, seeking to phase out nuclear power in Germany, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and increase renewable energy sources. Reforms to the "Bundeswehr" which abolished conscription, health care reform, and her government's response to the 2010s European migrant crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany were major issues during her chancellorship. She served as the senior G7 leader from 2011 to 2012 and again from 2014 to 2021. In 2014, she became the longest-serving incumbent head of government in the EU. In October 2018, Merkel announced that she would stand down as Leader of the CDU at the party convention, and would not seek a fifth term as chancellor in the 2021 federal election. In 2022, Merkel condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel was born Angela Dorothea Kasner in 1954, in Hamburg, West Germany, the daughter of Horst Kasner (1926–2011; "né" Kaźmierczak), a Lutheran pastor and a native of Berlin, and his wife Herlind (1928–2019; "née" Jentzsch), born in Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland), a teacher of English and Latin. She has two younger siblings, Marcus Kasner, a physicist, and Irene Kasner, an occupational therapist. In her childhood and youth, Merkel was known among her peers by the nickname "Kasi", derived from her last name Kasner.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel is of German and Polish descent. Her paternal grandfather, Ludwik Kasner, was a German policeman of Polish ethnicity, who had taken part in Poland's struggle for independence in the early 20th century. He married Merkel's grandmother Margarethe, a German from Berlin, and relocated to her hometown where he worked in the police. In 1930, they Germanized the Polish name Kaźmierczak to Kasner. Merkel's maternal grandparents were the Danzig politician Willi Jentzsch, and Gertrud Alma ("née" Drange), a daughter of the city clerk of Elbing (now Elbląg, Poland) Emil Drange. Since the mid-1990s, Merkel has publicly mentioned her Polish heritage on several occasions and described herself as a quarter Polish, but her Polish roots became better known as a result of a 2013 biography.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Religion played a key role in the Kasner family's migration from West Germany to East Germany. Merkel's paternal grandfather was originally Catholic but the entire family converted to Lutheranism during the childhood of her father, who later studied Lutheran theology in Heidelberg and Hamburg. In 1954, when Angela was just three months old, her father received a pastorate at the church in (a quarter of Perleberg in Brandenburg), which was then in East Germany. The family moved to Templin and Merkel grew up in the countryside north of East Berlin.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In 1968, Merkel joined the Free German Youth (FDJ), the official communist youth movement sponsored by the ruling Marxist–Leninist Socialist Unity Party of Germany. Membership was nominally voluntary, but those who did not join found it difficult to gain admission to higher education. She did not participate in the secular coming of age ceremony Jugendweihe, however, which was common in East Germany. Instead, she was confirmed. During this time, she participated in several compulsory courses on Marxism-Leninism with her grades only being regarded as "sufficient". Merkel later said that "Life in the GDR was sometimes almost comfortable in a certain way, because there were some things one simply couldn't influence."


title: Angela Merkel

text: At school Merkel learned to speak Russian fluently, and was awarded prizes for her proficiency in Russian and mathematics. She was the best in her class in mathematics and Russian, and completed her school education with the best possible average Abitur grade 1.0.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel continued her education at Karl Marx University, Leipzig, where she studied physics from 1973 to 1978. While a student, she participated in the reconstruction of the ruin of the Moritzbastei, a project students initiated to create their own club and recreation facility on campus. Such an initiative was unprecedented in the GDR of that period, and initially resisted by the university. With backing of the local leadership of the SED party, the project was allowed to proceed.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Near the end of her studies, Merkel sought an assistant professorship at an engineering school. As a condition for getting the job, Merkel was told she would need to agree to report on her colleagues to officers of the Ministry for State Security (Stasi). Merkel declined, using the excuse that she could not keep secrets well enough to be an effective spy.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel worked and studied at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin-Adlershof from 1978 to 1990. At first she and her husband squatted in Mitte. At the Academy of Sciences, she became a member of its FDJ secretariat. According to her former colleagues, she openly propagated Marxism as the secretary for "Agitation and Propaganda". However, Merkel has denied this claim and stated that she was secretary for culture, which involved activities like obtaining theatre tickets and organising talks by visiting Soviet authors. She stated: "I can only rely on my memory, if something turns out to be different, I can live with that."


title: Angela Merkel

text: After being awarded a doctorate ("Dr. rer. nat.") for her thesis on quantum chemistry in 1986, she worked as a researcher and published several papers. In 1986, she was able to travel freely to West Germany to attend a congress; she also participated in a multi-week language course in Donetsk, in the then-Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.


title: Angela Merkel

text: The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 served as the catalyst for Merkel's political career. Although she did not participate in the crowd celebrations the night the wall came down, one month later Merkel became involved in the growing democracy movement, joining the new party "Demokratischer Aufbruch" (DA, or in English "Democratic Beginning"). Party Leader Wolfgang Schnur appointed her as press spokeswoman of the party in February 1990. However, Schnur was revealed to have served as an "informal co-worker" for the Stasi just a few weeks ahead of the first (and only) multi-party election in 1990 and was later expelled from the party. The DA sank as a result, only managing to elect four members to the Volkskammer. However, because the DA was a member party of the Alliance for Germany, which won the election in a landslide, the DA was included in the government coalition. Merkel was therefore appointed deputy spokesperson of the new and last pre-unification government under Lothar de Maizière.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel had impressed de Maizière with her adept dealing with journalists investigating Schnur's role in the Stasi. In April 1990, DA merged with the East German Christian Democratic Union, which in turn merged with its western counterpart after reunification.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In the German federal election of 1990, the first to be held following reunification, Merkel successfully stood for election to the Bundestag in the parliamentary constituency of Stralsund – Nordvorpommern – Rügen in north Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. She received the crucial backing of then-influential CDU minister and state party chairman Günther Krause. She has won re-election from this constituency (renamed, with slightly adjusted borders, Vorpommern-Rügen – Vorpommern-Greifswald I in 2003) at the seven federal elections held since then. Almost immediately following her entry into parliament, Merkel was appointed by Chancellor Helmut Kohl to serve as Minister for Women and Youth in the federal cabinet. The ministry was the smallest and least powerful one of the three ministries that were created from the old Ministry for Health, Seniors, Family and Youth.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In November 1991, Merkel, with the support of the federal CDU, ran for the leadership of the neighboring CDU in Brandenburg. She lost to Ulf Finke; this has been the only election to date Merkel has lost.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In June 1993, Merkel was elected leader of the CDU in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, succeeding her former mentor Günther Krause.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In 1994, she was promoted to the position of Minister for the Environment and Nuclear Safety, which gave her greater political visibility and a platform on which to build her personal political career. As one of Kohl's protégées and his youngest Cabinet Minister, she was frequently referred to by Kohl as "mein Mädchen" ("my girl").


title: Angela Merkel

text: After the Kohl Government was defeated at the 1998 election, Merkel was appointed Secretary-General of the CDU, a key position as the party was no longer part of the federal government. Merkel oversaw a string of CDU election victories in six out of seven state elections in 1999, breaking the long-standing SPD-Green hold on the Bundesrat. Following a party funding scandal that compromised many leading figures of the CDU – including Kohl himself and his successor as CDU Leader, Wolfgang Schäuble – Merkel criticised her former mentor publicly and advocated a fresh start for the party without him.


title: Angela Merkel

text: She was subsequently elected to replace Schäuble, becoming the first female leader of a German party on 10 April 2000. Her election surprised many observers, as her personality offered a contrast to the party she had been elected to lead; Merkel is a centrist Protestant originating from predominantly Protestant northern Germany, while the CDU is a male-dominated, socially conservative party with strongholds in western and southern Germany, and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, has deep Catholic roots.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Following Merkel's election as CDU Leader, the CDU was not able to win in subsequent state elections. As early as February 2001 her rival Friedrich Merz had made clear he intended to become Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's main challenger in the 2002 election. Merkel's own ambition to become Chancellor was well-known, but she lacked the support of most Minister-presidents and other grandees within her own party. She was subsequently outmaneuvered politically by CSU Leader Edmund Stoiber, to whom she eventually ceded the privilege of challenging Schröder. He went on to squander a large lead in opinion polls to lose the election by a razor-thin margin in an election campaign that was dominated by the Iraq War. While Chancellor Schröder made clear he would not join the war in Iraq, Merkel and the CDU-CSU supported the invasion of Iraq.


