Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Hereditary Prince Sees Off Olympics Athletes

Photo: Daniel Schwendener / Liechtensteiner Vaterland / Vaterland.li
Hereditary Prince Alois officially bid farewell to Liechtenstein's Olympic athletes this week. Three athletes will represent the Principality at the Winter Games in Pyeongchang: Alpine skiers Tina Weirather and Marco Pfiffner as well as cross country skier Martin Vögeli with Liechtenstein's medal hopes certainly laying with Weirather, who won a silver medal at the World Championships last year.

With its nine medals in Olympic history, Liechtenstein has, in fact, won more medals per capita than any other nation. Not surprisingly for the only nation to lie entirely within the Alps, all of the medals were won in alpine skiing. The first two medals for Liechtenstein were won at the 1976 Winter Olympics. Hanni Wenzel, who later went on two become a double Olympic champion and is actually the mother of Tina Weirather, won a bronze medal in the giant slalom and Willi Frommelt took another bronze medal in the slalom. At the 1980 Lake Placid Games, Hanni Wenzel won two gold and one silver medal with her brother Andreas winning another silver medal for the Principality. Liechtenstein's athletes took home another three bronze medals at the 1984 and 1988 Olympics through Andreas Wenzel, Ursula Konzett and Paul Frommelt.

More pictures of the Hereditary Prince seeing off the athletes at Vaterland.

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

We Know What You Did Last December, Guillaume

Photo: MECO
File this under things we missed: On December 14, the Council for Foreign Trade and Investment - consisting of the presidents of the Chamber of Commerce, FEDIL, Luxinnovation and the Chamber of Trades, as well as representatives of various ministries - met under the honorary chairmanship of Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume at the Ministry of Economy to adopt the action plan of Luxembourg's new economic promotion strategy.

More information on the matter at the government website.

Hereditary Grand Ducal Couple Visits Florida

Photo: SIP / Charles Caratini
Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume and Hereditary Grand Duchess Stéphanie visited Florida this week where they witnessed the launch of the first satellite "GovSat 1" at the Cape Canaveral launch base. They worn joined by Prime Minister Xavier Bettel and his Deputy Etienne Schneider for this occasion.
Photo: SIP / Charles Caratini
"GovSat 1" will be launched later today, at 10:23pm Luxembourg time, aboard a SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk in 2002. "GovSat" will operate the satellite and is a brand operated by LuxGovSat S.A., a public-private joint venture between the Luxembourg government and SES, the world’s leading satellite operator located in Betzdorf, Luxembourg. Its mission is to provide secure and reliable satellite communication capabilities for both military and civilian purposes to meet growing demands in the institutional and defense fields.
Photo: SIP / Charles Caratini
While part of the capacity of the GovSat-1 satellite will be used to meet Luxembourg’s requirements for military-frequency satellite communications, the plan is to resell GovSat-1’s additional communication capabilities to allied and partner countries as well as to international organisations (notably Nato and the EU).

More pictures from the cour and the government website. Loads more information at Wort.

Two Audiences for the Grand Duke

Photo: Cour grand-ducale
Earlier today, Grand Duke Henri received in audience Alexander Miesen, President of Parliament of the German-speaking Community of Belgium, at the palais. The German-speaking Community is one of the three federal communities of Belgium with its speakers located in Eastern Belgium around the city of Eupen. 
Photo: Cour grand-ducale
In a second audience, the Grand Duke also welcomed Dama Dramani, President of the National Assembly of Togo, at the palais. Just like Mr Miesen, His Excellency was on a working visit to the Grand Duchy today.

Stéphanie Makes Private Visit to Paris Museum

Photo: Amis des Musées Luxembourg
Together with the Les Amis des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire Luxembourg, one of her patronages, Hereditary Grand Duchess Stéphanie made a private visit to the "César: La Rétrospective" exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris earlier this month. The "Friends of the Museums of Art and History Luxembourg" shared a picture on their Instagram.

Sunday, January 28, 2018

Alois and Sophie Welcome Red Cross Committee President

Photo: Roland Korner / Close Up AG / Vaterland / vaterland.li
On the 22nd, Hereditary Prince Alois and Hereditary Princess Sophie welcomed Peter Maurer, who is the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to stay for a courtesy visit. Maurer was on his way to attend World Economic Forum (WEF) events in Davos.

Liechtenstein partners extensively with the ICRC on International Humanitarian Cooperation and Development, with the goals of improving international humanitarian law and providing humanitarian aid. On the matter of the cooperation, Maurer noted: "Liechtenstein is an important and, above all, reliable partner, with its strong support we are able to help people in areas suffering from the effects of protracted conflicts that are not featured in the headlines on a daily basis."

A little more from Vaterland.

Hereditary Prince Opens Parliament

Photo: Daniel Schwendener / Liechtensteiner Vaterland / Vaterland.li
On Thursday, Hereditary Prince Alois opened the Principality's parliament, after walking there together's with the country's lawmakers. During the opening the Hereditary Prince, who was appointed his father's regent in 2004, gave his annual so-called throne speech despite there not being an actual throne to sit on. In his speech Hereditary Prince Alois focused on the financing of assistance and care of the elderly. The transcript of the full speech in German can be found here.

A gallery of visuals is available at Vaterland. Volksblatt has the audio of the speech, while 1 FL TV provides a video.

Henri and Guillaume Celebrate Luxembourg's Industrialists

Photo: FEDIL / Ann Sophie Lindström
On Thursday this week, Grand Duke Henri and Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume were on hand to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Fédération des Industriels Luxembourgeois, the association of industrialists in Luxembourg. Way more information about the event as well as more pictures are available at Tageblatt.

Prince Max in Davos

Embed from Getty Images

Turns out, Prince Max was also among the numerous royals who flocked to Davos this week. Apart from some other events surely, the CEO of the LGT Group and son of Prince Hans-Adam II was a guest at the Swarovski Dinner and film preview during the World Economic Forum on Wednesday, January 24. He's half-pictured on the left in the photo above.

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Guillaume Receives Travel Tech Startup

Photo: Cour grand-ducale
Earlier today, Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume received Bruno Chauvat, director and co-founder of the enterprise Travelsify, and Alexandra Fernández Ramos, chief product and sales officer of the company, at the palais grand-ducal. Travelsify is a Luxembourgish travel tech startup founded in 2016 that has developped a “hotel DNA” content platform that personalises each hotel based on its data to help guests make better decisions in choosing accommodation