GERMANY:FORMER CHANCELLOR Helmut Kohl (78) has announced plans to marry his partner, Maike Richter (43), according to Germany's Bildnewspaper.
The news comes four years after the two first met and seven years after the death of his wife, Hannelore Kohl.
Following 41 years of marriage, she killed herself in 2001 after living with a debilitating daylight allergy for nearly two years.
Ms Richter, an official at the economics ministry in Berlin, is a familiar face at official events at the side of Dr Kohl, viewed as the architect of German unification.
Bildsaid he informed his family of his marriage plans from hospital where he is recovering from a head injury after a fall. No date has been set, but friends have said it will be soon.
"With this step they are doing what they already told friends last year," said a spokesman to Bild. "The fact that he's doing this now shows how optimistic the former chancellor is about his own health."
Dr Kohl has suffered a series of health setbacks in recent years.
The corpulent former chancellor received a second artificial knee last year. Despite successful rehabilitation, he tripped and fell at his home in Ludwigshafen seven weeks ago and suffered a skull trauma that required surgery.
Dr Kohl left office in 1998 and, two years later, was forced to stand down as honorary Christian Democrat (CDU) leader after a scandal over party fundraising.
He met Ms Richter in 2004 and during their first holiday in Sri Lanka in December of that year narrowly escaped the tsunami. They made their first public appearance the following year and yesterday's announcement was front-page news.
"Hannelore wrote in her farewell letter that I shouldn't remain alone, that it wouldn't be good for me," said Dr Kohl recently.