title: Angela Merkel

text: After Stoiber's defeat in 2002, in addition to her role as CDU Leader, Merkel became Leader of the Opposition in the Bundestag; Friedrich Merz, who had held the post prior to the 2002 election, was eased out to make way for Merkel. Stoiber voted for Merkel.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel supported a substantial reform agenda for Germany's economic and social system, and was considered more pro-market than her own party (the CDU). She advocated German labour law changes, specifically removing barriers to laying off employees and increasing the allowed number of work hours in a week. She argued that existing laws made the country less competitive, because companies could not easily control labour costs when business is slow.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel argued that Germany should phase out nuclear power less quickly than the Schröder administration had planned.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel advocated a strong transatlantic partnership and German-American friendship. In the spring of 2003, defying strong public opposition, Merkel came out in favour of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, describing it as "unavoidable" and accusing Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of anti-Americanism. She criticised the government's support for the accession of Turkey to the European Union and favoured a "privileged partnership" instead. In doing so, she reflected public opinion that grew more hostile toward Turkish membership of the European Union.


title: Angela Merkel

text: On 30 May 2005, Merkel won the CDU/CSU nomination as challenger to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of the SPD in the 2005 national elections. Her party began the campaign with a 21-point lead over the SPD in national opinion polls, although her personal popularity lagged behind that of the incumbent. However, the CDU/CSU campaign suffered when Merkel, having made economic competence central to the CDU's platform, confused gross and net income twice during a televised debate. She regained some momentum after she announced that she would appoint Paul Kirchhof, a former judge at the German Constitutional Court and leading fiscal policy expert, as Minister of Finance.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel and the CDU lost ground after Kirchhof proposed the introduction of a flat tax in Germany, again undermining the party's broad appeal on economic affairs and convincing many voters that the CDU's platform of deregulation was designed to benefit only the rich. This was compounded by Merkel's proposal to increase VAT to reduce Germany's deficit and fill the gap in revenue from a flat tax. The SPD were able to increase their support simply by pledging not to introduce flat taxes or increase VAT. Although Merkel's standing recovered after she distanced herself from Kirchhof's proposals, she remained considerably less popular than Schröder, and the CDU's lead was down to 9% on the eve of the election.


title: Angela Merkel

text: On the eve of the election, Merkel was still favored to win a decisive victory based on opinion polls. On 18 September 2005, Merkel's CDU/CSU and Schröder's SPD went head-to-head in the national elections, with the CDU/CSU winning 35.2% (CDU 27.8%/CSU 7.5%) of the second votes to the SPD's 34.2%. The result was so close, both Schröder and Merkel claimed victory. Neither the SPD-Green coalition nor the CDU/CSU and its preferred coalition partners, the Free Democratic Party, held enough seats to form a majority in the Bundestag. A grand coalition between the CDU/CSU and SPD faced the challenge that both parties demanded the chancellorship. However, after three weeks of negotiations, the two parties reached a deal whereby Merkel would become Chancellor and the SPD would hold 8 of the 16 seats in the cabinet.


title: Angela Merkel

text: The First Merkel cabinet was sworn in at 16:00 CET on 22 November 2005. On 31 October 2005, after the defeat of his favoured candidate for the position of Secretary General of the SPD, Franz Müntefering indicated that he would resign as party chairman, which he did in November. Ostensibly responding to this, Edmund Stoiber (CSU), who was originally nominated as Minister for Economics and Technology, announced his withdrawal on 1 November 2005. While this was initially seen as a blow to Merkel's attempt at forming a viable coalition, the manner in which Stoiber withdrew earned him much ridicule and severely undermined his position as a Merkel rival. Separate conferences of the CDU, CSU, and SPD approved the proposed Cabinet on 14 November 2005. The second Cabinet of Angela Merkel was sworn in on 28 October 2009.


title: Angela Merkel

text: On 22 November 2005, Merkel assumed the office of Chancellor of Germany following a stalemate election that resulted in a grand coalition with the SPD. The coalition deal was approved by both parties at party conferences on 14 November 2005. Merkel was elected Chancellor by the majority of delegates (397 to 217) in the newly assembled Bundestag on 22 November 2005, but 51 members of the governing coalition voted against her.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Reports at the time indicated that the grand coalition would pursue a mix of policies, some of which differed from Merkel's political platform as leader of the opposition and candidate for Chancellor. The coalition's intent was to cut public spending whilst increasing VAT (from 16 to 19%), social insurance contributions and the top rate of income tax.


title: Angela Merkel

text: When announcing the coalition agreement, Merkel stated that the main aim of her government would be to reduce unemployment, and that it was this issue on which her government would be judged.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Her party was re-elected in 2009 with an increased number of seats, and could form a governing coalition with the FDP. This term was overshadowed by the European debt crisis. Conscription in Germany was abolished and the Bundeswehr became a volunteer military. Unemployment sank below the mark of 3 million unemployed people.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In the election of September 2013, Merkel won one of the most decisive victories in German history, achieving the best result for the CDU/CSU since reunification and coming within five seats of the first absolute majority in the Bundestag since 1957. However, their preferred coalition partner, the FDP, failed to enter parliament for the first time since 1949, being below the minimum of 5% of votes required to enter parliament.


title: Angela Merkel

text: The CDU/CSU turned to the SPD to form the third grand coalition in postwar German history and the second under Merkel's leadership. The third Cabinet of Angela Merkel was sworn in on 17 December 2013.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Midway through her second term, Merkel's approval plummeted in Germany, resulting in heavy losses in state elections for her party. An August 2011 poll found her coalition had only 36% support compared to a rival potential coalition's 51%. However, she scored well on her handling of the recent euro crisis (69% rated her performance as good rather than poor), and her approval rating reached an all-time high of 77% in February 2012 and again in July 2014.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel's approval rating dropped to 54% in October 2015, during the European migrant crisis, the lowest since 2011. According to a poll conducted after terror attacks in Germany Merkel's approval rating dropped to 47% (August 2016). Half of Germans did not want her to serve a fourth term in office compared to 42% in favor. However, according to a poll taken in October 2016, her approval rating had been found to have risen again, 54% of Germans were found to be satisfied with work of Merkel as Chancellor. According to another poll taken in November 2016, 59% were to found to be in favour of a renewed Chancellor candidature of Merkel in 2017. According to a poll carried out just days after the 2016 Berlin truck attack, in which it was asked which political leader(s) Germans trust to solve their country's problems; 56% named Merkel, 39% Seehofer (CSU), 35% Gabriel (SPD), 32% Schulz (SPD), 25% Özdemir (Greens), 20% Wagenknecht (Left Party), 15% Lindner (FDP), and just 10% for Petry (AfD).


title: Angela Merkel

text: In the 2017 federal election, Merkel led her party to victory for the fourth time. Both CDU/CSU and SPD received a significantly lower proportion of the vote than they did in 2013, and attempted to form a coalition with the FDP and Greens. The collapse of these talks led to stalemate. The German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier subsequently appealed successfully to the SPD to change their hard stance and to agree to a third grand coalition with the CDU/CSU.


title: Angela Merkel

text: A YouGov survey published in late December 2017 found that just 36 percent of all respondents wanted Merkel to stay at the helm until 2021, while half of those surveyed voters called for a change at the top before the end of the legislature.


title: Angela Merkel

text: The Fourth Merkel cabinet was sworn in on 14 March 2018. The negotiations that led to a Grand Coalition agreement with the Social Democrats (SPD) were the longest in German post-war history, lasting almost six months.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In October 2018, Merkel announced that she had decided not to run for re-election in the 2021 federal election. In August 2019, 67% of Germans wanted Merkel to stay until the end of her term in 2021, while only 29% wanted her to step down earlier.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In September 2021, she referred to her party after she leaves the chancellery, and said that "after 16 years one does not automatically ... return to the chancellery, that was clear to everyone in the CDU and CSU", describing the close opinion polls about the upcoming election. The remarks came as the Social Democrats had overtaken her conservatives in recent polls.


