North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine-Westphalia (German: Nordrhein-Westfalen) [ˈnɔʁtʁaɪ̯n vɛstˈfaːlən], commonly shortened NRW) is the most populous state of Germany, as well as the fourth largest by area. Its capital is Düsseldorf; the biggest city is Cologne. Four of Germany's ten biggest cities —Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, and Essen— are located within the state, as well as the biggest metropolitan area of the European continent, Rhine-Ruhr, with a population of 11 million.

North Rhine-Westphalia was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly parts of Prussia. The state has been run by a coalition of the Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens since 2010.

History

Rhineland

At the earliest historical period, the territories between the Ardennes and the Rhine were occupied by the Treveri, the Eburones and other Celtic tribes, who, however, were all more or less modified and influenced by their Germanic neighbours. On the right bank of the Rhine, between the Main and the Lahn, were the settlements of the Mattiaci, a branch of the Germanic Chatti, while farther to the north were the Usipetes and Tencteri.

Christian Lindner

Christian Lindner (born January 7, 1979) is a German politician, member of the Landtag ("state diet") of North Rhine-Westphalia and leader of the liberal party Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP).

Early life and education

Christian Lindner was born in Wuppertal, Germany. His father Wolfgang Lindner is a teacher of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Städtisches Gymnasium in Wermelskirchen. After graduating from Gymnasium in 1998, he studied political science at the University of Bonn from 1999 to 2006.

After eleven semesters he acquired the academic degree of Master of Arts (MA). In his master's thesis at the Institute of Political Science, he dealt with the topic: "tax competition and revenue sharing. Can the financial constitution be reformed?". In 2006, he began writing his dissertation under supervision from political science professor Frank Decker, which he has so far not completed due to his political activities.

While studying Lindner undertook his National Service obligations as a reserve officer in the Air Force. In 2002, he was promoted to First lieutenant (Oberleutnant) in the Reserve. In 2008 he was a liaison officer to the Air Force Land Command in Düsseldorf and since September 2011 he has held the rank of Captain (Hauptmann) in the Reserve.

All rights reserved

"All rights reserved" is a phrase that originated in copyright law as a formal requirement for copyright notice. It indicates that the copyright holder reserves, or holds for their own use, all the rights provided by copyright law under one specific copyright treaty.

Origins

The phrase appears to have originated as a result of the Buenos Aires Convention of 1910. Article 3 of the Convention granted copyright in all signatory countries to a work registered in any signatory country, as long as a statement "that indicates the reservation of the property right" (emphasis added) appeared in the work. The phrase "all rights reserved" was not specified in the text, but met this requirement.

Other international copyright treaties did not require this formality. For example, the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC), adopted in 1952, adopted the © symbol as an indicator of protection. (The symbol had been introduced in the US by a 1954 amendment to the Copyright Act of 1909.) The Berne Convention rejected formalities altogether in Article 4 of the 1908 revision, so authors seeking to protect their works in countries that had signed on to the Berne Convention were also not required to use the "all rights reserved" formulation. However, because not all Buenos Aires signatories were members of Berne or the UCC, and in particular the United States did not join UCC until 1955, a publisher in a Buenos Aires signatory seeking to protect a work in the greatest number of countries between 1910 and 1952 would have used both the phrase "all rights reserved" and the copyright symbol.