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President Donald Trump’s national security adviser says Trump will confront Turkey’s leader about his decision to buy a Russian air defense system when they meet Wednesday at the White House.Robert O’Brien tells CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the U.S. is “very upset” about Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 system.
 
O’Brien says if the NATO ally doesn’t get rid of that system, Turkey will likely face U.S. sanctions. He says that’s a message Trump will deliver to Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
 
The U.S. says the S-400 is not compatible with NATO forces, could compromise the F-35 fighter jet program and aid Russian intelligence. The Trump administration removed Turkey from the F-35 program in July.
 
Trump is to meet with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday.
   
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A famed Russian historian who loved to dress up as his hero, Napoleon, is facing a murder charge after police fished him out of the Moika River with a backpack filled with a woman’s severed arms.A lawyer for Oleg Sokolov says he has confessed to killing his lover and is cooperating with police.The attorney describes his client as elderly and someone who may have been emotionally disturbed and under stress. He was taken in for questioning after spending Saturday night being treated for hypothermia.Police have identified the victim as Anastasia Yeshchenko, one of Sokolov’s students who collaborated on his writings about Napoleon. They found the rest of her hacked-up body in Sokolov’s St. Petersburg apartment, close to where he was pulled out of the river.Initial reports say Sokolov allegedly shot her in a rage Thursday night and kept her body concealed from guests for two days before he apparently tried to get rid of her body parts.It is unclear if he jumped into the icy Moika River in a suicide attempt or fell in while drunk when he tried to dispose of the backpack.Sokolov’s students describe him as an odd and eccentric teacher who liked dressing up as Napoleon and re-enacting the French emperor’s battles on horseback.Others say he was insulting, sometimes physically abusive to students, and an alcoholic who would holler in French.They also accuse St. Petersburg State University of doing nothing to rein in Sokolov, but say are shocked at the allegation he killed a lover.Sokolov was highly regarded in Russian academic circles and in 2003 was awarded the French Legion of Honor, France’s highest civilian honor. 
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Thousands of people marched in Paris and other French cities against Islamophobia targeting Western Europe’s largest Muslim population.Muslims joining the march through the rainy streets of the capital say they have had enough.Mohamed, here with his sister Khadija, says the two feel completely integrated in French society. But he says he’s faced discrimination — including being asked to change his name during a job interview to something more traditionally French.A man (M) carries banner reading, French and Muslims, proud of our identity, Paris, Nov. 10, 2019. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)A recent IFOP poll finds four in 10 French Muslims also believe they are discriminated against because of their religion. Another survey finds more than 60 percent of respondents considered Islam incompatible with French values.While anti-Islamic attacks are not new, several recent events helped catalyze this protest. Last month, two Muslims were shot and seriously wounded outside a mosque in southwestern France.France’s conservative Senate also approved an amendment banning veiled women from accompanying their children on school outings. The lower house is unlikely to pass it. But it followed an incident where a far-right lawmaker demanded a woman visiting a regional council to remove her headscarf — leaving her son in tears.Wafa, a mother of three, says she’s had a similar experience. She’s a trained computer technician, but she says she can’t find a job because of her veil.Many non-Muslims joined the protests in Paris, Nov. 10, 2019. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)Sixty-eight-year-old Julia Fernandez was among the many non-Muslims who joined the march.She likened the current climate to the anti-Semitism of the 1930s, before the Holocaust.Still the march was controversial, with some of the organizers accused of ties to fundamentalist Islam. A number of leftist politicians opted not to join the protest.
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Police and organizers say more than 100,000 people took part in an open-air party celebrating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
 
Despite the cold and damp, crowds flocked to Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate late Saturday for music and fireworks.
 
The boulevard leading up to the Brandenburg Gate was covered with a giant rainbow-colored net made of 100,000 streamers, many with messages of love and peace, created by American artist Patrick Shearn.
 
Elsewhere in the city, images and video of the events around the Nov. 9, 1989 fall of the wall were projected onto buildings.
 
In the once-divided town of Moedlareuth, auto enthusiasts re-enacted the moment when East Germans first cross the border in their modest `Trabi’ cars to the cheers of welcoming West Germans.
   