title: Angela Merkel

text: On 26 September 2021, elections proved inconclusive, although the SPD won the most votes. This necessitated long negotiations among the various parties to form a government. On 23 November 2021, a new coalition was announced, with Olaf Scholz nominated to succeed Merkel. Merkel continued to serve as chancellor in a caretaker capacity until 8 December 2021, when Scholz was sworn in.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In October 2010, Merkel told a meeting of younger members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party at Potsdam that attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany had "utterly failed," stating that: "The concept that we are now living side by side and are happy about it" does not work and "we feel attached to the Christian concept of mankind, that is what defines us. Anyone who doesn't accept that is in the wrong place here." She continued to say that immigrants should integrate and adopt Germany's culture and values. This has added to a growing debate within Germany on the levels of immigration, its effect on Germany and the degree to which Muslim immigrants have integrated into German society.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel is in favour of a "mandatory solidarity mechanism" for relocation of asylum-seekers from Italy and Greece to other EU member states as part of the long-term solution to Europe's migrant crisis.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In late August 2015, during the height of the European migrant crisis, Merkel's government suspended European provisions, which stipulated that asylum seekers must seek asylum in the first EU country they arrive. Instead Merkel announced that Germany would also process asylum applications from Syrian refugees if they had come to Germany through other EU countries. That year, nearly 1.1 million asylum seekers entered Germany.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Junior coalition partner, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said that Germany could take in 500,000 refugees annually for the next several years. German opposition to the government's admission of the new wave of migrants was strong and coupled with a rise in anti-immigration protests. Merkel insisted that Germany had the economic strength to cope with the influx of migrants and reiterated that there is no legal maximum limit on the number of migrants Germany can take. In September 2015, enthusiastic crowds across the country welcomed arriving refugees and migrants.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Horst Seehofer, leader of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU)the sister party of Merkel's Christian Democratic Unionand then-Bavarian Minister President, attacked Merkel's policies. Seehofer criticised Merkel's decision to allow in migrants, saying that "[they were] in a state of mind without rules, without system and without order because of a German decision." Seehofer estimated as many as 30 percent of asylum seekers arriving in Germany claiming to be from Syria are in fact from other countries, and suggested reducing EU funding for member countries that rejected mandatory refugee quotas. Meanwhile, Yasmin Fahimi, secretary-general of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the junior partner of the ruling coalition, praised Merkel's policy allowing migrants in Hungary to enter Germany as "a strong signal of humanity to show that Europe's values are valid also in difficult times".


title: Angela Merkel

text: In November 2015, there were talks inside the governing coalition to stop family unification for migrants for two years, and to establish "Transit Zones" on the border and – for migrants with low chances to get asylum approved – to be housed there until their application is approved. The issues are in conflict between the CSU who favoured those new measures and threatened to leave the coalition without them, and the SPD who opposes them; Merkel agreed to the measures. The November 2015 Paris attacks prompted a reevaluation of German officials' stance on the EU's policy toward migrants. There appeared to be a consensus among officials, with the exception of Merkel, that a higher level of scrutiny was needed in vetting migrants with respect to their mission in Germany. However, while not officially limiting the influx numerically, Merkel tightened asylum policy in Germany.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In October 2016, Merkel travelled to Mali and Niger. The diplomatic visit took place to discuss how their governments could improve conditions which caused people to flee those countries and how illegal migration through and from these countries could be reduced.


title: Angela Merkel

text: The migrant crisis spurred right-wing electoral preferences across Germany with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) gaining 12% of the vote in the 2017 German federal election. These developments prompted debates over the reasons for increased right-wing populism in Germany. Literature argued that the increased right-wing preferences are a result of the European migrant crisis which has brought thousands of people, predominantly from Muslim countries to Germany, and spurred a perception among a share of Germans that refugees constitute an ethnic and cultural threat to Germany.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In March 2018, the CSU's Horst Seehofer took over the role of Interior Minister. A policy Seehofer announced is that he has a "master plan for faster asylum procedures, and more consistent deportations." Under Seehofer's plan, Germany would reject migrants who have already been deported or have an entry ban and would instruct police to turn away all migrants who have registered elsewhere in the EU, no matter if these countries agreed to take them back. Merkel feared that unilaterally sending migrants back to neighbouring countries without seeking a multilateral European agreement could endanger the stability of the European Union.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In June 2018, Seehofer backed down from a threat to bypass her in the disagreement over immigration policy until she would come back on 1 July from attempts to find a solution at the European level. On 1 July 2018, Seehofer rejected the agreement Merkel had obtained with EU countries as too little and declared his resignation during a meeting of his party's executive, but they refused to accept it. During the night of 2 July 2018, Seehofer and Merkel announced they had settled their differences and agreed to instead accept a compromise of tighter border control. As a result of the agreement, Seehofer agreed to not resign, and to negotiate bilateral agreements with the specific countries himself. Seehofer was criticised for almost bringing the government down while the monthly number of migrants targeted by that policy was in single figures.


title: Angela Merkel

text: On 6 April 2020, Merkel stated: "In my view... the European Union is facing the biggest test since its foundation and member states must show greater solidarity so that the bloc can emerge stronger from the economic crisis unleashed by the pandemic". Merkel has won international plaudits for her handling of the pandemic in Germany.


title: Angela Merkel

text: During the German presidency of the European Council Merkel not only changed her mind, but spearheaded negotiating a reconstruction package for the time after the pandemic.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel's foreign policy has focused on strengthening European cooperation and international trade agreements. She and her governments have been closely associated with the Wandel durch Handel policy. For this, she has come under criticism, especially after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Merkel has been widely described as the "de facto" leader of the European Union throughout her tenure as Chancellor.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In 2015, with the absence of Stephen Harper, Merkel became the only leader to have attended every G20 meeting since the first in 2008, having been present at a record fifteen summits as of 2021. She hosted the twelfth meeting at the 2017 G20 Hamburg summit.


title: Angela Merkel

text: One of Merkel's priorities was strengthening transatlantic economic relations. She signed the agreement for the Transatlantic Economic Council on 30 April 2007 at the White House.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel enjoyed good relations with US presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Obama described her in 2016 as his "closest international partner" throughout his tenure as president. Obama's farewell visit to Berlin in November 2016 was widely interpreted as the passing of the torch of global liberal leadership to Merkel as Merkel was seen by many as the new standard bearer of liberal democracy since the election of Donald Trump as US president.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Upon the election of Donald Trump Merkel said that "Germany and America are tied by values of democracy, freedom and respect for the law and human dignity, independent of origin, skin colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political views. I offer the next president of the United States, Donald Trump, close cooperation on the basis of these values." The comment was characterized by policy analyst Jennifer Rubin as manifesting the psychological principle of reintegrative shaming.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Following the G7 Summit in Italy and the NATO Summit in Brussels, Merkel stated on 28 May 2017 that the US was no longer the reliable partner Europe and Germany had depended on in the past. At an electoral rally in Munich, she said that "We have to know that we must fight for our future on our own, for our destiny as Europeans", which has been interpreted as an unprecedented shift in the German-American transatlantic relationship.


title: Angela Merkel

text: On 25 September 2007, Merkel met the 14th Dalai Lama for "private and informal talks" in the Chancellery in Berlin amid protest from China. China afterwards cancelled separate talks with German officials, including talks with Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In recognition of the importance of China to the German economy, by 2014 Merkel had led seven trade delegations to China since assuming office in 2005. The same year, in March, China's President Xi Jinping visited Germany.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In response to the death of Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died of organ failure while in government custody, Merkel said in a statement that Liu had been a "courageous fighter for civil rights and freedom of expression."


title: Angela Merkel

text: In July 2019, the UN ambassadors from 22 nations, including Germany, signed a joint letter to the UNHRC condemning China's mistreatment of the Uyghurs as well as its mistreatment of other minority groups, urging the Chinese government to close the Xinjiang re-education camps.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In 2006, Merkel expressed concern about overreliance on Russian energy, but she received little support from others in Berlin.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In June 2017, Merkel criticized the draft of new US sanctions against Russia that target EU–Russia energy projects, including Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel favors the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union; but stated in December 2012 that its implementation depends on reforms in Ukraine.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. She telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 9 July to condemn "without reservation rocket fire on Israel".


