Berlin

Cold War's End -- The Wall Comes Down

Chris Weigant | Posted 11.10.2009 | Politics


Chris Weigant

The fall of The Wall signified the fall of the Soviet Union, and an end to the Cold War. And while this was of enormous historical import, I fear that future generations won't really pay much attention to it.

Both sides remember the day the Berlin Wall fell down

WorldFocus.org | WorldFocus.org | Posted 11.09.2009 | Home

Read More: Berlin, Poland, Home News

For decades, the Berlin Wall stood as the symbol of the Cold War. Built in 1961, it was the line in the sand where western democracy ended and communi...

Berlin Wall Anniversary (PHOTOS)

Huffington Post | Adam Taylor | Posted 11.09.2009 | World


Germany celebrated the 20th anniversary of fall of the Berlin Wall Monday. Here is a look at this historic day in photos. Get HuffPost World On Fac...

Music for the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Tim Mohr | Posted 11.09.2009 | Entertainment


Tim Mohr

The awareness of mortality in 1980s nuke-pop was amplified by the inescapably bleak Cold War reality. With the fall of the Wall, much of the threat evaporated. The music, however, lives on.

Which leader contributed most to the fall of the Berlin Wall?

WorldFocus.org | WorldFocus.org | Posted 11.09.2009 | Home

Read More: Berlin, Home News

Gorbachev and other notable Soviet leaders. Photo: Flickr user hangele Today is the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s demise. World...

Today: Salvador mudslides, the Berlin Wall and eco-buses

WorldFocus.org | WorldFocus.org | Posted 11.09.2009 | Home


Stories compiled by Gizem Yarbil, Connie Kargbo, Channtal Fleischfresser, Christine Kiernan, Ivette Feliciano, and Mohammad al-Kassim, and edited by ...

Who Caused the End of the Cold War?

Joseph Nye | Posted 11.10.2009 | World


Joseph Nye

The end of the Cold War was a greater historical transformation than 9/11, but controversy persists about its causes.

Remembering Kristallnacht in Berlin: The Story of Hans Riess

Stefan Sirucek | Posted 11.09.2009 | Politics


Stefan Sirucek

The reason November 9 -- the day the Berlin Wall fell -- is not a national holiday in Germany, is that it also marks a much darker anniversary: Kristallnacht, the so-called "Night of Broken Glass."

Leaders to mark fall of Berlin Wall

Al Jazeera. | Al Jazeera | Posted 11.08.2009 | Home

Read More: Berlin, Home News

German capital to celebrate 20th anniversary of collapse that led to reunification....

John Reid: The enduring implications of the fall of the Berlin Wall

The Independent | Independent | Posted 11.08.2009 | Home


The fall of the Berlin Wall, on November 9, 1989, was one of history's truly epochal moments. During what became a revolutionary wave sweeping ac...

