A Day in the World

JJohnson

Banned
This is a new format I'm going to try, somewhat inspired by the travel guides. Essentially, taking a day in an alternate reality via news clips, articles, magazines from that reality, and post them here. If you like, just post your own reality's Day, and we can all take turns guessing at the history of that reality.

A Day in the World: Liberty's Torch

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November 19, 2013
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President David William Johnson, the first African-American President of the United States, made a visit today at the Gettysburg National Memorial, where the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, gave his historic speech one hundred fifty years ago.

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President Johnson (R 200:cool:

President Johnson delivered a reading of Lincoln's speech, finishing with those power lines:

"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

A devout Baptist, Johnson emphasized the phrase 'under God,' as his wife and four children looked on. A number of governors and descendants of former slaves were in attendance. The President's own family included Major George Washington Johnson, a medal of honor recipient who fought in the Union Army. Afterward, President Johnson spent some time walking the memorial to pay his respects.

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Major G.W. Johnson, Union Soldier


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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
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Today, her majesty Queen Elizabeth III visited Ireland's capital, Dublin, where she visited the devolved parliament, which had recently completed its renovation for the first time in 20 years, updating the technology and facilities. The queen will speak later in Coláiste na Tríonóide (Trinity College), where she will speak entirely in Irish to the primarily Irish-speaking audience in attendance. Irish is widely-spoken in the west of Ireland, and has steadily grown across the island, with large pockets of Irish-speakers in Dublin.

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HRH Queen Elizabeth III

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Germany
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Bromberg, Germany

19. November, 2013

President Annika Meißner of Germany spoke today at the Bromberg Memorial in the German state of Posen, dedicating the memorial to the lives lost in the 1943 massacre of the majority of Germany's royal families, including the then-Emperor William III and his family. It was carried out under the directive of Polish dictator Józef Piłsudski. Poland has since officially apologized to the people of Germany and the state of Posen, for annexing and occupying the state, along with East and West Prussia, Silesia, and Pomerania during the war.

President Meißner delivered a five-minute address, keeping her remarks brief and concise, with only brief moments where her resolve showed how deeply the memorial affected her, as her husband's family had also lost a relative in Bromberg on Töpferstraße, across the river. She praised the efforts of both the Americans and British during the war to push back the fascist forces on either side of Germany, their aid in rebuilding Germany, and the friendship and cooperation of both France and Poland after the war towards rebuilding Europe. Copies of the speech are available online at NovaScotiaJournal.us, Welt.de, and DailyMail.uk.

The Minister-President of Posen, Hans Seehofer, introduced the President of Germany, Annika Meißner, who was to speak at the Bromberg Memorial near Posenerplatz. Also in attendance were the American Vice President, William Van Buren, the British Prime Minister George Penning, Posen Mayor Johannes Schall, Polish President Adam Palczewski, French President Francois Boulanger, American Secretary of State David Walker, as well as several surviving family members of the victims of the Bromberg Massacre.


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Hans Seehofer (NLP)
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Mayor Johannes Schall (CDU)
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Präsidentin Annika Meißner (NLP)

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Belfort, Germany
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German Chancellor Michael Wilhelm Dohm is visiting Belfort, Alsace-Lorraine today, in a twin ceremony commemorating those lost during the second World War. Many German politicians lost their lives in the labor camp that once stood outside the city of Belfort. He will speak later today at Reichenberg and Troppau before joining the German President at a state dinner in Berlin with a number of foreign leaders near the Bundestag.

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Frankfurt, Germany
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The financial capital of Germany, Frankfurt, is abuzz today with news of a new DAX high of 12300, hit today about 2:15 PM CET (GMT+1). The customs union and free trade zone founded as the Northern Europe Free Trade Area (which includes the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and just last year, Poland) is currently discussing whether a joint currency to replace the current exchange-locked currencies to the German Mark, a hallmark of currency stability since the late 1940s. The DAX is posting record profits in a number of German companies, BMW, PÖ, VW, DTK (Deutsche Telekom), and DM.