title: Angela Merkel

text: In June 2018, Merkel said that there had been "no moral or political justification" for the post-war expulsion of ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern European countries.


title: Angela Merkel

text: During the financial crisis of 2007–2008, the German government stepped in to assist the mortgage company Hypo Real Estate with a bailout, which was agreed on 6 October, with German banks to contribute €30 billion and the Bundesbank €20 billion to a credit line.


title: Angela Merkel

text: On 4 October 2008, following the Irish Government's decision to guarantee all deposits in private savings accounts, a move she strongly criticised, Merkel said there were no plans for the German Government to do the same. The following day, Merkel stated that the government would guarantee private savings account deposits, after all. However, two days later, on 6 October 2008, it emerged that the pledge was simply a political move that would not be backed by legislation. Other European governments eventually either raised the limits or promised to guarantee savings in full.


title: Angela Merkel

text: At the World Economic Forum in Davos, 2013, she said that Europe had only 7% of the global population and produced only 25% of the global GDP, but that it accounted for almost 50% of global social expenditure. She went on to say that Europe could only maintain its prosperity by being innovative and measuring itself against the best. Since then, this comparison has become a central element in major speeches. The international financial press has widely commented on her thesis, with "The Economist" saying:


title: Angela Merkel

text: The "Financial Times" commented: "Although Ms Merkel stopped short of suggesting that a ceiling on social spending might be one yardstick for measuring competitiveness, she hinted as much in the light of soaring social spending in the face of an ageing population.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel was widely described as the "de facto" leader of the European Union throughout her tenure as Chancellor. Merkel was twice named the world's second most powerful person, following Vladimir Putin, by "Forbes" magazine, the highest ranking ever achieved by a woman. On 26 March 2014, Merkel became the longest-serving incumbent head of government in the European Union. In December 2015, Merkel was named as "Time" magazine's Person of the Year, with the magazine's cover declaring her to be the "Chancellor of the Free World". In 2018, Merkel was named the most powerful woman in the world for a record fourteenth time by "Forbes". Following the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency in 2016, Merkel was described by "The New York Times" as "the Liberal West's Last Defender", and by a number of commentators as the "leader of the free world". Specifically, Politico called Merkel the "leader of the free world" when reporting on her meeting with President Trump. Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described Merkel in 2017 as "the most important leader in the free world". "The Atlantic" described her in 2019 as "the world's most successful living politician, on the basis of both achievement and longevity". She was found in a 2018 survey to be the most respected world leader internationally. She was named as Harvard University's commencement speaker in 2019; Harvard University President Larry Bacow described her as "one of the most widely admired and broadly influential statespeople of our time". When Merkel retired as Chancellor, Hillary Clinton wrote that "she led Europe through difficult times with steadiness and bravery, and for four long years, she was the leader of the free world."


title: Angela Merkel

text: On 29 October 2018, Merkel announced that she would not seek reelection as leader of CDU at their party conference in December 2018, but intended to remain as chancellor until the 2021 German federal election was held. She stated that she did not plan to seek any political office after this. The resignations followed October setbacks for the CSU in the Bavarian state election and for the CDU in the Hessian state election. In August 2019, Merkel hinted that she might return to academia at the end of her term in 2021.


title: Angela Merkel

text: She decided not to suggest any person as her successor as leader of the CDU. However, political observers had long considered Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer as Merkel's protégé groomed for succession. This view was confirmed when Kramp-Karrenbauer – widely seen as the chancellor's favourite for the post – was voted to succeed Merkel as leader of the CDU in December 2018. Kramp-Karrenbauer's elevation to Defence Minister after Ursula von der Leyen's departure to become president of the European Commission also boosted her standing as Merkel's most likely candidate for succession. In 2019, media outlets speculated that Kramp-Karrenbauer might take over Merkel's position as Chancellor sooner than planned if the current governing coalition proved unsustainable. The possibility was neither confirmed nor denied by the party. In February 2020, Kramp-Karrenbauer announced that she would resign as party leader of the CDU in the summer, after party members in Thuringia defied her by voting with Alternative for Germany to support an FDP candidate for minister-president. Kramp-Karrenbauer was succeeded by Armin Laschet at the 2021 CDU leadership election.


title: Angela Merkel

text: On 25 February 2022, only 24 hours after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, she told the DPA news agency that she "condemned in the strongest terms [...] the war of aggression led by Russia, which marks a profound break in the history of post-Cold War Europe."


title: Angela Merkel

text: In April her spokesperson stated that she "stood by her position at the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008," when she had opposed Ukraine's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance.


title: Angela Merkel

text: On 1 June 2022 Merkel made her first semi-public comments about political affairs since leaving office, at a retirement party for , the president of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB). As an aside she said "I cannot make this speech without mentioning the blatant violation of international law by Russia. My solidarity is with Ukraine, which has been attacked and invaded by Russia," also applauding "the efforts of the Federal Republic of Germany, the European Union, and the United States to put an end to this barbaric war of aggression led by Russia... The current events remind us that peace and freedom can never be taken for granted. The great idea of Europe as a community based on values and the defense of peace."


title: Angela Merkel

text: On 7 June 2022 Merkel made her first public comments. In a Berlin theatre interview before a crowd of 2,000 with "Der Spiegel" journalist , she defended her legacy on Ukraine, and termed the Putinian aggression "not just unacceptable, but also a major mistake from Russia... It's an objective breach of all international laws and of everything that allows us in Europe to live in peace at all. If we start going back through the centuries and arguing over which bit of territory should belong to whom, then we will only have war. That's not an option whatsoever." She also said that by the end of her chancellorship in September 2021, it was clear that Putin was moving in the direction of conflict and that he was finished with the Normandy format talks.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In 1977, at the age of 23, Merkel, then Angela Kasner, married physics student Ulrich Merkel (born 1953) and took his surname. The marriage ended in divorce in 1982. Her second and current husband is quantum chemist and professor Joachim Sauer, who has largely remained out of the media spotlight. They first met in 1981, became a couple later and married privately on 30 December 1998. She has no children, but Sauer has two adult sons from a previous marriage.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Having grown up in East Germany, Merkel learned Russian at school and not English. She was able to speak informally to Vladimir Putin in Russian, but conducted diplomatic dialogue through an interpreter. She rarely spoke English in public, but delivered a small section of an address to the British parliament in English in 2014.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel is a fervent football fan and has been known to listen to games while in the Bundestag and to attend games of the national team in her official capacity, including Germany's 1–0 victory against Argentina in the 2014 World Cup Final. Merkel stated that her favorite movie is "The Legend of Paul and Paula", an East German movie released in 1973.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel has a fear of dogs after being attacked by one in 1995. Vladimir Putin brought in his Labrador Retriever during a press conference in 2007. Putin claims he did not mean to scare her, though Merkel later observed, "I understand why he has to do this – to prove he's a man. ... He's afraid of his own weakness."


title: Angela Merkel

text: Since 2017 Merkel has been seen and filmed to shake visibly on several public occasions, recovering shortly afterwards. After one such occasion she attributed the shaking to dehydration, saying that she felt better after a drink of water. After three occasions where this happened in June 2019, she began to sit down during the performances of the national anthems during the State visits of Mette Frederiksen and Maia Sandu the following month.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In September 2021, after years of evading the question, Merkel said she considered herself a feminist. The statement came in a conference along with Nigerian writer and feminist icon Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Angela Merkel is a Lutheran member of the Evangelical Church in Berlin, Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia (), a United Protestant (i.e. both Reformed and Lutheran) church body under the umbrella of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). The EKBO is a church of the Union of Evangelical Churches. Before the 2004 merger of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg and the Evangelical Church in Silesian Upper Lusatia (both also being a part of the EKD), she belonged to the former. In 2012, Merkel said, regarding her faith: "I am a member of the evangelical church. I believe in God and religion is also my constant companion, and has been for the whole of my life. We as Christians should above all not be afraid of standing up for our beliefs." She also publicly declared that Germany suffers not from "too much Islam" but "too little Christianity".