U.N. Birthday Rocks for Its Peacemakers

Jim Luce | Posted 11.06.2009 | New York

Read More: India, Aterciopelados, Summer Olympics Beijing 2008, U.N. Department of Public Information, Emmanuel Jal, U.N. Day Concert 2009 a Tribute to Peacekeeping, Humanitarian, Shankhar Mahadevan, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, The War Against War, Angelique Kidjo, Cnn International, Jayashri Wyatt, Sierra Leone, Global Citizens, Wyclef Jean, Lauren Saffa, U.N. Secretary General, Norway, Lang Lang, Salman & Samina Global Wellness Initiative, Earth Wind and Fire, Xian Song & Dance Troupe, Africa, Zahir Hussain, Senegal, Leonardo Dicaprio, Cotonou, U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operation, Oslo, Education Sans Mutilation, Wikipedia, Rwanda, Melissa Etheridge, Sting, South Asia, Berlin Philharmonic, Entwined Twins, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Pakistan, Isha Sesay, Culture Project, You Are Not Alone, Amnesty International, Blood Diamond, Shrinivas Uppalapu, Julianne Hoffenberg, John Mahavishnu McLaughlin, Benin, New York, Junoon, Barack Obama, Time 100, Colombia, Killing Me Softly, Ghatam, The First Time Ever, General Assembly, Salman Ahmad, Fisher Stevens, Interfaith Dialogue, Thought Leaders, Steven Lawrence, China, Bbc, Allan Buchman, National Geographic, Day-O, United Nations, Jim Luce, Harry Belafonte, Paris, Injustice, Vienna Philharmonic, Sudan, She Mama Africa, Selvaganesh Vinayakaram, Malaika, Cancion Protesta, John Lee, Sister Fa, Samir Chatterjee, Blue Helmets, Roberta Flack Singing, War Child Film, Berlin, Grammy-Award, Mridangam, Cross-Cultural Dialogue, Nile Rodgers, Indi-Jazz Fusion, Afghanistan, Kanjira, Eleanor Roosevelt, Freedom of Expression Award, Nobel Peace Prize, We Are the World, Alain Le Roy, God Grew Tired of Us, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, The Price of Silence, Two Sheps That Pass., Female Genital Mutilation, Emma McCune, Orphans International Worldwide, Haiti, New York Times, U.N. Peacekeepers, Swahili, Alicia Keys, Hutu-Tutsi Conflict, Sufi Rock, Remember Shakti, Michael Owen, USA for Africa, New York News

Jim Luce

Flashbulbs popping non-stop, H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations in New York, entered the U.N. General Assembly Hall in New ...

Wagner descendant slams 'anti-semitic' music at Berlin Wall event

Haaretz. | Haaretz | Posted 11.06.2009 | Home

Read More: Berlin, Home News

Richard Wagner's great-grandson, Gottfried Wagner, on Friday protested the choice of music at festivities 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, ...

Lessons For US Economic Policy From The Fall Of The Berlin Wall

Newsweek | Michael Hirsh | Posted 11.03.2009 | Politics


The abrupt and miserable end of the socialist experiment--it all happened so fast, with East Germany getting absorbed into West Germany on Oct. 3, 199...

Remembering The Fall Of The Berlin Wall And Soviet Domination: Commentary

GlobalPost | Posted 11.02.2009 | World


I first saw the Berlin Wall in 1971. It was then about 10 years old and was the ugliest human structure I'd ever seen: gray, brutal, pitiless, unyield...

Ex-leaders mark fall of Berlin Wall

Al Jazeera. | Al Jazeera | Posted 10.31.2009 | Home

Read More: Berlin, Germany, Home News

Bush Sr, Gorbachev and Kohl reunite in Germany 20 years after the momentous event....

Nobody Likes Roosevelt Island's Main Street

Curbed | Curbed | Posted 10.27.2009 | Home

Read More: Berlin, Home News

We wind our day down in the Ibiza of the East River, Roosevelt Island, and on its sorrowful and drab Main Street, which blogger Roosevelt Islander ...

Biography tracks the rise and fame of David Bowie

AP | MICHAEL HILL | Posted 10.26.2009 | Home

Read More: Berlin, Home News

— "Bowie: A Biography" (Crown, 448 pages, $26.99) by Marc Spitz: David Bowie knows what he's singing about when he performs "Changes." After making a big splash in the early 1970s as Ziggy Stardust, he went on to become the Thin White Duke, an artsy Berlin angst rocker, the "straight" Bowie of "Let's Dance" and more recently the distinguished rock elder who goes to fashion events with his model wife, Iman.

The career full of characters obscures the less fantastic, but very interesting, back story of David Jones, a British teen in the '60s who desperately wanted to make it big. He joins some R&B bands, dabbles in acting and mime, changes his last name to Bowie and records a painful-to-listen-to-now single titled "The Laughing Gnome" that seems to channel Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Nothing in particular sticks until he records the 1969 single "Space Oddity." Bowie later goes all-in with his pioneering glam character Ziggy, the one with the screwed up eyes and snow-white tan. Bowie never looks back, never stops changing.

Spitz, a music journalist, does a decent job of tracking Bowie's evolution through copious research and interviews with dozens of people who knew him.

