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Jordan: Queen Rania Presents Merkel with Golden Victoria Honorary Award

Queen Rania of Jordan takes part in a plenary session on empowering girls and women during the Clinton Global Initiative in New York September 21, 2010. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
Queen Rania of Jordan takes part in a plenary session on empowering girls and women during the Clinton Global Initiative in New York September 21, 2010. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
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Jordan: Queen Rania Presents Merkel with Golden Victoria Honorary Award

Queen Rania of Jordan takes part in a plenary session on empowering girls and women during the Clinton Global Initiative in New York September 21, 2010. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
Queen Rania of Jordan takes part in a plenary session on empowering girls and women during the Clinton Global Initiative in New York September 21, 2010. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Queen Rania of Jordan presented on Monday German Chancellor Angela Merkel with a Golden Victoria Honorary Award for Political Leadership, introduced by the Association of German Magazine Publishers (VDZ) in Berlin.

VDZ, which represents approximately 500 German publishing houses comprising more than 6,000 brands, chose to award Merkel with this award in recognition of her successful management of the financial crisis, leadership, and promotion of Germany's economic strength and democracy.

During her speech at the event organized by the association, Queen Rania hailed the chancellor's moral courage and steadfast commitment to delivering stability, prosperity, liberty and peace, along with her leadership style, highlighting her many contributions to addressing global challenges, including the refugee crisis, financial turmoil, terrorist attacks and violent conflicts.

The chancellor's 'calm resilience and resolve have enabled Germany not just to chart a safe course but to help guide the global community through the storm, the Queen said.

Her Majesty also hailed the chancellor for rallying Germany to welcome more than a million refugees in 2015 and said: "We too, in Jordan, have opened our neighborhoods, our hearts, and our means to those in needs. Today, one out of every seven people in my country is a refugee. We could not shoulder this duty without Germany's solidarity and support, and our country is proud of this friendship."

Her Majesty called on an audience of 800 journalists, politicians, diplomats and public figures in attendance to imagine how different the global landscape might look if the chancellor's moral compass was the norm. During her speech, Queen Rania thanked the association's journalists and members of the press for giving voice to the voiceless, highlighting the importance of their role in the modern age.

Bigotry and hatred are not new ideas, but they have gained new momentum and reach in our digital age, where outrage sells and is amplified and spread with every click, she added.

Since 2006, VDZ has annually presented Golden Victoria awards in three categories: Press Freedom, Entrepreneurship and Lifetime Achievement/Leadership. Other honorees this year included Nestle CEO, Béatrice Guillaume-Grabisch, as well as the late Daphne Caruana Galizia and Ján Kuciak, two European journalists who recently lost their lives.

Her Majesty and Chancellor Merkel also met ahead of the award ceremony.

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Storm Dumps Record Rain in Northern California, While US Northeast Deals with Winter Storms

A pedestrian walks along a flooded street during a storm Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, in Santa Rosa, Calif. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
A pedestrian walks along a flooded street during a storm Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, in Santa Rosa, Calif. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
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Storm Dumps Record Rain in Northern California, While US Northeast Deals with Winter Storms

A pedestrian walks along a flooded street during a storm Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, in Santa Rosa, Calif. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
A pedestrian walks along a flooded street during a storm Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, in Santa Rosa, Calif. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

A major storm dropped more snow and record rain in California, causing small landslides and flooding some streets, while on the opposite side of the country blizzard or winter storm warnings were in effect Saturday for areas spanning from the Northeast to central Appalachia.
The storm on the West Coast arrived in the Pacific Northwest earlier this week, killing two people and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands, mostly in the Seattle area, before its strong winds moved through Northern California, The Associated Press reported.
Santa Rosa, California, saw its wettest three-day period on record with about 12.5 inches (32 centimeters) of rain falling by Friday evening, according to the National Weather Service in the Bay Area.
Flooding closed part of scenic Highway 1, also known as the Pacific Coast Highway, in Mendocino County and there was no estimate for when it would reopen, according to the California Department of Transportation.
On the East Coast, another storm brought much-needed rain to New York and New Jersey, where rare wildfires have raged in recent weeks, and heavy snow to northeastern Pennsylvania. Parts of West Virginia were under a blizzard warning through Saturday morning, with up to 2 feet (61 centimeters) of snow and high winds making travel treacherous.
As residents in the Seattle area headed into the weekend, more than 112,000 people were still without power from this season’s strongest atmospheric river — a long plume of moisture that forms over an ocean and flows through the sky over land. Crews worked to clear streets of downed lines, branches and other debris, while cities opened warming centers so people heading into their fourth day without power could get warm food and plug in their cellphones and other devices.
Gale warnings were issued off Washington, Oregon and California, and high wind warnings were in effect across parts of Northern California and Oregon. There were winter storm warnings for parts of the California Cascades and the Sierra Nevada.
Forecasters predicted that both coasts would begin to see a reprieve from the storms as the system in the northeast moves into eastern Canada and the one in the West heads south.
By Friday night, some relief was already being seen in California, where the sheriff’s office in Humboldt County downgraded evacuation orders to warnings for people near the Eel River after forecasters said the waterway would see moderate but not major flooding.
The system roared ashore on the West Coast on Tuesday as a “ bomb cyclone,” which occurs when a cyclone intensifies rapidly. It unleashed fierce winds that toppled trees onto roads, vehicles and homes.
Debra Campbell said she was sitting in the dark with a flashlight that night, unable to sleep as strong winds lashed her house in Crescent City, California. With a massive boom, a 150-foot (46-meter) tree came crashing down on her home and car.
“It was just so incredibly frightening,” AP quoted Campbell as saying. “Once I realized it wasn’t going to come through the ceiling where I was at, I was able to grab my car keys and my purse. ... And I open the front door and it’s just solid tree.”
In the Northeast, which has been hit by drought, more than 2 inches (5 centimeters) of rain was expected by Saturday morning north of New York City, with snow mixed in at higher elevations.
Despite the mess, the precipitation was expected to help ease drought conditions in a state that has seen an exceptionally dry fall.
“It’s not going to be a drought buster, but it’s definitely going to help when all this melts,” said Bryan Greenblatt, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Binghamton, New York.
Heavy snow fell in northeastern Pennsylvania, including the Pocono Mountains, prompting a raft of school closures. Higher elevations reported up to 17 inches (43 centimeters), with lesser accumulations in valley cities like Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. More than 85,000 customers in 10 counties lost power, and the state transportation department imposed speed restrictions on some highways.