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Constantinople, Greece
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The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Constantine VIII, held service today at the Hagia Sophia in a widely broadcast and streamed sermon on faith and charity, bringing attention to the situation of orphans in Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria. The 25-minute sermon was attended by 2,000, including 40 Roman Catholics from Rome's Leonine City, Germany, France, Spain, and Portugal, as part of Pope Julius IV's efforts to reach out to the eastern church.

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Hagia Sophia, Constantinople

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Patriarch Constantine VIII

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Paris, France
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Jeanine Viau just tweeted back home a picture of her visit to the Louvre, where the Mona Lisa resides, to her brother in Hamilton, the capital of Ottawa state.
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"Best senior trip ever!"

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Yukon, USA
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Jefferson City, Yukon.

Today Governor of the state of Yukon called for a bill in the Yukon House of Representatives authorizing two new hydroelectric plants along the northern part of the state, which would improve reliability of the Yukon electric grid, which is separate from the state of Columbia to the south, and allow Yukon to provide more of its own electricity instead of drawing from Alaska.

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Governor Bill Connor (R).
Governor Connor is descended from Tlingit natives from Klukwan, Alaska.

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Puerto Rico
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José Aguilar, Governor of the State of Puerto Rico, spent the day discussing a new bill with the Governor of the State of the Virgin Islands, Victor Merkel, to clarify the extent of their fishing rights in each others' waters, and where the boundaries between the two states should be drawn. The issue has been a contentious one since the late 1970s for both states.

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Governor Victor Merkel (D), VI

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Governor José Aguilar (R), PR

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DayClipper, internet newsclip service; app now available on Windows 8, Atari JaguarOS 3.5, Mac OS X, and AmigaOS.
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Top news people are clipping (sharing) from around the world:

*Star Trek: Paradox, the new movie featuring the first Captain of the Enterprise, Robert April hits #1 at the box office opening weekend. Star Trek: First Voyage, and Star Trek: Frontiers, featuring Captain April and Captain Kirk, both hit #1 when they opened in 2007 and 2010.
*Governor Jean LaCroix of Quebec visited Saint-Pierre, the easternmost city in the state, for a week of vacation, caught some Cod with his wife and the Dutch Mayor of Namur, Hubert Duchâtelet.
*Dutch sociologists fear loss of French-language ability in Brussel, Luik (Liege) as Dutch language prestige meant fewer Netherlanders teaching children French in the bilingual nation of 28 million.
*Eupen faces off against Köln in Football today. The two Rhineland cities' football fans have been eagerly awaiting the rematch since the last game, when Eupen's team defeated Köln 3-2.
*Deutsche Bahn reopened the Marburg an der Drau to Trieste German-Italian service after a train collision on the line that passed from Germany through Slovenia to the coastal Italian city, a favorite tourist destination for Germans.
*Rijeka, Slovenia is the newest port for Royal Mediterranean Cruises, along with Marseilles, Ancona, Smyrna, Constantinople, Barcelona, and Bône.
*Arlington, DC: Secretary of Defense William DeVries and Secretary of the Interior Katrina Biedermann attend the new National Observatory and Planetarium expansion. The westernmost museum in the Federal District, on the western side of the Potomac, has been an important place of scientific discovery for over 200 years, since its establishment by President Jefferson.
*Birkenfeld, Rhineland: pop singer Steffi Dhom releases her new album "Na Gut" today, with two hit singles already.
*Bône and Constantine have completed a new rail line to replace the aging line from the 1960s, with France's SNCF scheduling the first train to run next Tuesday.
*Corsica, Italy: President of the region of Corsica, Roberto Caprietti, gave a 20-year-old bottle of Vino Corsica to visiting Prime Minister of New Caledonia, Robert Allen, who is meeting up with Prime Minister John Seward of New Zealand later today in Nice, Italy for a trade summit with Italian, French, and Spanish representatives.
*Neuberg, Bougainville, Solomon Islands Territory (OTL: Arawa), capital of the German Solomon Islands Territory is holding a vote on New Caledonia's proposal to add it to the South Pacific Free Trade Area, with New Zealand and Australia. If the territory accepts, then the treaty will go to Berlin for debate in the Bundesrat before going to the German President for ratification.
 
