Austria

Schloss Velden, a Capella Hotel, is a year-round Austrian resort located in Velden am Wörthersee on Lake Woerth . The hotel began as the Castle... Velden in 1590, over 400 years ago. A fire in 1762 burned the castle, and was then reconstructed and opened as a hotel in 1890. The hotel became popular with celebrities and royalty. In 1990, the hotel transitioned back into a private Chateau of a German industrialist. Currently, the hotel is owned by Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank International. In the 1990’s Schloss Velden served as the setting for many films and the Austrian/German TV series Ein Schloss am Wörthersee. Under the direction of Horst Schulze, the founder of Ritz-Carlton and creator of the Capella brand re-opened in summer 2007 under the Capella brand name, a hotel management company based in Atlanta, Georgia.
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Schönbrunn Palace is a former imperial 1,441-room Rococo summer residence in Vienna, Austria. One of the most important cultural monuments in... the country, since the 1960s it has been one of the major tourist attractions in Vienna. The palace and gardens illustrate the tastes, interests, and aspirations of successive Habsburg monarchs. In the year 1569, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II purchased a large floodplain of the Wien river beneath a hill, situated between Meidling and Hietzing, where a former owner, in 1548, had erected a mansion called Katterburg. The emperor ordered the area to be fenced and put game there such as pheasants, ducks, deer and boar, in order to serve as the court's recreational hunting ground. In a small separate part of the area, "exotic" birds like turkeys and peafowl were kept. Fishponds were built, too. The name Schönbrunn , has its roots in an artesian well from which water was consumed by the court. During the next century, the area was used as a hunting and recreation ground.
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Hofburg Palace is a palace located in Vienna, Austria, that has housed some of the most powerful people in Austrian history, including the Habsburg... dynasty, rulers of the Austro-Hungarian empire. It currently serves as the official residence of the President of Austria. It was the Habsburgs' principal winter residence, as the Schönbrunn Palace was their preferred summer residence. The Hofburg area has been the documented seat of government since 1279 for various empires and republics. The Hofburg has been expanded over the centuries to include: various residences , the chapel , museums , the Imperial Library , the treasury , the national theatre , the riding school , the horse stables and the Hofburg Congress Center. The Hofburg faces the Heldenplatz ordered under the reign of Emperor Francis Joseph, as part of what was to become a Kaiserforum that was never completed.
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St. Stephen's Cathedral is the mother church of the Archdiocese of Vienna and the seat of the Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Cardinal... Schönborn, OP. Its current Romanesque and Gothic form seen today, situated at the heart of Vienna, Austria in the Stephansplatz, was largely initiated by Rudolf IV and stands on the ruins of two earlier churches, the first being a parish church consecrated in 1147. As the most important religious building in Austria's capital, the cathedral has borne witness to many important events in that nation's history and has, with its multi-colored tile roof, become one of the city's most recognizable symbols. By the middle of the 12th century, Vienna had become an important centre of German civilization in eastern Europe, and the four existing churches, including only one parish church, no longer met the town's religious needs. In 1137, Bishop of Passau Reginmar and Margrave Leopold IV signed the Treaty of Mautern, which referred to Vienna as a Civitas for the first time and transferred the Church of St. Peter to the Diocese of Passau.
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The African Development Bank Group is a development bank established in 1964 with the intention of promoting economic and social development in... Africa. The Group comprises the African Development Bank , the African Development Fund , and the Nigeria Trust Fund . AfDB provides loans and grants to African governments and private companies investing in the regional member countries in Africa. It is owned and funded by member governments, and has a public-interest mandate to reduce poverty and promote sustainable development. Following the end of colonial period in Africa, growing desire for more unity within the continent led to the establishment of two draft charters, one for the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity , and for a regional development bank. A draft accord was submitted to top African officials, then to African Ministers, before being cosigned by twenty-three African governments on August 4, 1963, in the form of an agreement establishing the African Development Bank.
