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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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Varieties

Tokyo Police Care for Lost Umbrellas, Keys, Flying Squirrels

This photo taken on August 2, 2024 shows thousands of umbrellas in containers at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Lost and Found Center in the Iidabashi area of central Tokyo. (Photo by Richard A. Brooks / AFP)
This photo taken on August 2, 2024 shows thousands of umbrellas in containers at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Lost and Found Center in the Iidabashi area of central Tokyo. (Photo by Richard A. Brooks / AFP)
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Tokyo Police Care for Lost Umbrellas, Keys, Flying Squirrels

This photo taken on August 2, 2024 shows thousands of umbrellas in containers at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Lost and Found Center in the Iidabashi area of central Tokyo. (Photo by Richard A. Brooks / AFP)
This photo taken on August 2, 2024 shows thousands of umbrellas in containers at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Lost and Found Center in the Iidabashi area of central Tokyo. (Photo by Richard A. Brooks / AFP)

Lost your umbrella, keys, or perhaps a flying squirrel? In Tokyo, the police are almost certainly taking meticulous care of it.

In Japan, lost items are rarely disconnected from their owners for long, even in a mega city like Tokyo -- population 14 million.

"Foreign visitors are often surprised to get their things back," said Hiroshi Fujii, a 67-year-old tour guide at Tokyo's vast police lost-and-found center.

"But in Japan, there's always an expectation that we will."

It's a "national trait" to report items found in public places in Japan, he told AFP. "We pass down this custom of reporting things we picked up, from parents to children."

Around 80 staff at the police center in Tokyo's central Iidabashi district ensure items are well organized using a database system, its director Harumi Shoji told AFP.

Everything is tagged and sorted to hasten a return to its rightful owner.

ID cards and driving licenses are most frequently lost, Shoji said.

- Flying squirrels, iguanas -

But dogs, cats and even flying squirrels and iguanas have been dropped off at police stations, where officers look after them "with great sensitivity" -- consulting books, online articles and vets for advice.

More than four million items were handed in to Tokyo Metropolitan Police last year, with about 70 percent of valuables such as wallets, phones and important documents successfully reunited with their owners.

"Even if it's just a key, we enter details such as the mascot keychain it's attached to," Shoji said in a room filled with belongings, including a large Cookie Monster stuffed toy.

Over the course of one afternoon, dozens of people came to collect or search for their lost property at the center, which receives items left with train station staff or at small local police stations across Tokyo if they are not claimed within two weeks.

If no one turns up at the police facility within three months, the unwanted item is sold or discarded.

The number of lost items handled by the center is increasing as Japan welcomes a record influx of tourists post-pandemic, and as gadgets become smaller, Shoji said.

Wireless earphones and hand-held fans are an increasingly frequent sight at the lost-and-found center, which has been operating since the 1950s.

But a whopping 200 square meters is dedicated to lost umbrellas -- 300,000 of which were brought in last year, with only 3,700 of them returned, Shoji said.

"We have a designated floor for umbrellas... during the rainy season, there are so many umbrellas that the umbrella trolley is overflowing and we have to store them in two tiers."