title: Angela Merkel

text: As a woman who is a politician from a centre-right party and also a scientist, Merkel has been compared by many in the English-language press to late 20th century British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Thatcher also had a science degree from Oxford University in chemistry). Some have referred to her as "Iron Lady", "Iron Girl", and even "The Iron Frau", all alluding to Thatcher, whose nickname was "The Iron Lady". Political commentators have debated the precise extent to which their agendas are similar. Later in her tenure, Merkel acquired the nickname ""Mutti"" (a German familiar form of "mother").


title: Angela Merkel

text: In addition to being the first female German chancellor, the first to have grown up in the former East Germany (though she was born in the West), and the youngest German chancellor since the Second World War, Merkel is also the first born after World War II, and the first chancellor of the Federal Republic with a background in natural sciences. While she studied physics, her predecessors studied law, business or history, among other professions.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel has been criticised for being personally present and involved at the M100 Media Award handover to Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who had triggered the Muhammad cartoons controversy. This happened at a time of fierce emotional debate in Germany over a book by the former Deutsche Bundesbank executive and finance senator of Berlin Thilo Sarrazin, which was critical of the Muslim immigration. At the same time she condemned a planned burning of Qurans by a fundamental pastor in Florida. The Central Council of Muslims in Germany and the Left Party (Die Linke) as well as the German Green Party criticised the action by the centre-right chancellor. The "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" newspaper wrote: "This will probably be the most explosive moment of her chancellorship so far." Others have praised Merkel and called it a brave and bold move for the cause of freedom of speech.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel's position towards the negative statements by Thilo Sarrazin with regard to the integration problems with Arab and Turkish people in Germany has been critical throughout. According to her personal statements, Sarrazin's approach is "totally unacceptable" and counterproductive to the ongoing problems of integration.


title: Angela Merkel

text: The term "alternativlos" (German for "without an alternative"), which was frequently used by Angela Merkel to describe her measures addressing the European sovereign-debt crisis, was named the Un-word of the Year 2010 by a jury of linguistic scholars. The wording was criticised as undemocratic, as any discussion on Merkel's politics would thus be deemed unnecessary or undesirable. The expression is credited for the name of the political party Alternative for Germany, which was founded in 2013.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In July 2013, Merkel defended the surveillance practices of the National Security Agency, and described the United States as "our truest ally throughout the decades". During a visit of U.S. President Barack Obama in Berlin, Merkel said on 19 June 2013 in the context of the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures: "The Internet is uncharted territory for us all" (). This statement led to various internet memes and online mockery of Merkel.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel compared the NSA to the Stasi when it became known that her mobile phone was tapped by that agency. In response, Susan Rice pledged that the US would desist from spying on her personally, but said there would not be a no-espionage agreement between the two countries.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In July 2014 Merkel said trust between Germany and the United States could only be restored by talks between the two, and she would seek to have talks. She reiterated that the US remained Germany's most important ally.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Her statement "Islam is part of Germany" during a state visit of the Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu in January 2015 induced criticism within her party. The parliamentary group leader Volker Kauder said that Islam is not part of Germany and that Muslims should deliberate on the question why so many violent people refer to the Quran.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In October 2015, Horst Seehofer, Bavarian State Premier and CSU leader, criticised Merkel's policy of allowing in hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Middle East: "We're now in a state of mind without rules, without system and without order because of a German decision." Seehofer attacked Merkel policies in sharp language, threatened to sue the government in the high court, and hinted that the CSU might topple Merkel. Many MPs of Merkel's CDU party also voiced dissatisfaction with Merkel. Chancellor Merkel insisted that Germany has the economic strength to cope with the influx of migrants and reiterated that there is no legal maximum limit on the number of migrants Germany can take. Under her open-borders policy several women were murdered by the unchecked immigrants like the Murder of Maria Ladenburger and 2018 Killing of Susanna Feldmann, it also allowed the events of the 2015/2016 New Year's Eve, mainly in the city of Cologne, where hundreds of women were sexually assaulted.


title: Angela Merkel

text: At the conclusion of the May 2017 Group of Seven's leaders in Sicily, Merkel criticised American efforts to renege on earlier commitments on climate change. According to Merkel, the discussions were difficult and marred by dissent. "Here we have the situation where six members, or even seven if you want to add the EU, stand against one."


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel has faced criticism for failing to take a tough line on the People's Republic of China. The "Asia Times" reported that "Unlike certain of her European counterparts, her China diplomacy has focused on non-interference in Beijing's internal affairs. As such, Merkel was reportedly furious when her Foreign Minister Heiko Maas received Hong Kong dissident Joshua Wong in Berlin in September [2019], a move that Beijing publicly protested."


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel's government decided to phase out both nuclear power and coal plants and supported the European Commission's Green Deal plans. Many critics blamed the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) and closure of nuclear plants for contributing to the 2021–2022 global energy crisis.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Merkel faced renewed criticisms that she had failed to curb Russian president Vladimir Putin's ambitions and aggression by insisting on diplomacy and détente policies. Critics argued that under her tenure, Germany and Europe was weakened by a dependency on Russian natural gas, including the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, and that the German military was neglected by underfunding. Her chancellorship has become tightly associated with the policy of Wandel durch Handel, pursuing close economic ties with authoritarian leaders. When the Wandel durch Handel policy came under intense domestic and international scrutiny following the Russian invasion, Merkel received much of the blame, leading Politico to write "[n]o German is more responsible for the crisis in Ukraine than Merkel". Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy also blamed Merkel and then-French president Nicolas Sarkozy's decision to block Ukraine from joining NATO in 2008 for the war; Merkel released a statement that she stands by her decision.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Since 1991, Merkel has sat annually for sitting and standing portraits by, and interview with, Herlinde Koelbl.


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel was portrayed by Swiss actress Anna Katarina in the 2012 political satire film "The Dictator".


title: Angela Merkel

text: Merkel features as a main character in two of the three plays that make up the Europeans Trilogy ("Bruges", "Antwerp", and "Tervuren") by Paris-based UK playwright Nick Awde: "Bruges" (Edinburgh Festival, 2014) and "Tervuren" (2016). A character named Merkel, accompanied by a sidekick called Schäuble, also appears as the sinister female henchman in Michael Paraskos's novel "In Search of Sixpence".


title: Angela Merkel

text: On the American sketch-comedy "Saturday Night Live", she has been parodied by Kate McKinnon since 2013.


title: Angela Merkel

text: On the British sketch-comedy "Tracey Ullman's Show", comedian Tracey Ullman has parodied Merkel to international acclaim with German media dubbing her impersonation as the best spoof of Merkel in the world.


