Germany marks 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall - CNN

Leaders from Central and Eastern Europe gathered in the German capital to celebrate the pivotal moment in history that marked the end of communism and the reunification of the country.

A number of events were scheduled to take place across the city, which included the commemoration ceremony at the Berlin Wall Memorial that leaders attended.

During the event, Merkel said European values must be not be taken for granted.

"The values that Europe is based on -- freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law, human rights -- these are not to be taken for granted," Merkel said. "We always have to defend them.

"In the future Europe will [continue to] be fighting for human rights, tolerance and democracy." she added. "This is a time of global changes, so this is a pressing issue."

Candles will also be lit for victims of communist violence and celebrations will continue on into the evening at the Brandenburg Gate -- the symbol of a reunified Germany which once stood at the center of the no man's land between East and West.

The seismic event of the fall of the Berlin wall sent shock waves across Europe 30 years ago, and sparked hopes for millions of East Germans.

On August 13, 1961, citizens woke up to find a makeshift barricade of barbed wire and cinder blocks that sliced through their city.

The barrier evolved over the next three decades into a 45-kilometer concrete wall, which symbolized the deep ideological divide between the Soviet bloc and the West at the height of the Cold War. The three-and-a-half meter deep wall was fortified with watchtowers, electric fences and armed guards.

On November 9 in 1989, jubilant crowds stormed the concrete blockade, just minutes after the Communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) announced that travel restrictions would be lifted for east Germans. The propaganda and fear were replaced with a sense of freedom and unity.

However, despite the fall of the wall, three decades later an invisible barrier still stretches across Germany.

While slowly disintegrating, the divide remains. According to Steffen Mau, a sociology professor at Berlin's Humboldt University many gaps, particularly the economic ones have narrowed but people still have "strong differences in attitudes and mentality."

Even the way people see themselves and their country varies. Mau explains that most west Germans say there is "no difference any more ... while most east Germans would say there is still a striking difference between East and West."

According to some surveys, he added, as many as half of east Germans still feel like "second-class citizens."

In terms of wealth, the six eastern states had a lot of catching up to do when the Wall came down. And while a big chunk of that gap has closed over the past three decades, the East is still lagging behind, in terms of both GDP and incomes.

CNN's Ivana Kottasová and Radina Gigova contributed reporting.

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2019-11-09 11:34:00Z
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Ayodhya verdict explained in one minute - BBC News

India's Supreme Court has ruled that the disputed holy site in Ayodhya in northern India should be given to Hindus who want to build a temple there.

The case, which has been bitterly contested for decades by Hindus and Muslims, centres on the ownership of the land in Uttar Pradesh state.

At the centre of the row is the 16th Century Babri mosque which was demolished by Hindu mobs in 1992, sparking riots that killed nearly 2,000 people.

Muslims would get another plot of land to construct a mosque, the court said.

The BBC's Vikas Pandey explains what happened at the court today and what the reaction has been.

Video produced by Anshul Verma.

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2019-11-09 11:27:58Z
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Indian court rules in favor of Hindu temple on disputed land - Fox News

NEW DELHI  — India's Supreme Court on Saturday ruled in favor of a Hindu temple on a disputed religious ground and ordered that alternative land be given to Muslims to build a mosque.

The dispute over land ownership has been one of the country's most contentious issues.

The 16th-century Babri Masjid mosque in northern Indian town of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh state was destroyed by Hindu hard-liners in December 1992, sparking massive Hindu-Muslim violence that left 2,000 people dead.

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Five Supreme Court justices said in a unanimous judgment that 5 acres (2.02 hectares) of land will be allotted to the Muslim community at a prominent place for building a mosque. The disputed land will be given to a board of trustees for the construction of a temple for Hindu god Ram.

Hindu supporters and activists celebrated the ruling on the court lawns, blowing bugles and chanting "Jai Shree Ram," or hailing god Ram.

Nirmohi Akhara leader Dharam Das, center, celebrates the verdict outside the Supreme Court in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Nov. 9, 2019. (Associated Press)

An attorney representing the Muslims deplored the ruling.

"We are not satisfied with the verdict and it's not up our expectation," said Zafaryab Jilani, who is representing the Muslim community's Babri Action committee.