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Queen Elizabeth II joined Britons in remembering their war dead, as the country’s political leaders paused campaigning for the Dec. 12 election to take part in a somber Remembrance Sunday service in London.The queen, dressed in black, watched from a balcony as her son and heir Prince Charles laid a wreath of scarlet poppies on the Cenotaph war memorial near Parliament.The 93-year-old monarch, who served as an army mechanic during World War II, performed the wreath-laying for most of her 67-year reign, but has cut back on her public duties. An aide laid a wreath on behalf of the queen’s 98-year-old husband Prince Philip, who has retired from public engagements.The ceremony takes place every year on the nearest Sunday to the anniversary of the end of World War I at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918.Thousands of military personnel, veterans and members of the public gathered in the streets around the Cenotaph to honor those killed in that war and subsequent conflicts.As Parliament’s Big Ben bell sounded at 11 a.m., the crowd fell silent for a two-minute pause. The silence was broken by a single artillery blast and Royal Marines buglers sounding “The Last Post.”A military band played as royals, politicians, leaders from many religious faiths and diplomats from the Commonwealth of former British colonies laid wreaths on the Portland stone monument, erected after World War I and inscribed with the words “the glorious dead.”Prime Minister Boris Johnson, opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and other political leaders took time out from campaigning to join the ceremony on a cold, sunny autumn morning.But the politicians did not entirely steer clear of partisan point-scoring. In a Remembrance Sunday message, Johnson said the Conservative government had established an Office for Veteran Affairs “as a sign of my commitment to those who have served.”In his own message, Corbyn claimed that service personnel “have faced pay cuts, service accommodation left in disrepair, and are worried their children are left without the support that they need.”After the formal wreath-laying, thousands of veterans, war widows and their families marched past the monument to the sound of a military band, applauded by well-wishers lining the sidewalks. Almost everyone wore a red paper poppy – the official symbol of remembrance – on their lapel.Similar ceremonies were held in dozens of towns and cities across Britain and at British military bases overseas.                  
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Pope Francis urged the faithful on Sunday to pray for unity in South Sudan and said he hoped to visit the country in 2020. He also urged prayers for a nation close to his own, Bolivia, which has been rocked by weeks of political unrest following disputed elections.Pope Francis has long been concerned about the political situation in South Sudan and had a special thought for the nation during his greeting to the faithful gathered in Saint Peter’s Square on Sunday. He recalled the spiritual retreat of South Sudanese leaders in the Vatican earlier this year and made his appeal.FILE – Pope Francis attends a meeting at the end of a two day Spiritual retreat with South Sudan leaders at the Vatican, April 11, 2019.The pope urged “all the actors of the national political process to seek unity and to overcome their differences, in a spirit of true brotherhood.”Francis added that the South Sudanese people have suffered too much in recent years and await with great hope a better future, the definitive end of conflicts and a lasting peace. He called on the country’s leaders to continue tirelessly with their commitment to an inclusive dialogue in the search for an agreement, for the good of the nation.Pope Francis also expressed the hope that the international community would not neglect South Sudan as it moves on the path to national reconciliation.Two years after South Sudan gained its independence, in 2013, civil war erupted in the country with President Salva Kir accusing his deputy Rieck Machar of orchestrating a coup against him. The two leaders who both came to the Vatican in April have committed to forming a unity government.The Pope, who traveled this year to the African nations of Mozambique, Madagascar and Mauritius, told the faithful he hoped to travel to South Sudan next year.Francis also turned his thoughts to a nation close to his own in Latin America. Bolivia has been in a state of political unrest since disputed elections were held on October 20.The pope urged “all Bolivians, especially political and social leaders, to await with a constructive spirit and without any preconditions and in a climate of peace and serenity the results of the election review process which is currently underway”.FILE – Bolivia’s President Evo Morales leaves a press conference in La Paz, Bolivia, Oct. 24, 2019.President Evo Morales officially won the vote but delay in the vote count of nearly one day led opponents to claim the vote was manipulated. Protests and violence erupted which have led to a number of deaths and hundreds of injured. Morales, who is the longest standing leader in Latin America, has accused the opposition of organizing a coup against the state.On Sunday, after the Organization of American States released a report that the election should be annulled due to irregularities, President Morales said he would call fresh elections. He also announced he would be replacing members of the electoral board.   
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Voters in Spain are casting their ballots Sunday in the country’s fourth election in four years. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist Party is expected to be the big winner, as it was the last time.  In the previous election, however, the Spanish leader’s party failed to win enough votes to form a stable government. The campaigning leading up to Sunday’s vote was mainly focused on Catalonia’s secession drive and the feared rise of Vox, a far-right party. 
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Funeral directors in Moscow say a growing number of people are ignoring traditions and crafting unique and flashy celebrations of life.  Some are also leaving a digital legacy on their headstones.  VOA’s Jim Randle narrates a look at changing times. 