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An interesting idea and well carried out (without the dreaded "As you know, Bob" syndrome, for example). But I do have some questions.

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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
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Today, her majesty Queen Elizabeth III visited Ireland's capital, Dublin, where she visited the devolved parliament, which had recently completed its renovation for the first time in 20 years, updating the technology and facilities. The queen will speak later in Coláiste na Tríonóide (Trinity College), where she will speak entirely in Irish to the primarily Irish-speaking audience in attendance. Irish is widely-spoken in the west of Ireland, and has steadily grown across the island, with large pockets of Irish-speakers in Dublin.
Why would Irish be more preserved in an Ireland that is still part of the UK?

Bromberg, Germany

19. November, 2013

President Annika Meißner of Germany spoke today at the Bromberg Memorial in the German state of Posen, dedicating the memorial to the lives lost in the 1943 massacre of the majority of Germany's royal families, including the then-Emperor William III and his family. It was carried out under the directive of Polish dictator Józef Piłsudski. Poland has since officially apologized to the people of Germany and the state of Posen, for annexing and occupying the state, along with East and West Prussia, Silesia, and Pomerania during the war.
As Posen is apparently German majority here, have the Poles from Posen been expelled after the war?




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Belfort, Germany
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German Chancellor Michael Wilhelm Dohm is visiting Belfort, Alsace-Lorraine today, in a twin ceremony commemorating those lost during the second World War. Many German politicians lost their lives in the labor camp that once stood outside the city of Belfort. He will speak later today at Reichenberg and Troppau before joining the German President at a state dinner in Berlin with a number of foreign leaders near the Bundestag.
Belfort wasn't annexed by Germany in 1871 in OTL, so was it annexed here after the war? Or was the POD before 1871?




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Constantinople, Greece
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The Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Constantine VIII, held service today at the Hagia Sophia in a widely broadcast and streamed sermon on faith and charity, bringing attention to the situation of orphans in Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria.


Hagia Sophia, Constantinople


Patriarch Constantine VIII
The patriarch in Constantinople is not Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, but only of the ancient Patriarchy of Constantinople. Have all the other Patriarchies been destroyed in this timeline?
 
An interesting idea and well carried out (without the dreaded "As you know, Bob" syndrome, for example). But I do have some questions.

Why would Irish be more preserved in an Ireland that is still part of the UK?

Indeed, and an Ireland as part of the UK is pushing ASB as it is. You'd need a POD far beyond 1660 to improve Irish-English relations. You'd basically need a United Ireland with a Royal family that (like Scotland) has a Union with the English crown.

But that requires 1) a unified Irish Royal Family... and I can't even begin to think how far back you'd need to go for that one 2) Prevent England/Scotland going Protestant (or make Ireland go Protestant), to prevent conflict between a Catholic Ireland and Protestant UK. Still, very complicated and needs an awful lot of careful butterfly crushing but not impossible.

But Irish as a language would see considerable further decline as a result of the Union.

The idea is very interesting though, I look forward to further posts.
 

JJohnson

Banned
An interesting idea and well carried out (without the dreaded "As you know, Bob" syndrome, for example). But I do have some questions.


Why would Irish be more preserved in an Ireland that is still part of the UK?
This Ireland's Irish language revival was much more successful, and after they got a devolved Parliament, they were able to direct schooling to more Irish-language immersion. It's roughly 30-35% native speaker in this reality, but about 65% or so can at least understand or hold simple conversations. English is still the majority language by far, but Dublin has a sizable Irish-speaking population.


