Germany

Coordinates: 51°N 9°E / 51°N 9°E / 51; 9

Germany (/ˈdʒɜːrməni/; German: Deutschland [ˈdɔʏtʃlant]), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland,  listen ), is a federal parliamentary republic in West-Central Europe. It includes 16 constituent states and covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres (137,847 sq mi) with a largely temperate seasonal climate. Its capital and largest city is Berlin. With about 81.5 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state in the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular migration destination in the world.

Various Germanic tribes have occupied northern Germany since classical antiquity. A region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation.

Slovenia

Coordinates: 46°07′N 14°49′E / 46.117°N 14.817°E / 46.117; 14.817

Slovenia (ⁱ/sloʊˈviːniə, slə-, -njə/sloh-VEE-nee-ə; Slovene: Slovenija [slɔˈʋéːnija]), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene:  Republika Slovenija ,abbr.: RS), is a nation state in southern Central Europe, located at the crossroads of main European cultural and trade routes. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and the Adriatic Sea to the southwest. It covers 20,273 square kilometers (7,827 sq mi) and has a population of 2.06 million. It is a parliamentary republic and a member of the United Nations, European Union, and NATO.The capital and largest city is Ljubljana.

The territory is mostly mountainous with a mainly continental climate, with the exception of the Slovene Littoral that has a sub-Mediterranean climate and the north-western area that has an Alpine climate. Additionally, the Dinaric Alps and the Pannonian Plain meet on the territory of Slovenia. The country, marked by a significant biological diversity, is one of the most water-rich in Europe, with a dense river network, a rich aquifer system, and significant karst underground watercourses. Over half of the territory is covered by forest. The human settlement of Slovenia is dispersed and uneven.

Alenka Bratušek

Alenka Bratušek (pronounced [aˈleːŋka ˈbraːtuʃək]; born 31 March 1970) is a Slovenian public servant. She was Prime Minister of Slovenia from March 2013 until May 2014, the first woman in Slovenia to hold this position. She was president pro tempore of the Positive Slovenia party from January 2013 until April 2014. On 5 May 2014, Bratušek submitted her resignation as Prime Minister.

Life

Bratušek was born in Celje. She studied at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Technology at the University of Ljubljana. Continuing her studies at the university of Ljubljana, she went on to obtain a master's degree in management at the Faculty for Social Sciences. Before entering politics, she served for six years as head of the Directorate for the State Budget at the Ministry of Finance.

In March 2013, an anonymous person criticized Bratušek because she had not cited a source on one page of her master's thesis. Her work has 88 pages with 34 listed sources, but journalists only counted 11 used-ones; among it were also internal documents of company Javni gospodarski zavod Brdo, where she was member and later president of Managing Board.Slovenske novice journalists also went through her work and wrote, that Bratušek plagiarized one page from work of another author (regarding Gøsta Esping-Andersen's classification of welfare) without proper citation. Her Alma-mater, Faculty for Social Sciences, started an investigation regarding alleged plagiarism. Investigating commission concluded that "Bratušek in her master's thesis had used works of other authors contrary to current citatation methods, but based on critically evaluation of collected material and sources it can not be expertly and scientifically established, that thesis in important part is not a result of her work".

Chancellor of Germany

The Chancellor of Germany is the head of government of Germany. The official title in German is Bundeskanzler(-in) (literally, Federal Chancellor), sometimes shortened to Kanzler(-in). The term, dating from the early Middle Ages, is derived from the Latin term cancellarius.

In German politics the Chancellor is equivalent to that of a prime minister in many other countries. German has two equivalent translations of prime minister, Premierminister and Ministerpräsident. While Premierminister usually refers to heads of governments of foreign countries (e.g., Great Britain), Ministerpräsident may also refer to the heads of government of most German states.

The current Chancellor is Angela Merkel, who is serving her third term in office. She is the first female chancellor, thus being known in German as Bundeskanzlerin. That particular word was never used officially before Merkel, but it is a grammatically regular formation of a noun denoting a female chancellor.

The modern office of Chancellor evolved from the position created for Otto von Bismarck in the North German Confederation in 1867; the Confederation evolved into a German nation-state with the 1871 Unification of Germany. The role of the Chancellor has varied greatly throughout Germany's modern history. Today, the Chancellor is widely considered to be the country's effective leader.

Prime minister

A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime minister is the presiding member and chairman of the cabinet. In a minority of systems, notably in semi-presidential systems of government, a prime minister is the official who is appointed to manage the civil service and execute the directives of the head of state.

In parliamentary systems fashioned after the Westminster system, the prime minister is the presiding and actual head of government and head of the executive branch. In such systems, the head of state or the head of state's official representative (i.e. the monarch, president, or governor-general) usually holds a largely ceremonial position, although often with reserve powers.

The prime minister is often, but not always, a member of parliament and is expected with other ministers to ensure the passage of bills through the legislature. In some monarchies the monarch may also exercise executive powers (known as the royal prerogative) that are constitutionally vested in the crown and may be exercised without the approval of parliament.