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Are the West’s secrets safe in the hands of Britain’s politicians?It is a question Britain’s intelligence officers are asking themselves — so, too, their counterparts in the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence-sharing relationship that includes the U.S., Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It’s a tie-up that’s been called the most successful espionage alliance in history.Not since the 1970s, when some British MI5 officers thought Labour Party leader Harold Wilson, who won four general elections, and his most trusted advisers were KGB assets have Britain’s spooks been so uneasy about their political masters. The worries about Wilson and his aides at that time provoked treasonous plots by conservative-leaning rogue elements of the security agencies, which even drew in members of Britain’s royal family.As Britain heads into its most consequential election possibly in the last 100 years, a vote that will determine whether Britain will leave the European Union or not, fears are mounting within the country’s security circles that Britons can’t trust their own leaders. This includes both those at the top of the country’s main opposition Labour Party as well as among the ruling Conservatives, a party once synonymous with Queen and Country.For the past year, a former head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, Richard Dearlove, has led a chorus of intelligence warnings about Jeremy Corbyn, widely seen as Labour’s most leftwing leader since the 1920s, and his clique of advisers. Last month, Dearlove said in a TV interview he was “troubled” by Corbyn’s “past associations,” sparking a furious reaction from senior Labour lawmakers, who warned of ‘deep state’ meddling.FILE – A general view shows the MI6 building in London, Britain, March 5, 2015.Britain’s Conservative-leaning newspapers have taken up the warnings, with The Sun newspaper headlining midweek: “Intelligence Services and Foreign Office ‘Fear Jeremy Corbyn Would Risk National Security’ if He Wins Election.”Former intelligence chiefs and government insiders say the flow of secret information Britain is supplied from the “Five Eyes” network could start drying up because of a lack of trust by Western partners in Corbyn and his advisers.Writing in The Times newspaper, retired Labour politician Jack Straw, a former foreign secretary, dismissed allegations of “deep state” interference and warned Western security agencies could “lessen intelligence co-operation with us,” if Corbyn wins the election. He warned Britain’s spooks also would be chary of disclosing some of their most sensitive information with a Downing Street occupied by Corbyn.“This would not be any ‘deep-state conspiracy,’ but the human reaction of people who give their careers to keep us safe, sometimes at serious personal risk to their own lives,” Straw said.A former defense secretary, John Hutton, who served in Labour governments, has underscored that a Corbyn premiership would affect the ‘Five Eyes’ espionage alliance and “place a major question mark over the continued operation of a vital source of intelligence.”At the very least, Corbyn has a radical and what critics say is an anti-Western world-view, notably out of step, they add, with Labour’s previously more centrist leaders. He’s been a long-standing critic of NATO and has called for it to be disbanded, decrying it as an “instrument of Cold War manipulation.” He also has been an opponent of Britain possessing nuclear weapons. He’s voted as a lawmaker against every military action proposed by the government of the day, including intervention in Kosovo.FILE – Britain’s Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn arrives for a general election campaign in London, Britain, Oct. 31, 2019.Corbyn dubs as “friends” Hamas and Hezbollah, and at the height of the IRA’s bombing campaign he spoke at official commemorations to honor the Irish republican dead. And he was on the board of a far-left Labour publication that praised the IRA’s 1984 Brighton bombing, which nearly killed then prime minister Margaret Thatcher. In an editorial, the publication said, “It certainly appears to be the case that the British only sit up and take notice [of Ireland] when they are bombed into it.”Last year, he provoked fury in the House of Commons when he questioned the British government’s blaming of the Kremlin for the Novichok poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the southern English cathedral town of Salisbury. Corbyn argued Russia should be involved in the investigation.Dearlove accuses Corbyn of giving aid and comfort to Britain’s enemies. “He has enthusiastically associated himself with groups and interests which I would not say were the friends of the British nation,” Britain’s former top spy said last month.The alarm of the security establishment is wider than just Corbyn, though, when it comes to the current top echelons of the Labour Party.  Seamus Milne, the Labour leader’s director of strategy and his closest adviser, has been an outspoken critic of Western policies throughout a long career as a columnist at the Guardian newspaper. He has argued Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea was “clearly defensive” and the consequence of a NATO manipulated breakup of the Soviet Union.That insight earned Milne the rebuke of a fellow Guardian contributor, Oliver Bullough, an author of several books on Russia, who accused Milne of living in a “parallel universe.” He noted “the destruction of the USSR was not some Versailles-style treaty imposed from outside. Russia, Ukraine and Belarus did it themselves.”Conservative lawmaker Bob Seely, a former British army officer and member of the British parliament’s foreign affairs committee, has accused Milne of echoing Kremlin propaganda. In 2014, Milne participated in a conference in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, where he conducted an onstage discussion with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.FILE – A Russian flag flies outside Russia’s embassy in central London, Britain, March 15, 2018.Some British intelligence insiders say in the event of a Labour election win, the heads of Britain’s security agencies likely would insist on withholding the most sensitive information from Milne, as well as another Corbyn policy adviser, Andrew Murray, a former member of the Communist Party, and regular contributor to Britain’s Communist newspaper, the Morning Star.Speaking to VOA recently, Norman Roule, who was in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations for 34 years, and served as a division chief and chief of station, says “the U.S. intelligence relationship with the British is the closest on the planet.” He added: “We share so much information with each other, and it’s shared so deeply and immediately that if we have a difference of views, it’s usually because one of us hasn’t gotten around to seeing the other’s file yet,” he added.Roule said the intelligence agencies would try to remain constant in their work regardless of who was in Downing Street. “You know we don’t really pay attention to what the policymakers argue about and would try to ignore policy differences that creep up and sooner or later the politicians will move on,” he added.Other U.S. intelligence officials are less sanguine. One former top level CIA official told VOA: “If we have doubts or fears, we will avoid uploading especially sensitive data — some officers will just take it upon themselves to do it, whether there is an order from on high or not.”Dearlove and other members of Britain’s security establishment have dismissed the idea of a “deep state” working against a Labour government, saying every government of whatever stripe has been loyally served by the British intelligence community.But it isn’t only Labour that is prompting the anxiety of both British and other Western intelligence agencies. The Conservatives, too, are a cause for unease. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was blocked by his predecessor in Downing Street, Theresa May, from seeing top secret information when he served as foreign secretary on the grounds he couldn’t be trusted because of his tendency to be indiscrete.FILE – Boris Johnson, then Britain’s foreign secretary, arrives at 10 Downing Street for a weekly meeting of the cabinet, in central London, Britain, Dec 11, 2017.As London mayor previously, he had let slip confidential information before it was due to be made public, angering May, who was then Home Secretary. The BBC reported that when Johnson became Foreign Secretary, Downing Street would sometimes convene smaller meetings, or ‘pre-meets,’ to discuss especially sensitive matters so as to exclude Johnson.Additionally, Johnson’s Conservative Party has accepted large donations from London-based Russian oligarchs with ties to the Kremlin and Russia’s FSB security agency, according to a still-under-wraps cross-party parliamentary committee report. Last week, Downing Street prompted a political outcry by deciding to delay the publication of the report until after next month’s general election.Downing Street has been accused of sitting on the report detailing the security threat posed by Russia to Britain. The 50-page dossier examines allegations that a Kremlin-sponsored influence campaign may have distorted the result of the 2016 Brexit referendum. The report raises concerns about the flow into the Conservative Party of Russian money from oligarchs linked to the Kremlin, along with a high level of Russian infiltration into the higher ranks of British politics, business, high society and the legal profession.Members of the cross-party intelligence and security committee said they expected Johnson to approve publication ahead of the election. Dominic Grieve, a former attorney general who chairs the committee, said the report “comments directly on what has been seen as a perceived threat to our democratic processes.” 
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Waving separatist flags and chanting, “Freedom for political prisoners!” thousands of supporters of Catalan independence gathered in Barcelona for concerts and rallies on Saturday, while some protesters faced off with police, a day before Spain heads to the polls for a general election. Mostly organized by secretive Catalan protest group Democratic Tsunami, the demonstrations aim to force Spaniards to reflect on the prison sentences handed down last month to nine separatist leaders who spearheaded a failed independence bid in 2017, organizers said. In one protest called by CDR, another separatist group that favors direct action such as blocking highways, several hundred demonstrators tried to reach the Spanish police headquarters, the flashpoint of some of last month’s riots, but were blocked by police. Tense exchangesThere were tense moments as masked protesters, singing the Catalan anthem, threw eggs and other objects at the police and tried to barricade the road with waste bins. Officers responded by chasing them through central Barcelona’s restaurant-packed streets until the crowd dispersed. Local media said there was no immediate word of any arrests. A spokesman for the Catalan police could not confirm whether any arrests were made during the protest. The election campaign has been dominated by the Catalonia separatist issue after weeks of sometimes violent protests that followed the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Catalan leaders. Attending the rally, Jovita Mezquita, 69, praised Democratic Tsunami’s initiatives, including its first protest, which disrupted Barcelona’s airport in mid-October. “We have to be imaginative,” she said.  “We have to do things that have impact in the world,” she added, arguing that separatists were not taken into account in the rest of Spain. ‘Very complicated’But away from the protests, some Barcelona residents were skeptical that things could change for the region, where separatism is a highly divisive issue. “I see [it as] very complicated for the situation in Catalonia to be resolved, because at the national level, that is to say at the Spanish level, I do not see that there is a great desire to do it,” said Maria Rodriguez, a 33-year-old actress. Democratic Tsunami, which advocates nonviolent action, called on supporters to demonstrate across the region Saturday afternoon and suggested there would be more to come if Spanish politicians refused to engage with separatists. “As long as there is no dialogue, instability will continue,” it said in a statement late Saturday. “The [Spanish] state will not be able to continue with repression without having a citizens’ response.” The group, whose leadership remains unknown, said the controversial app it uses to organize events had received more than 1,000 attacks. The campaign for Catalan independence has been mostly peaceful for years, but some protests turned violent last month, with a minority of mostly young demonstrators torching cars and launching petrol bombs at police. Extra policeMadrid sent around 2,500 additional national police officers — including anti-riot units — to support Catalonia’s regional police force ahead of the election, a national police spokesman in Barcelona told Reuters. The goal is to “guarantee that everyone can exercise their right to vote,” the spokesman said. A Catalan police spokeswoman declined to comment on the force’s security plans. Carme Martin, 68, who attended Saturday’s protest, said she could understand some of the youths’ frustration after last month’s riots in Barcelona.  “I don’t like violence but [I understand] if it is defensive,” she said. 
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Chancellor Angela Merkel led a series of commemorations Saturday in the German capital to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which divided the city during the Cold War until it was breached and torn down on November 9, 1989. 
 