As Posen is apparently German majority here, have the Poles from Posen been expelled after the war?
Yes. Germans were expelled from Siebenburgen and Volga, and Poles from Posen and West Prussia to the neighboring Poland.



Belfort wasn't annexed by Germany in 1871 in OTL, so was it annexed here after the war? Or was the POD before 1871?

Sometime after 1871, possibly as a result of the land changes after the Second Great War.





The patriarch in Constantinople is not Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, but only of the ancient Patriarchy of Constantinople. Have all the other Patriarchies been destroyed in this timeline?

I'll re-write that. My knowledge of Eastern Orthodoxy is not as good as that of Roman Catholicism. It is a fascinating topic, though.

Thanks for the reply!
 

JJohnson

Banned
A Day in the World: Fractured Parties

October 31, 2013

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Arlington, DC
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President Melissa Kruger spoke at the famous Arlington, DC National Observatory and Planetarium about the importance of science education today, as the newly renovated planetarium was put on display with the powerful Atari Leo Server computers running the show. "The United States has led the world in science for the last 50 years," she said, "but our children's education must put a focus on both science and mathematics, while also giving them a firm foundation in our shared American principles of freedom and liberty."

The President grew up in Montana, and spent time in Rio Grande, Texas, Columbia, and finally settled in Idaho, before running for the state Senate, then the governorship, and finally running for President in 2012.

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President Kruger (R), 2012-

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Rochester, Minnesota
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The Progressive Party Congress met today with Chairwoman Gabrielle Ellison, calling out President Kruger for her environmental record, and calling for a national environmental protection agency, which could coordinate the 68 states' EPAs with a national policy for protecting the environment.

"The President is a disgrace to women everywhere, and to the environment we all share," Ellison called out to the crowd, "her resistance to a national Environmental Protection Agency is a travesty to clean air and clean water. Smog pours out of San Diego, my home town in Colorado, because the EPA there is too weak to do anything. We need a stronger national agency to force the states to do the right thing!"

The administration responded in a statement by Secretary of the Interior, Michael Williams, stating that the federal government respects the authority of the states under the Tenth Amendment to regulate their internal affairs, despite the calls by Progressives that the Commerce Clause gives the government the authority to regulate the environment since it affects commerce. "While we certainly share the Progressives' concern, and the concern of every American that we have clean air and water, as the President stated when she passed the Clean Air Act back in March, which increased incentives for clean coal and hydro power, and tax breaks for CO2 scrubbers in factories across the nation, we believe that our federal structure means that the nationalists in the Progressive Party should remember we have a federal government, not a national government, and they should work through the states to get legislation passed to clean up specific states if they feel it necessary."

The Constitutional Union Party agreed with the President's position, while the Democrats, who are normally sympathetic to the Progressive Party and often work with them to form a governing coalition, had no comment at this time.

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Chairwoman Gabrielle Ellison (P), former Representative (1982-1996) and state senator (1976-1982) from Minnesota.

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Secretary of the Interior Michael Williams

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Sacramento, California
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Governor Andrew Henderson (D) spoke at a black tie event today about the new off-shore drilling bill working its way through the California Legislature.

"I completely share my Progressive friends' concerns that the new rigs off-shore be environmentally safe, and not have what happened in 2005 in Texas during Hurricane Debby happen to our golden shores," he remarked. "These rigs have the latest technology and can withstand any earthquake California can throw at them."

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Governor Henderson (D) (2008-?)

Progressive Michael Caswell agreed with the Governor, stating that his party's caucus worked closely with the Democrats to ensure that the newly authorized off-shore rigs would be safe and at 6 miles out, invisible from the shore, preserving Californian tourism dollars.

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Michael Caswell (P), Senator from Monterrey in California. Currently the Majority Whip for the Democrat-Progressive Coalition in California.

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Vancouver, Columbia
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Constitutional Union Senator José Fonnegra spoke to the Western Journal today. He spoke of the need for continued education of the history of the United States, and his upcoming invitation at the Armistice Day celebration on November 11.