title: Angela Merkel

text: In 2016, a documentary film "Angela Merkel – The Unexpected", a story about her unexpected rise to power from an East German physicist to the most powerful woman in the world, was produced by Broadview TV and MDR in collaboration with Arte and Das Erste.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: Sicario (, Spanish for "hitman") is a 2015 American action thriller film directed by Denis Villeneuve, written by Taylor Sheridan and starring Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, and Josh Brolin. The film follows a principled FBI agent who is enlisted by a government task force to bring down the leader of a powerful and brutal Mexican drug cartel. "Sicario" was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. It began a limited release in the United States on September 18, 2015, followed by a nationwide release on October 2, 2015.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: "Sicario" received praise for its screenplay, direction, musical score, cinematography, and the performances of Blunt, Brolin and del Toro. The film was nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, and Best Sound Editing at the 88th Academy Awards. It also earned BAFTA nominations for Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Music. Its sequel, "", was released on June 29, 2018. A third film, titled "Sicario: Capos" is in development.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: In Chandler, Arizona, FBI Special Agents Kate Macer and Reggie Wayne lead a raid on a Sonora Cartel safe house where they discover dozens of decaying corpses hidden in the walls. Outside, an explosive booby trap kills two police officers. Following the raid, Kate is recommended for and joins a Joint Task Force overseen by CIA operative Matt Graver and the secretive Alejandro Gillick. Their mission is to apprehend Sonora lieutenant Manuel Díaz.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: The team, which includes Delta Force operators, U.S. Marshals, and CIA personnel, travels to Juárez, Mexico to extradite Díaz's brother, Guillermo. While crossing the El Paso–Juárez border, the team is ambushed by cartel hitmen who Delta Force swiftly kills. During the gunfight, Kate is forced to kill a Federale and is left visibly disturbed by the violence. Back in the U.S., Alejandro tortures Guillermo and learns that the cartel uses a tunnel near Nogales, Sonora to smuggle drugs. Meanwhile, Kate confronts Matt, who reveals that the real mission is to disrupt Díaz's drug operations so he will lead them to his boss, drug lord Fausto Alarcón. Unnerved, Kate asks Reggie to join her for support.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: The task force raids a bank used to launder Díaz's money. After finding financial evidence, Kate and Reggie want to start a legal case against Díaz but are ordered to stand down to avoid jeopardizing the operation. At a bar, Reggie introduces Kate to Ted, a local police officer. Kate and Ted become intimate at her apartment, but she realizes Ted is working with the cartel. In the ensuing struggle, Ted strangles Kate before Alejandro appears and subdues him. Alejandro and Matt reveal they used her as bait, knowing the cartel would target her after seeing her face on the bank's CCTV. Alejandro and Matt brutally beat Ted to coerce him into revealing the names of other officers working for Díaz.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: After the team learns that Díaz has been recalled to Mexico, they prepare to raid the tunnel near Nogales. Matt reveals to Kate and Reggie that their involvement is a technical necessity as the CIA is not allowed to operate alone within US borders. An angered Reggie tells Kate they should leave, but she insists on staying to learn about the mission's true purpose. As a gunfight with the cartel begins, Kate follows Alejandro into Mexico. She sees him abduct Silvio, a corrupt Sonora police officer working as one of Díaz's drug mules. Kate attempts to arrest Alejandro, but he shoots her in her Kevlar vest before driving away with Silvio at gunpoint. On the U.S. side of the border, Kate confronts Matt, who explains the mission is part of a broader operation to consolidate the cartels into a single entity that the U.S. can more easily control. Alejandro, who previously worked for the Medellín Cartel in Colombia, was hired to assassinate Alarcón, the man responsible for ordering the murder of Alejandro's wife and daughter when he was a prosecutor in Juárez. Alejandro kills Silvio after he stops Díaz's vehicle and forces Díaz to drive to Alarcón's estate. On arrival, he quickly kills Díaz, Alarcón's guards, his wife, two sons, and Alarcón.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: The next day, Alejandro appears in Kate's apartment and forces her at gunpoint to sign a statement attesting that the entire operation was legal. As he leaves, she aims her pistol at him and Alejandro looks to her with acceptance, but she cannot bring herself to pull the trigger. In Nogales, Silvio's widow watches her son's football game, which is briefly interrupted by the sound of distant gunfire.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: In December 2013, it was announced that Denis Villeneuve would direct a Mexican border drama, "Sicario" (, the Spanish (and Italian) word for "hitman", from the Latin sīcārius (“murderer, assassin”), derived from sīca (“poniard, curved dagger”), equivalent to sica (“curved dagger”) + -ario (“-ary”), from a screenplay by Taylor Sheridan. It is the first installment in Sheridan's neo-western trilogy exploring crime on "the modern-day American frontier". Black Label Media financed and co-produced with Thunder Road Pictures. Basil Iwanyk produced the film along with Molly Smith, Trent Luckinbill, and Thad Luckinbill.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: Emily Blunt became involved with the film in April 2014, shortly followed by Benicio del Toro. Jon Bernthal and Josh Brolin joined the film in May, and cinematographer Roger Deakins was also hired. Daniel Kaluuya, Maximiliano Hernández, and Jeffrey Donovan were then cast, and Jóhann Jóhannsson was hired to compose the film's musical score in August 2014.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: Jóhann Jóhannsson was selected to write and compose the score for the film, making "Sicario" his second collaboration with director Denis Villeneuve.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: In May 2014, Lionsgate acquired the U.S. rights to the film, while Lionsgate International handled the foreign sales with Disney's Buena Vista International distributing the movie in Russia as the first film in an output deal with Lionsgate. On February 23, 2015, Lionsgate set the film for a limited release in the United States on September 18, 2015, and a wide release on October 2, 2015. The film had its world premiere at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2015. It was then selected to be shown in the Special Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2015.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: "Sicario" was released on Blu-ray and DVD on January 5, 2016, and on 4K UHD Blu-ray on March 1, 2016.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: "Sicario" grossed $46.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $38 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $84.9 million, against a production budget of $30 million.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: Released alongside "The Martian" and "The Walk", "Sicario" was projected to make $8–10 million in its wide release opening weekend. On its first day, the film grossed $4.3 million. In its opening weekend, it grossed $12.1 million, exceeding expectations, and finished behind "The Martian" and "Hotel Transylvania 2". In the second weekend the film made $7.6 million, dropping 38% and finishing fifth.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 92% based on 280 reviews, with an average rating of 8.10/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Led by outstanding work from Emily Blunt and Benicio del Toro, "Sicario" is a taut, tightly wound thriller with much more on its mind than attention-getting set pieces." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100, based on 48 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: Richard Roeper gave the film an A, calling it one of the year's best, and applauded del Toro's performance, saying: "...then there's del Toro, who lurks about the fringes of the action for most of the story, and then springs into action in a handful of scenes in a variety of ways that will leave you shaken—and grateful to have seen such beautifully dark work." Dan Jolin from "Empire" magazine gave the film 5 stars, calling it "a beautifully murky, hard-edged thriller. Quite simply, one of the best films of the year."


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" praised the acting of Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, and Josh Brolin. He stated that although her character Kate Macer was implausible, Emily Blunt "brazens out any possible absurdity with great acting focus and front". Chris Ryan of "Grantland" compared "Sicario" with the 1979 film "Apocalypse Now" directed by Francis Ford Coppola, noting an analogy between the former's themes with respect to the Mexican Drug War and the latter's with respect to the Vietnam War. He also stated that the characters Alejandro Gillick and Matt Graver in "Sicario" resemble those of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz and Lieutenant Colonel William Kilgore, respectively, from "Apocalypse Now".


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: Mark Kermode said, "What makes this work is that Emily Blunt is terrific, and Benicio del Toro has this eye-catching appearance as a riddle and an enigma... and that the film is very, very well directed."


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: Before the film's release, the mayor of Ciudad Juárez, Enrique Serrano Escobar, urged citizens to boycott it, believing the film presented a false and negative image of the city. He said the violence depicted in the film was accurate until about 2010, and that the city had since made progress in restoring peace.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: Among other accolades, the film received three Academy Award nominations, for Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, and Best Sound Editing.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: Director Denis Villeneuve said the film was indeed conceived at the height of the violence in Juárez in 2010. According to Sebastian Rotella, an American foreign correspondent and investigative journalist, "Sicario" examines many aspects of the U.S. War on Drugs against, most generally, drug cartels in Mexico, Central, and South America. He noted that the illegal drug trafficking situation in Mexico has remained largely stagnant in the two decades prior to the film's release and that the film asserts that the American War on Drugs is "turning us into the very monsters we are trying to defeat." Rotella asserted that progress has been made in Mexico, and expressed qualms over the depiction of the film's extralegal "black ops campaign", relative to his experience that most U.S. operations resulted in the legal arrest and prosecution of drug lords.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: Lionsgate commissioned a sequel centering on del Toro's character, subtitled "Soldado". The project was overseen by writer Taylor Sheridan. In April 2016, producers Molly Smith and Trent Luckinbill said del Toro and Brolin would return. In June 2016, Italian filmmaker Stefano Sollima was hired to direct, with Villeneuve no longer available due to scheduling conflicts. Principal photography began on November 8, 2016 in New Mexico. "" was released in the United States on June 29, 2018 to generally positive reviews.


title: Sicario (2015 film)

text: A third film, titled "Sicario: Capos", was announced prior to release of the second film, and as of February 2021, producer Molly Smith said it was still in development.