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The Asian Development Bank is a regional development bank established on 22 August 1966 to facilitate economic development of countries in Asia. The... bank admits the members of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and non-regional developed countries. From 31 members at its establishment, ADB now has 67 members - of which 48 are from within Asia and the Pacific and 19 outside. ADB was modeled closely on the World Bank, and has a similar weighted voting system where votes are distributed in proportion with member's capital subscriptions. At present, both the United States and Japan hold 552,210 shares, the largest proportion of shares at 12.756% each. China holds 228,000 shares , India holds 224,010 shares , the 2nd and 3rd largest proportion of shares respectively. The highest policy-making body of the bank is the Board of Governors composed of one representative from each member state. The Board of Governors, in turn, elect among themselves the 12 members of the Board of Directors and their deputy.
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Partnership for Peace is a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation program aimed at creating trust between NATO and other states in Europe and the... former Soviet Union; 22 States are members. It was first proposed as an American initiative at the meeting of NATO defense ministers in Travemünde, Germany, on 20–21 October 1993, and formally launched on 10–11 January 1994 NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium. Ten former member states have subsequently joined NATO. On April 26, 1995 Malta became a member of PfP; it left on October 27, 1996 in order to keep its security intact. On March 20, 2008 Malta decided to reactivate their PfP membership; this was accepted by NATO at the Summit in Bucharest on April 3, 2008. During the NATO summit in Riga on November 29, 2006, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia were invited to join PfP after which they joined PfP on December 14, 2006. Cyprus is the only European Union member that is not participating. Turkey has threatened to block an attempt from Cyprus to engage with NATO until the Cyprus dispute is resolved.
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The Paris Club is an informal group of financial officials from 19 of some of the world's biggest economies, which provides financial services such... as war funding, debt restructuring, debt relief, and debt cancellation to indebted countries and their creditors. Debtors are often recommended by the International Monetary Fund after alternative solutions have failed. It meets every six weeks at the French Ministry of the Economy, Finance, and Industry in Paris. It is chaired by a senior official of the French Treasury, currently the Director General of the Treasury [Ramon Fernandez]. The club grew out of crisis talks held in Paris in 1956 between the nation of Argentina and its various creditors. Its principles and procedures were codified at the end of the 1970s in the context of the North-South Dialogue. In the 1990s, the club began to treat the HIPC and non-HIPCs differently. The club began to grant increasingly larger debt reductions for the HIPCs.
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University of Innsbruck has been a university in Austria since 1669. It is currently the largest education facility in the Austrian Bundesland of... Tirol, the third largest in Austria behind Vienna University and the University of Graz and according to latest ratings Austria's leading university. Significant contributions have been made in many branches, most of all in the physics department. In 1562 a Jesuit grammar school was established in Innsbruck, today the "Akademisches Gymnasium Innsbruck". It was financed by the salt mines in Hall in Tirol and was founded as a university in 1669 by Leopold I with four faculties. In 1782 this was reduced to a mere lyceum , but it was re-established as the University of Innsbruck in 1826 by Emperor Franz I. The university is therefore named after both of its founding fathers with the official title of: "Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck" .
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The University of Salzburg, or Paris Lodron University after its founder, the Prince Archbishop Paris Lodron, is located in the Austrian city of... Salzburg, Salzburgerland, home of Mozart. It is divided into 4 faculties: catholic theology, law, humanities and natural science. Founded in 1622, it today has c. 18,000 students and c. 1,600 employees. It is the biggest educational institution in the province of Salzburg. The Paris Lodron University in Salzburg was founded by Prince Archbishop Paris Lodron in 1622. It was an addition to a "Gymnasium", a secondary school that had been founded in 1617. The University was initially set up and maintained by a federation of Benedictine abbeys from Salzburg, Switzerland, Bavaria and Austria. In the early years, the courses taught were theology, divinity, philosophy as well as law and medicine. As a result of the Napoleonic Wars, Salzburg was secularised in the early 19th century. Prince Ferdinand, a brother of Emperor Franz I. of Austria, established the first Faculty of Medicine. After Salzburg was annexed by Bavaria in 1810, the University was closed and dissolved on the 24th of December.