"We are not satisfied with the verdict and it's not up our expectation."

— Zafaryab Jilani, Muslim community's Babri Action committee

"These 5 acres of land don't mean anything to us," he said. "We are examining the verdict and whatever legal course is open for us."

He hinted at filing a review petition in the Supreme Court challenging Saturday's verdict. At the same time, he appealed to members of all communities to maintain peace.

Vishnu Shankar Jain, an attorney who represented the Hindu community, said the journey over several years had been a struggle.

"It was a huge legal battle and we are happy that we convinced the Supreme Court. It's a historic moment for Hindus," he said.

"It was a huge legal battle and we are happy that we convinced the Supreme Court. It's a historic moment for Hindus."

— Vishnu Shankar Jain, attorney for Hindu community

Raj Nath Singh, India's defense minister, appealed to all to "accept the court verdict and maintain peace."

In Islamabad, Pakistan's foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, criticized the verdict, saying it was indicative of the "hate based mindset" of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.

"This is nothing but Modi's government continued policies of cultivating seeds of hatred and promoting differences between the communities and religious segments of the population to achieve its designs," he said.

Hindu hard-liners say they want to build a new temple to god Ram on the site, which they revere as his birthplace. They say the mosque was built after a temple dedicated to the Hindu god was destroyed by Muslim invaders.

After the demolition of the mosque, Hindus and Muslims took the issue to a lower court, which in 2010 ruled that the disputed land should be divided into three parts — two for Hindus and one for Muslims.

That was challenged in the Supreme Court by both communities.

The five judges started daily proceedings in August after mediation failed to find a compromise.

Modi had promised to build the temple in 2014 elections that brought him to power. But he later decided to wait for the court verdict despite pressure from millions of Hindu hard-liners who asked his government to bring legislation to build the temple

Authorities increased security in Ayodhya, 550 kilometers (350 miles) east of New Delhi, and deployed more than 5,000 paramilitary forces to prevent any attacks by Hindu activists on Muslims, who comprise 6% of the town's more than 55,500 people.

The strict measures included a ban on the assembly of more than four people at one place.

The town looked deserted with authorities turning back thousands of Hindu pilgrims who were congregating for a religious event on Tuesday. Security forces also established a strong presence around the religious site and were not allowing anyone to visit.

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People traveling in cars and buses to Ayodhya were being thoroughly checked at security barriers as commandos took up positions in bunkers across the town.

Police have arrested nearly 500 people for posting provocative messages on social media in the state. Police also have detained 5,000 people with criminal backgrounds across the state to prevent them from creating trouble after the court verdict, according to Uttar Pradesh state government spokesman Awanish Awasthi.

Authorities also stopped the entry of people into the state through land border from Nepal, and ordered all state schools and colleges to remain closed until Monday.

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2019-11-09 08:10:14Z
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The Fall of the Berlin Wall in Photos: An Accident of History That Changed The World - The New York Times

The Fall of the Berlin Wall in Photos: An Accident of History That Changed The World

The Communist regime was prepared for everything “except candles and prayers.” East Germany’s peaceful 1989 revolution showed that societies that don’t reform, die.

Image

East German police sprayed water on West Germans as they broke through the wall at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on Nov. 11, 1989.Credit...Anthony Suau

By

BERLIN — When Werner Krätschell, an East German pastor and dissident, heard that the Berlin Wall was open, he did not quite believe it. But he grabbed his daughter and her friend and drove to the nearest checkpoint to see for himself.

It was the night of Nov. 9, 1989. As their yellow Wartburg advanced unimpeded into what had always been an off-limits security zone, Mr. Krätschell rolled down the window and asked a border guard: “Am I dreaming or is this reality?”

“You are dreaming,” the guard replied.

It had long been a dream for East Berliners like Mr. Krätschell to see this towering symbol of unfreedom running like a scar of cement and barbed wire through the heart of their home city ripped open.

And when it finally became reality, when the Cold War’s most notorious armed border opened overnight, and was torn apart in the days that followed, it was not in the end the result of some carefully crafted geopolitical grand bargain.

It was, at the most basic level at least, the wondrous result of human error, spontaneity and individual courage.