title: Emilio Estevez

text: He is the son of actor Martin Sheen and the older brother of Charlie Sheen. Emilio Estevez started his career as an actor and is known for being a member of the acting Brat Pack of the 1980s, appearing in "The Breakfast Club", "St. Elmo's Fire", and "The Outsiders". He is also known for "Repo Man", "The Mighty Ducks" and its sequels, "Stakeout" and "Another Stakeout", "Maximum Overdrive", "Bobby" (which he also wrote and directed), and his performances in Western films such as "Young Guns" and its sequel "Young Guns II".


title: Emilio Estevez

text: Estevez was born on Staten Island, the oldest child of artist Janet Sheen and actor Martin Sheen (legally Ramón Estévez). His siblings are Ramon Estevez, Charlie Sheen (born Carlos Estévez), and Renée Estevez. Estevez's paternal grandparents were Irish and Spanish immigrants. His father is a "devout Catholic" and his mother is a "strict Southern Baptist."


title: Emilio Estevez

text: Estevez initially attended school in the New York City public school system but transferred to a private academy once his father's career took off. He lived on Manhattan's Upper West Side until his family moved west in 1968 when his father was cast in "Catch-22". Growing up in Malibu, California, Estevez attended Santa Monica High School.


title: Emilio Estevez

text: When Estevez was 11 years old, his father bought the family a portable movie camera. Estevez also appeared in "Meet Mr. Bomb", a short anti-nuclear power film produced at his high school. Estevez was 14 when he accompanied his father to the Philippines, where Sheen was shooting "Apocalypse Now". Estevez had a role as an extra in "Apocalypse Now", but his scenes were deleted.


title: Emilio Estevez

text: When they returned to Los Angeles, Estevez co-wrote and starred in a high school play about Vietnam veterans called "Echoes of an Era" and invited his parents to watch it. Sheen recalls being astonished by his son's performance, and "began to realize: my God, he's one of us." After graduating from Santa Monica High in 1980, he refused to go to college and instead went into acting. Unlike his brother Charlie, Estevez and his other siblings did not adopt their father's stage name. Emilio reportedly liked the alliteration of the double 'E' initials, and "didn't want to ride into the business as 'Martin Sheen's son'." Upon his brother's using his birth name Carlos Estevez for the film "Machete Kills", Estevez mentioned that he was proud of his Spanish heritage and was glad that he never adopted a stage name, taking advice from his father who regretted adopting the name Martin Sheen as opposed to using his birth name, Ramón Estévez.


title: Emilio Estevez

text: His first role was in a drama produced by the Catholic Paulist order. Soon after, he made his stage debut with his father in "Mister Roberts" at Burt Reynolds' dinner theater in Jupiter, Florida (this was the only job his father ever placed him in). Later, father and son worked together in the 1982 ABC-TV film about juveniles in jail, "In the Custody of Strangers", in which Estevez did the casting.


title: Emilio Estevez

text: Estevez received much attention during the 1980s for being a member of the Brat Pack and was credited as the leader of the group of young actors. Estevez and Rob Lowe established the Brat Pack when cast as supporting "Greasers" in an early Brat Pack movie, "The Outsiders" based on the novel. Lowe was cast as C. Thomas Howell's older brother Sodapop and Estévez as Two-Bit Mathews. During production, he approached his character as a laid-back guy and thought up Two-Bit's interest in Mickey Mouse, shown by his uniform of Mickey Mouse T-shirts and watching of cartoons.


title: Emilio Estevez

text: Besides his roles in "In the Custody of Strangers" and "The Outsiders", his credits include NBC-TV's thrillers "Nightmares" and "Tex", the 1982 film version of another S.E. Hinton story. He bought the movie rights to a third Hinton book, "That Was Then, This Is Now", and wrote the screenplay. His father predicted he would have to direct to feel the full extent of his talents, describing him as "an officer, not a soldier."


title: Emilio Estevez

text: After "The Outsiders", Estevez appeared as the punk-rocker turned car-repossessor Otto Maddox in the film "Repo Man" before co-starring in "The Breakfast Club" and "St. Elmo's Fire". Following the success of these back-to-back Brat Pack films, he starred in "That Was Then, This Is Now" (which he co-wrote), the horror film "Maximum Overdrive" (for which he was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award), and the crime drama "Wisdom" (with fellow Brat Packer Demi Moore). Estevez was originally cast in "Platoon" to be Private Chris Taylor but was forced to drop out after production was delayed for two years; the role eventually went to his younger brother Charlie Sheen. He went on to lead roles in the comedy/action film "Stakeout" and the westerns "Young Guns" and "Young Guns II".


title: Emilio Estevez

text: In the early 1990s, Estevez directed, wrote, and starred with his brother Charlie in a comedy about garbagemen, "Men at Work". Estevez later stated, "People come up to me on the street and say, "Men at Work" is the funniest movie I ever saw in my life. But, you know, I do have to question how many movies these people have seen."


title: Emilio Estevez

text: In 1992, he found the career longevity that escaped other Brat Packers by starring in "The Mighty Ducks" as Coach Gordon Bombay, a lawyer and former pee wee star and minor hockey prodigy looking to forget the past, forced into coaching a pee wee hockey team as a form of community service. The film turned out to be one of Disney's most successful franchises. It was followed by two sequels. The following year Estevez starred in three films: the dark thriller "Judgment Night", the spoof comedy "Loaded Weapon 1" in which his brother Charlie Sheen has a cameo, and comedy/action film "Another Stakeout", which was the sequel to his earlier film "Stakeout".


title: Emilio Estevez

text: Estevez has acted alongside his father several times. He starred in (and directed) the 1996 "The War at Home" in which he played a Vietnam War veteran dealing with posttraumatic stress disorder, while Martin Sheen played his unsympathetic father.


title: Emilio Estevez

text: Estevez appeared in an uncredited role in the feature film "". From 1998 to 1999, he appeared in three television films: the spaghetti Western "Dollar for the Dead" (1998), the comedy "Late Last Night" (1999), and "Rated X" (2000), which he directed. In 2000, Estevez starred in the Moxie! Award-winning thriller "Sand" as part of an ensemble cast that also included Denis Leary, Jon Lovitz, Harry Dean Stanton, and Julie Delpy.


title: Emilio Estevez

text: In 2003, he made his voice acting debut when he helped create the English dubbed version of "The 3 Wise Men" with his father. Later, Estevez starred in "The L.A. Riot Spectacular" and voiced the English version of the film "Arthur and the Invisibles". In 2008, he guest-starred on his brother's sitcom "Two and a Half Men" as an old friend of Charlie Sheen's character. (His father Martin Sheen had also guest-starred in 2005.)


title: Emilio Estevez

text: In an interview a month after the 2010 Oscar tribute to John Hughes he explained his absence as publicity shyness: "I've never been a guy that went out there to get publicity on myself. I never saw the value in it."


title: Emilio Estevez

text: In 2017, his appearance in films was found to generate the highest return on investment (ROI) on average of all Hollywood actors.


title: Emilio Estevez

text: Estevez reprised his role as Coach Gordon Bombay in the 2021 Disney+ TV series, "". It was reported in November 2021 that Estevez would not return in the show's second season due to a contract dispute and creative differences.


title: Emilio Estevez

text: Aside from acting, Estevez has also directed television shows and motion pictures. He made his directorial debut with the 1986 film "Wisdom", which made Estevez the youngest person to ever write, direct, and star in, a single major motion picture. Most recently, he has directed episodes of the television series "Cold Case", "Close to Home", "The Guardian", "" and "Numb3rs". The films he has directed include "Men at Work" and "The War at Home".


title: Emilio Estevez

text: He directed the 2006 film "Bobby", which took over six years to write. Producing the film nearly bankrupted him as the domestic box office gross was not able to cover production costs. The movie scored him some fans outside of the US, mainly in Europe. He won a Hollywood Film Award and received a seven-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival.


title: Emilio Estevez

text: In 2010 Estevez filmed a new project, "The Way", in Spain where he directed his father in a story about a man who decides to make the Camino de Santiago after the death of his son in the French Pyrénées. It was released in the United States on October 7, 2011.


title: Emilio Estevez

text: In 2018, Estevez released another feature film, "The Public", starring Alec Baldwin, Christian Slater, Jena Malone and Estevez himself. He wrote, directed and played in "The Public" that world premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.