"It's important to teach our children why we celebrate Armistice Day, and how bad leadership got us into the First Great War, but how in the end, America was the beacon that led the Allies to defeat the Central Powers," he told reporter Jessica Smith in an interview today. "Progressives tried a century ago to make America an internationalist country, interfering all over the world, when it's none of our business, unless there's a clear and present risk to our country. It didn't work, and because of their lack of attention, the supposed victors of the war in Europe started the Second Great War. We celebrate Armistice Day to remind us, of our brothers in arms overseas who lay buried outside Marseilles and Lyons, and those who came back, of that horrible cost of war, and that if we intend to go to war, we should go in to win, not to play at nation-building."

Senator Fonnegra served overseas in the Fifth Infantry in Korea and in Ethiopia before being elected to the Senate from Columbia by the state legislature. He joined the Constitutional Union party, formerly the National Union party, because of his belief in a strong national defense, and a strict interpretation of the Constitution, as described in Madison's three volume work "The American Constitution." His party caucuses with the Republicans to give them a governing majority in the Senate and House.

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Senator Fonnegra (CU) (2010-?), from the state of Columbia


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Breslau, Germany
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Abgeordeten from the National Liberal Party (NLP) of Silesia, aided by the Centre Party in the south of Silesia, passed a new bill in the state legislature, which the Minister-President Wilhelm Philipkowski said he will sign, designed to bring in new industries to the state, which has for too long relied on coal extraction. Philipkowski stated that he intends to bring more high technology firms into the eastern state, which traditionally have headquartered in Koblenz or Cologne in Rhineland, or Hanover in the north.

"Breslau is a city with much history," the MP said, "but we must look to the future. And this legislation will make it easier for German businesses and international businesses to come here, and for Germans to find work here in Silesia."

Amiga is planning on opening a new research division in Breslau, while Microsoft is debating on bringing a new server plant to either Straßburg or Breslau, to house their expanding Bing search engine, which now runs 28% of all European internet searches.

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Minister-President Wilhelm Philipkowski (NLP)

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Paris, France
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Centrist Party (Alliance centriste) leader Nicholas DuPont spoke today about the proposed bill decriminalizing the French Social Party (PSF), the national socialist party that was outlawed following the Second Great War.

"My colleagues the Christian Democrats (Parti chrétien-démocrate), the Liberal Democrats (Démocratie Libérale), and the Republicans (Parti républicain), we know the proud history of France," DuPont began in the National Assembly, "our long history stretching back to Charlemagne himself, through the Revolution against the monarchy, and through our own tragic past in the first half of the 20th century. We led the fight against the Kaiser in Germany, and let bitterness and revanchism destroy our republic with the Action Française, for which the PSF is just a new name for the same old anti-immigrant, euro-centric, aggressive 19th century imperialism that we cast off over 70 years ago. This same party today believes we should reannex Alsace-Lorraine and Corsica from Germany and Italy! Two countries which today are our allies, whose people live and work in France, and contribute to our nation's richness and to the richness and progress of Europe, alienated over a dead and buried argument from generations ago! Perhaps we should re-annex New France from the United Kingdom, or the United States? Our French-speaking brothers in Quebec might disagree with being ruled by a President across the ocean, just as they did over two centuries ago! This party must not be decriminalized, and this sentiment must be allowed to die, so that France can continue to lead Europe as the center of culture and progress that we are today for years to come."

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Nicholas DuPont (AP), from Marseilles, France.

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Savoy, Italy
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President Enrico Bertini visited the Italian region of Savoy today to pay his respects to his grandfather, who was buried in the capital city, Èneci. He will be meeting up with his Swiss counterpart, Anna-Maria Saylor, the Federal Chancellor, to discuss economic issues with Swiss companies seeking to expand into Italy this year.

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Federal Chancellor Saylor (FDP), Switzerland

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President Enrico Bertini (DP), Italy
 
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