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The Johannes Kepler University of Linz is a public institution of higher education in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria. It offers bachelor's,... master's, diploma and doctoral degrees in business, engineering, law, science, and the social sciences. Today, 13,700 students study at the park campus in the northeast of Linz, with 1 out of 9 students being from abroad. The university was the first in Austria to introduce an electronic student ID in 1998 and the whole campus has Wireless LAN coverage. The university is home of the Johann Radon Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The JKU was established as the "College of Social Sciences, Economics and Business" in 1966. The Faculty of Sciences and Engineering was established three years later and in 1975, the college was awarded university status and the Faculty of Law was integrated on campus.
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Karl August Leopold Böhm was an Austrian conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the... 20th century. The son of a lawyer, Karl Böhm studied law and earned a doctorate on this subject before entering the music conservatory in his home town of Graz, Austria. He later enrolled at the Vienna Conservatory, where he studied under Eusebius Mandyczewski, a friend of Johannes Brahms. In 1917 Karl Böhm became a rehearsal assistant in his home town, in 1919 the assistant director of music, and in 1920 the senior director of music. On the recommendation of Karl Muck, Bruno Walter engaged him at Munich's Bavarian State Opera in 1921. In 1927 he was appointed as chief musical director in Darmstadt. From 1931 to 1934 he fulfilled the same function at the Hamburg opera company and was appointed professor. In 1933 he conducted in Vienna for the first time, in "Tristan and Isolde" by Wagner.
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Gerhard Gruber is an Austrian composer and piano player. As accompanist for silent movies he has become the leading authority in Austria since 1988.... He has performed for about 450 different films . Since 1983 Gerhard Gruber is working and performing as a composer and musician for theatre.
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the... Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers. Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood in Salzburg. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, he was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and travelled in search of a better position, always composing abundantly. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of Mozart's death. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized.
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Viktor Pfeifer is an Austrian figure skater. He is a six-time Austrian national champion. Pfeifer represented Austria at the 2006 and 2010 Winter... Olympics, where he placed 22nd and 21st accordingly. Pfeifer began playing the cello as a child and attended a music conservatory in Austria before deciding to focus on skating. He currently resides in Newark, Delaware. He studies economics at the University of Delaware.
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Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the... capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 81.8 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state and the largest economy in the European Union. It is one of the major political powers of the European continent and a technological leader in many fields. A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, was documented before AD 100. During the Migration Age, the Germanic tribes expanded southward, and established successor kingdoms throughout much of Europe. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire.
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The Slovak Republic , long form  Slovenská republika is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and... an area of about 49,000 square kilometres . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south. The largest city is the capital, Bratislava, and the second largest is Košice. Slovakia is a member state of the European Union, NATO, United Nations, OECD and WTO among others. The official language is Slovak, a member of the Slavic language family. The Slavs arrived in the territory of present day Slovakia in the 5th and 6th centuries during the migration period. In the course of history, various parts of today's Slovakia belonged to Samo's Empire , Principality of Nitra , Great Moravia, Kingdom of Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Habsburg Empire, and Czechoslovakia.
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Switzerland ]; Italian: Svizzera [ˈzviːtːsɛra]; Romansh: Svizra [ˈʒviːtsrɐ] or... [ˈʒviːtsʁːɐ], in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western Europe, where it is bordered by Germany to the north, France to the west, Italy to the south, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a landlocked country geographically divided between the Alps, the Central Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km . While the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, the Swiss population of approximately 7.9 million people is concentrated mostly on the Plateau, where the largest cities are to be found. Among them are the two global cities and economic centres of Zurich and Geneva. The Swiss Confederation has a long history of neutrality—it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815—and did not join the United Nations until 2002.
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Hungary /ˈhʌŋɡəri/ is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by... Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The capital and largest city is Budapest. Hungary is a member of the European Union, NATO, the OECD, the Visegrád Group, and is a Schengen state. The official language is Hungarian, also known as Magyar, which is part of the Finno-Ugric group and is the most widely spoken non-Indo-European language in Europe. Following a Celtic and a Roman period, the foundation of Hungary was laid in the late 9th century by the Hungarian ruler Árpád, whose great-grandson Saint Stephen I was crowned with a crown sent by the pope from Rome in 1000 AD. The Kingdom of Hungary lasted for 946 years, and at various points was regarded as one of the cultural centres of the Western world.
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