title: Emilio Estevez

text: Estevez appeared in John Parr's "St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)" music video, from the soundtrack of his film with the same name, where he played Kirby Keger. The music video featured all seven of the main cast members of the film, looking sadly through the foggy windows of a run-down and fire-damaged version of the St. Elmo's Bar set.


title: Emilio Estevez

text: Estevez is a close friend of Jon Bon Jovi. He appeared in Bon Jovi's music video "Blaze of Glory" as Billy the Kid. In turn, Bon Jovi made a cameo appearance in "Young Guns II". "Blaze of Glory" was in the "Young Guns II" soundtrack and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 2000, Estevez made an appearance in another Bon Jovi video, "Say It Isn't So," along with Matt LeBlanc, Claudia Schiffer, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.


title: Emilio Estevez

text: In the early 1980s, Estevez dated actress Mimi Rogers. He was involved off and on with Carey Salley, a Wilhelmina model. They have a son, Taylor Levi Estevez (born June 22, 1984), and a daughter, Paloma Rae Estevez (born February 15, 1986). Estevez and Salley did not issue a press release announcing either of their children's births; the relationship overlapped with Estevez's high-profile engagement to Demi Moore, who he was with intermittently from 1984 to 1986. In 1987, Salley filed a $2 million paternity suit against Estevez. Estevez acknowledged paternity of Salley's children on June 1, 1987.


title: Emilio Estevez

text: On April 29, 1992, Estevez married singer-choreographer Paula Abdul. They divorced in May 1994, with Abdul later stating that the reason for the divorce was that she wanted children while Estevez, who already had two children, did not.


title: Emilio Estevez

text: Estevez has stated that his religion is a "work in progress". He revealed on his official Twitter that he is a supporter of Ipswich Town Football Club.


title: Emilio Estevez

text: In November 2021, Estevez revealed that he tested positive for COVID-19 in March 2020, and that he suffered from Long COVID while filming "The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers" in summer and fall of 2020.


title: Aquaman (film)

text: Aquaman is a 2018 American superhero film based on the DC character of the same name. Produced by DC Entertainment and Peter Safran Productions, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, it is the sixth film in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). The film is directed by James Wan, from a screenplay by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Will Beall. It stars Jason Momoa as Arthur Curry / Aquaman, who sets out to lead the underwater kingdom of Atlantis and stop his half-brother, King Orm, from uniting the seven underwater kingdoms to destroy the surface world. Amber Heard, Willem Dafoe, Patrick Wilson, Dolph Lundgren, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Nicole Kidman appear in supporting roles.


title: Aquaman (film)

text: Development began in 2004 but did not gain traction until "Man of Steel" was released in 2013. In August 2014, Beall and Kurt Johnstad were hired to write competing scripts. Wan signed on as director in April 2015, and in July 2016, the film moved forward with Beall's screenplay. The main cast was confirmed through 2016 and early 2017. Principal photography began in Australia in May 2017, taking place at Village Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, with additional production teams in Canada, Italy and Morocco. Filming concluded the following October. Several vendors provided visual effects, ranging from high-detail hair simulations to the creation of CGI animals and locations.


title: Aquaman (film)

text: "Aquaman" premiered in London on November 26, 2018, and was released in the United States on December 21. It grossed $1.148 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing DCEU film, the highest-grossing film based on a DC Comics character, and the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2018. The film received praise for its visual effects, production design, action sequences, and Momoa's performance, while being criticized for its script, dialogue, and story. An animated miniseries set after the film, "", aired from October 14 to October 28, 2021, while a live-action sequel film, "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom", is set to be released on December 25, 2023.


title: Aquaman (film)

text: In 1985 Maine, lighthouse keeper Thomas Curry rescues Atlanna, the queen of the underwater kingdom of Atlantis, during a storm. They fall in love and have a son named Arthur, who has the power to communicate with sea creatures. When Atlantean soldiers sent by King Orvax (the ruler of Atlantis) arrive to retrieve Atlanna, who fled her arranged marriage in Atlantis, she defeats them but is forced to leave her family to protect them from her people. She promises to return when safe to do so and goes back to Atlantis, entrusting her advisor, Nuidis Vulko, to train Arthur. Becoming a skilled warrior, Arthur rejects Atlantis upon learning that Atlanna was executed by Orvax for loving a human and having a half-breed son.


title: Aquaman (film)

text: In the present, one year after Steppenwolf's defeat, Arthur confronts pirates hijacking a Russian "Akula"-class submarine. Their leader is killed in a failed attempt to kill Arthur, and the leader's son David vows revenge. The present king Orm Marius, Orvax's son (who is now Atlantis's new ruler after his father died) and Arthur's younger half-brother, convinces King Nereus of Xebel to help unite Atlantis and destroy the surface world for polluting the oceans. If Orm unites all four kingdoms, he will receive the title of Ocean Master, commander of the most powerful force on the planet. Nereus agrees to help after they are attacked by the hijacked submarine.


title: Aquaman (film)

text: Nereus' daughter Mera, betrothed to Orm, refuses to aid them and requests Arthur's help. Arthur accompanies her back to Atlantis, where Vulko urges him to find the Trident of Atlan, a magic artifact of Atlantis' first ruler, to reclaim his rightful place as king. They are ambushed by Orm's men, and Arthur is captured. Orm blames him for Atlanna's death and nearly kills him in a duel before Mera rescues him. Arthur and Mera journey to the fallen Kingdom of the Deserters hidden under the Sahara desert, where the trident was forged, and unlock a holographic message that leads them to Sicily, Italy, where they retrieve the trident's coordinates.


title: Aquaman (film)

text: Orm gives David a prototype Atlantean battle suit to kill Arthur, imprisons Vulko, and coerces the Kingdom of the Fishermen to pledge their allegiance to him by killing their king and forcing the queen and princess to accept. It is also revealed that Orm hired David and his father to hijack the Russian submarine (which is the same one that attacked Atlantis earlier) to win Nereus's support. An armored David rechristens himself as Black Manta and injures Arthur, but Arthur manages to defeat David. At their destination, Arthur and Mera fend off amphibious monsters of the Trench, and a wormhole transports them to an uncharted sea at the center of the Earth. They are reunited with Atlanna, who was sacrificed to the Trench for Arthur's illegitimate birth 20 years ago, but had survived and escaped to the uncharted sea, alive and well.


title: Aquaman (film)

text: Arthur faces the Karathen, a mythical leviathan and keeper of the trident, and voices his determination to protect both Atlantis and the surface, reclaiming the trident, which grants him control over the seven seas. Orm leads his army against the Kingdom of the Brine to declare himself Ocean Master, while Arthur, with Mera, Karathen, and the Trench, lead an army of marine creatures against him. Orm's followers embrace Arthur as the true king upon learning that he wields Atlan's trident. Arthur defeats Orm but spares his life, and Orm accepts his imprisonment after discovering that Arthur rescued their mother. Atlanna reunites with Thomas as promised, while Arthur ascends to the throne.


title: Aquaman (film)

text: In a mid-credits scene, David is rescued by Dr. Stephen Shin, a marine scientist and conspiracy theorist obsessed with Atlantis, and agrees to lead Shin there in exchange for help in his revenge on Arthur.


title: Aquaman (film)

text: Randall Park portrays Doctor Stephen Shin, a marine biologist obsessed with finding the lost city of Atlantis. Graham McTavish appears as King Atlan, the first king of Atlantis and the ancestor of Atlanna, Arthur, and Orm. Michael Beach plays Jessie, Manta's father and the leader of their group of ocean pirates.


title: Aquaman (film)

text: Leigh Whannell, director Wan's longtime film collaborator, appears in the film as a cargo pilot. Julie Andrews provides the voice of Karathen, a mythical leviathan and keeper of the Trident of Atlan who allies with Aquaman. John Rhys-Davies voices the Brine King and Djimon Hounsou voices King Ricou of the Fishermen, while both of these characters are portrayed on screen through motion capture performed by Andrew Crawford. Natalia Safran and Sophia Forrest provide the voice and motion capture of Fishermen Queen Rina and Fishermen Princess Scales, respectively.