Spitz clearly gets Bowie, and this is an unapologetic fan-boy biography. He is good at analyzing what Bowie accomplished, why it matters and what was likely influencing him at the time. He has insightful things to say about landmark Bowie songs "Life on Mars?" and "Heroes."

Debate over swine flu shots in Germany

AP | KIRSTEN GRIESHABER | Posted 10.26.2009 | Home

Read More: Berlin, Germany, Home News

BERLIN — A debate over two different swine flu vaccines overshadowed Germany's launch of a public inoculation program against the pandemic on Monday.

Critics warned the vaccinations campaign could be a "million-euro flop" as many people might refuse to participate after learning they would receive a different shot, with possibly more side effects, than one being given to politicians, high-ranking government employees and soldiers.

German authorities ordered 50 million doses of swine flu vaccines, and began inoculating physicians, nurses, rescue workers and the chronically ill this week.

However, most Germans will be getting Pandemrix, a vaccine by GlaxoSmithKline PLC that contains an adjuvant, while Germany's politicians, government employees and troops will get Celvapan, made by Baxter International without an adjuvant.

Adjuvants – or chemical compounds that boost the human body's immune response and stretch the vaccine's active ingredient so more doses can be made – are relatively new in flu vaccines, and there is limited data on how safe they are in certain population groups, such as pregnant women and children. No flu vaccines with adjuvants are licensed in the U.S., though they are commonly used in Europe.

1989 Europe's Revolution: The lost city of Bonn

The Independent | Independent | Posted 10.21.2009 | Home

Read More: Berlin, Germany, Home News

John le Carré called Bonn "a small town in Germany" when his Cold War thriller of the same name was published just seven years after the bu...

Today In WTF: A Red-Light District Goes Green

The Car Connection | CarConnection | Posted 10.19.2009 | Home

Read More: Berlin, Home News

In the current global economy, things are hard all over -- even in Berlin's red-light district. With fewer travelers coming to town for conferences ...

On the Road: Why Do We Want To Travel?

Robert Fuller | Posted 10.10.2009 | Living


Robert Fuller

Fear is part of what makes travel so enlivening and revelatory. You're perpetually off-balance and on guard. After a while one yearns for the mindlessness of familiar routines.

New Reissues Prove Kraftwerk Is the Most Important Band Ever

Tim Mohr | Posted 10.08.2009 | Entertainment


Tim Mohr

The birthplace of all that's cool and modern in music wasn't Memphis, Liverpool or the South Bronx. It was Dusseldorf, Germany, where Kraftwerk invented the future we are now living.

SAfrican track chief keeps job after sex-test flap

AP | DONNA BRYSON | Posted 09.25.2009 | Home


The head of South African track will keep his job even though he admitted to lying about his role in gender tests done on runner Caster Semenya.

Athletics South Africa board member Chris Britz says Leonard Chuene retained his leadership position during a closed-door ASA council meeting on Thursday.

The move comes despite calls from the government sports ministry and several ASA opposition parties to fire Chuene.

Semenya won the 800-meter race at the world championships in Berlin in August. The IAAF said before the final they had ordered gender tests because of her muscular physique and stunning improvement in times.

Chuene repeatedly said Semenya's gender tests were done abroad. He later admitted knowing of tests conducted in South Africa.

EASA issues warning for Airbus instrument

AP | Posted 09.23.2009 | Home


The European Aviation Safety Agency has issued a safety warning for an instrument to measure air speed that is used on Airbus A330 and A340 jets.

The directive in effect from Wednesday says malfunctions have been reported in the instruments, known as pitot probes.

The Cologne-based agency says the problem may originate with manufacturer Goodrich and could cause an in-flight air leak that would cause incorrect pressure and airspeed readings. Goodrich is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The agency is calling on operators to test the devices.

Experts have suggested that pitot tubes may have contributed to the June crash of an Air France flight, killing 228 people.

New York State of Mind

David Byrne | Posted 09.21.2009 | New York


David Byrne

Does living in New York City foster a hard-as-nails, no nonsense attitude? Is that how one would describe the New York state of mind?