{"id":63407,"date":"2014-11-09T11:02:56","date_gmt":"2014-11-09T11:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=63407"},"modified":"2014-11-09T11:02:56","modified_gmt":"2014-11-09T11:02:56","slug":"germany-marks-fall-berlin-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=63407","title":{"rendered":"Germany marks fall of Berlin Wall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Celebrations are being held in Germany to mark the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.<\/p>\n

Chancellor Angela Merkel attended a service for victims of the communist East German regime, and will go to a huge party at the Brandenburg Gate.<\/p>\n

White balloons marking a stretch of the wall will be released to symbolise its disappearance.<\/p>\n

The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 to stop people fleeing from East Germany to the West.<\/p>\n

Its fall in 1989 became a powerful symbol of the end of the Cold War.<\/p>\n

The day’s events began with a brass band playing, evoking the trumpets which brought down the walls of the biblical city of Jericho.<\/p>\n

Chancellor Merkel and other officials laid roses in one of the remaining sections of the wall.<\/p>\n

While chatting to crowds afterwards, she said it was important to think about all those who suffered because of the Wall, not only in Germany but throughout Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n

Ms Merkel, who grew up in East Germany, will be joined later by former Polish trade union leader and president Lech Walesa and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader.<\/p>\n

The wall stretched for 155km (96 miles) through Berlin but today only about three kilometres of it still stands.<\/p>\n

Within a year of its collapse, Germany – divided after its defeat in World War Two – was reunited.<\/p>\n

\"German<\/div>\n
Ms Merkel and the city’s mayor placed roses in a remaining section of the Wall<\/div>\n
\"Shadows<\/div>\n
Crowds have flocked to the remaining stretches of the Berlin Wall<\/div>\n
\"A<\/div>\n
A guard tower still marks the “death strip” between layers of the former wall that divided Berlin<\/div>\n

More than a million visitors have descended on Berlin for the weekend of festivities that will culminate later on Sunday at the Brandenburg Gate.<\/p>\n

The monument itself was inaccessible during the partition of Germany and is seen as a symbol of the country’s reunification.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, people posed for photos in front of the few remaining graffiti-daubed slabs of the wall, or read information boards about life under Berlin’s 28-year division.<\/p>\n

Others admired the art installation of almost 7,000 white balloons, pegged to the ground and winding along a 15km (nine miles) stretch of the wall’s route.<\/p>\n

At the bustling Potsdamer Platz, which was once cut in two by the wall, a small crowd watched archive footage of East German demonstrators chanting: “We are the people.”<\/p>\n

Striking a more sombre note, Mr Gorbachev, 83, warned on Saturday that the world was on the brink of a new Cold War.<\/p>\n

\"White<\/div>\n
The route of the Berlin Wall is picked out by the illuminated balloons<\/div>\n
\"Circus<\/div>\n
Entertainers have been rehearsing close to remaining stretches of the wall<\/div>\n

Tensions between the West and Russia have been raised by the crisis in Ukraine, which was part of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

“Bloodshed in Europe and the Middle East against the backdrop of a breakdown in dialogue between the major powers is of enormous concern,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The world is on the brink of a new Cold War. Some are even saying that it’s already begun.”<\/p>\n

Mr Gorbachev said that the West – in particular the US – had succumbed to “triumphalism” after the collapse of the USSR in 1991.<\/p>\n

For this reason the global powers had been unable to cope with conflicts in Yugoslavia, the Middle East and now Ukraine, he added.<\/p>\n

Mr Gorbachev, as leader of the USSR in the late 1980s, is credited with rapprochement with the West and creating a more liberal atmosphere which led to the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989.<\/p>\n

\n

The BBC examines the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall, in 60 seconds<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Russia has denied fomenting trouble in eastern Ukraine where pro-Russia separatists seized control in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in April.<\/p>\n

More than 4,000 people have died in the fighting.<\/p>\n

A fragile ceasefire has been in place since September, but elections in rebel-held areas last weekend have prompted fears of a return to full-scale conflict.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Celebrations are being held in Germany to mark the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Chancellor Angela Merkel attended a service for victims of the communist East German regime, and will go to a huge party at the Brandenburg Gate. White balloons marking a stretch of the wall will be released to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":63409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-63407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/63409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}