Angela Dorothea Kasner, better known as Angela Merkel, was born in Hamburg, West Germany, in 1954. Trained as a physicist, Merkel entered politics after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. Merkel became Germany's first female chancellor, and one of the leading figures of the European Union, following the 2005 national elections. As we would remember the German Chancellor visited India recently and her visit saw the formation of the India-Germany Climate and Renewable Energy Alliance to promote renewable energy. Merkel promised €1 billion for India’s Green Energy Corridor and another €1 billion for solar projects. The two countries signed 18 memoranda of understanding on higher education, civil aviation, railways and food safety, among other areas. India agreed to set up a fast-track approval mechanism for German companies. More news about her is forthcoming as at Brussels, European leaders lashed out at each other’s handling of the continent’s greatest immigration crisis since the Second World War, even as they came together to seek ways to ease the plight of the tens of thousands marching across the Balkans toward the European Union’s heartland. At a hastily called emergency summit here, 11 European Union and Balkan leaders were especially looking to shore up Greece’s porous border with Turkey and slow the flow of people heading north toward the EU’s heartland. “Extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. Nearly 250,000 migrants have passed through the Balkans since mid-September and the surge is not being deterred by either cold weather or colder waters off Greece. Croatia said 11,500 people crossed into the country Saturday, the highest in a single day since Hungary put up a fence and refugees started coming into Croatia in mid-September. Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar said his tiny Alpine nation was being overwhelmed by the refugees — with 60,000 arriving in the last 10 days — and was not receiving enough help from its EU partners. He put the challenge in simple terms: if no fresh approach is forthcoming “in the next few days and weeks, I do believe that the European Union and Europe as a whole will start to fall apart.” Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic asked a fundamental question that the 28-nation bloc and non-EU nations like Serbia have been unable to answer since the migratory trek across the Mediterranean and through Turkey started last spring: “What we are going to do with hundreds of thousands of these people?” Half a year later, there is no answer. Sunday’s meeting was hoping to come up with some Band-Aid solutions at best. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras commented that having a summit on the migrant crisis was of little use if Turkey was not invited. Migration experts, however, say the flood of refugees won’t be halted until the world resolves the war in Syria, which is driving millions out of the country. Getting back to those birds – they are lories. Lories and lorikeets (tribe Loriini) are small to medium-sized arboreal parrots characterized by their specialized brush-tipped tongues for feeding on nectar of various blossoms and soft fruits. They are widely distributed throughout the Australasian region, including south-eastern Asia, Polynesia,Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste and Australia, and the majority have very brightly coloured plumage. Interesting ! With regards – S. Sampathkumar 26th Oct 2015.