“It was not predestined,” said Anne Applebaum, the historian and columnist. “It was not a triumph of good over evil. It was basically incompetence — and chance.”

In the early evening of that fateful November day, a news conference took a historic turn.

Against the backdrop of mass protests and a wave of eastern German refugees that had already fled the country via Hungary and what was then Czechoslovakia, Günter Schabowski, the leader of the East Berlin Communist Party, convened journalists to announce a series of reforms to ease travel restrictions.

When asked when the new rules would take effect, Mr. Schabowski paused and studied the notes before him with a furrowed brow. Then he stumbled through a partially intelligible answer, declaring, “It takes effect, as far as I know... it is now... immediately.”

It was a mistake. The Politburo had planned nothing of the sort. The idea had been to appease the growing resistance movement with minor adjustments to visa rules — and also to retain the power to deny travel.

But many took Mr. Schabowski by his word. After West Germany’s main evening news, popular with East Germans who had long stopped trusting their own state-controlled media, effectively declared the wall open, crowds started heading for checkpoints at the Berlin Wall, demanding to cross.

At one of those checkpoints, a Stasi officer who had always been loyal to the regime, was working the night shift. His name was Lt. Col. Harald Jäger. And his order was to turn people away.

As the crowd grew, the colonel repeatedly called his superiors with updates. But no new orders were forthcoming. At some point he listened in to a call with the ministry, where he overheard one senior official questioning his judgment.

“Someone in the ministry asked whether Comrade Jäger was in a position to assess the situation properly or whether he was acting out of fear,” Mr. Jäger recalled years later in an interview with Der Spiegel. “When I heard that, I’d had enough.”

“If you don’t believe me, then just listen!” he shouted down the line, then took the receiver and held it out the window.

Shortly after, Mr. Jäger defied his superiors and opened the crossing, starting a domino effect that eventually hit all checkpoints in Berlin. By midnight, triumphant easterners had climbed on top of the wall in the heart of the city, popping champagne corks and setting off fireworks in celebration.

Not a single shot was fired. And no Soviet tanks appeared.

That, said Axel Klausmeier, director of the Berlin Wall Foundation, was perhaps the greatest miracle of that night. “It was a peaceful revolution, the first of its kind,” he said. “They were prepared for everything, except candles and prayers.”

Through its history more than 140 people had died at the Berlin Wall, the vast majority of them trying to escape.

There was Ida Siekmann, 58, who became the first victim on Aug. 22, 1961, just nine days after the wall was finished. She died jumping from her third-floor window after the front of her house on Bernauer Strasse had become became part of the border, the front door filled in with bricks.

Peter Fechter, 18, became the most famous victim a year later. Shot several times in the back as he scaled the wall, he fell back onto the eastern side where he lay for over an hour, shouting for help and bleeding to death, as eastern guards looked on and western cameras whirled.

The youngest victim was 15-month-old Holger H., who suffocated when his mother tried to quiet him while the truck his family was hiding in was being searched on Jan. 22, 1971. The parents made it across before realizing that their baby was dead.

For the first half of 1989, it was still nearly impossible to get out of East Germany: The last killing at the wall took place in February that year, the last shooting, a close miss, in April.

The Soviets had squashed an East German uprising in June 1953 and suppressed similar rebellions in Hungary in 1956 and Prague in 1968.

In June 1989, just five months before the Berlin Wall fell, the Communist Party of China committed a massacre against democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.

“They had been shooting people for 40 years,” said Ms. Applebaum, the historian. “No one knew what they would do in 1989.”

But 1989 proved different. In the end, what gave people courage to resist were a series of shocks that had already shaken Soviet Communism to the core.

Poland’s successful Solidarity movement, which had culminated in a semi-free election that year, was one. Others included a series of social and political reforms across Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe with which the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev hoped to preserve — not end — his Communist Party’s control.

And perhaps most important, Ms. Applebaum said, belief in the system had long evaporated.

“The ideology had collapsed and people just didn’t believe in it anymore,” she said.

That is how the little things that culminated in this historic moment could become big things, said Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European history at Oxford University. But that is sometimes misunderstood.

“We took one of the most non-linear events and turned it into a linear version of history,” said Mr. Garton Ash.

