Angela Merkel
According to Forbes Angela Merkel is
the world's most powerful woman and
is the backbone of the 27-member
European Union and carries the fate
of the euro on her shoulders. Angela
has been the Chancellor of Germany
since 2005, and the Leader of the
Christian Democratic Union since
2000. She is the first woman
to hold either office. Merkel's
'no excuses' approach for
easing the European debt
crisis has been challenged
by both hard-hit southern
countries and the more
affluent north. Merkel has
earned the top spot on
the Forbes list of Most
Powerful Women in the
World for seven of the
past 10 years.
Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Kasner was
born in Hamburg, West Germany,
on July 17, 1954. She studied
physics at the University of
Leipzig, earning a doctorate
in 1978, and later worked as a
chemist at the Central Institute
for Physical Chemistry, Academy
of Sciences (1978–1990). Merkel
entered politics after the 1989
fall of the Berlin Wall when she
joined the Christian Democratic
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Union (CDU) political party
and soon after was appointed
to Helmut Kohl's cabinet as
minister for women and youth.
Following his defeat in the 1998
general election, she was named
Secretary-General of the CDU.
She was chosen party leader
in 2000 and ran unsuccessfully
for chancellor in 2002. In the
2005 election she narrowly
defeated Chancellor Gerhard
Schröder, winning by just three
seats, and after the CDU agreed
a coalition deal with the Social
Democrats (SPD), she was
declared Germany's first female
chancellor. Merkel is also the first
former citizen of the German
Democratic Republic to lead the
reunited Germany and the first
woman to lead Germany since it
became a modern nation-state in
1871. Source: www.biography.com