The fall of the Berlin Wall became the end of history and liberalism the unchallenged model of modernity. Now illiberalism, Chinese-style, is challenging the West.

Complacency is dangerous, said Ms. Applebaum: “The lesson is: Societies that don’t reform, die.”

Mr. Krätschell, the pastor, had been among those demanding reforms and protesting the system with peaceful means. He held dissident meetings in his home and was harassed by the Stasi, East Germany’s fearsome secret police, for years. The churches played an important role in the resistance movement against East Germany’s Communist authorities.

“We knew: All the phone calls were bugged,” said Mr. Krätschell, now 79.

Years later, after reading his own Stasi file, he learned that special commandos had bugged his home, updating the technology whenever he was on holiday with his family.

Soon after Mr. Krätschell, the pastor, had driven across the border on Nov. 9, 1989, a friend of his daughter who was also in the car asked him to pull over. She was 21 and pregnant and had never set foot in the West before.

Once Mr. Krätschell had parked, she opened the door, stuck her leg out, and touched the floor with her foot. Then she smiled triumphantly.

“It was like the moon landing,” recalled Mr. Krätschell, “a kind of Neil Armstrong moment.”

Later, back in the East, she had called her parents and said, “Guess what, I was in the West.”

Christopher F. Schuetze contributed reporting.

Produced by Gaia Tripoli.

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2019-11-09 08:01:59Z
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Babri Mosque case: Indian top court gives disputed site to Hindus - Al Jazeera English

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2019-11-09 06:55:54Z
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Hong Kong student who fell from parking deck during protests dies, sparking more demonstrations - Fox News

A Hong Kong student who fell and sustained head injuries during protests with police died on Friday, triggering impromptu demonstrations and vigils from pro-democracy activists, while also setting the stage for additional protests throughout the weekend.

Alex Chow, 22, a computer science undergraduate from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, fell from a ledge of a car park as police attempted to clear the area on Monday morning, according to the BBC.

The outlet reported he was attempting to flee the tear-gassed area.

HONG KONG LAWMAKER WITH PRO-BEIJING VIEWS STABBED BY 'FAKE SUPPORTER'

He was later found unconscious in a pool of blood inside the car park, according to Al Jazeera. Protesters believe the tear gas delayed medical personnel from attending to his injuries, the outlet reported.

Police said they used the tear gas to disperse protesters who had been hurling objects from the building. They denied any wrongdoing, saying their actions were justified.

Alex Chow of the Umbrella movement of Hong Kong listens to a journalist's question during an interview in London, Britain July 24, 2017. Picture taken July 24, 2017. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls - RC1238207240

Chow had been in a coma since Monday until medical personnel confirmed his death early on Friday, according to the hospital where he was being treated.

He allegedly died of cardiac arrest.

Students were seen gathering on the second floor of the car park. They were also seen on the campus piazza singing the song "Amazing Grace," while placing candles and flowers throughout the area to honor his memory.

"Light a candle, may there be light, may there be warmth, may you not lost in darkness, may you not wither in coldness," one woman wrote on Twitter.

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It's believed that his death is expected to escalate the tensions between protesters and police in Hong Kong, according to the outlet. Joshua Wong, a pro-democracy campaigner, announced on Twitter that "the government must pay the price."

“Today we mourn the loss of a freedom fighter in Hong Kong," he said on Twitter. “We will not leave anyone behind – what we start together, we finish together. Given the losses suffered by Hong Kong society in the past month, the government must pay the price.”

On Friday afternoon, protesters were seen blocking roads and more vigils are planned for later in the evening, according to the BBC. A Starbucks near the school was raided by students who were reportedly grieving Chow's passing.

Students who marched on campus were heard shouting "Hindering rescuers is attempted murder!" according to the Hong Kong Free Press.

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Protests began in June over a shelved plan to allow extraditions to mainland China, but have morphed into a movement seeking other demands, including direct elections for Hong Kong's leaders, as well as an inquiry into police conduct. Many also believe China is slowly interfering with the freedoms guaranteed to Hong Kong when the British colony went back to Chinese control in 1997.

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2019-11-08 14:14:29Z
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The mistake that toppled the Berlin Wall - Vox

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2019-11-08 13:00:05Z
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