Merkel, who grew up in Communist East Germany, said, “The Berlin Wall is gone and that teaches us that no wall that excludes people and restricts freedom is so high or so wide that it cannot be broken through.” 
 
November 9 also is the anniversary of Kristallnacht, when Jews were attacked across Nazi Germany in 1938 — a foretaste of the horrors that would follow in the Holocaust.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, shakes hands with visitors prior to a memorial service in the chapel at the Berlin Wall Memorial in Berlin, Germany, Nov. 9, 2019.”The 9th of November, which reflects in a special way both the horrible and the happy moments of our history, makes us aware that we have to face hatred, racism and anti-Semitism resolutely,” Merkel said in a speech at the Chapel of Reconciliation, located where the Berlin Wall once stood. “It urges us to do everything in our power to defend freedom and democracy, human dignity and the rule of law.”  Presidents Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany, Janos Ader of Hungary, Andrzej Duda of Poland, Zuzana Caputova of Slovakia and Milos Zeman of the Czech Republic, from right, put flowers in a crack inside the Berlin Wall, Nov. 9, 2019.International attendance 
 
Leaders from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic also attended a ceremony at Bernauer Strasse, site of one of the last remaining sections of the Berlin Wall. They placed roses between gaps in the barrier that divided the city for 28 years. 
 
Germany President Frank-Walter Steinmeier paid tribute to the pro-democracy protesters in the former Soviet bloc countries. 
 
“In gratitude, we remember today with our friends the historical events of 30 years ago,” Steinmeier said. “Without the courage, without the will for freedom of the Poles, the Hungarians, the Czechs and the Slovaks, the peaceful revolutions in Eastern Europe, and German unity, would not have been possible.” 
 
A weeklong series of events in Berlin was capped off Saturday night with a concert at the famous Brandenburg Gate, involving several German and international performers.  Visitors stay underneath the skynet artwork “Visions In Motion” in front of the Brandenburg Gate as they attend stage presentations to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in Berlin, Germany, Nov. 9, 2019.Then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan famously gave a speech in front of the landmark in 1987, demanding of his Soviet counterpart: “Mr. [Mikhail] Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” A statue of Reagan, who died in 2004, was unveiled Friday next to the Brandenburg Gate. 
 
The wall was constructed in 1961 to stop the flood of East Germans fleeing to capitalist West Berlin to escape communist rule. It was officially called the “anti-fascist protection rampart” by the East German government. Hundreds of people were shot dead trying to cross it. 
 
Following growing pressure across the Warsaw Pact countries in 1989, pro-democracy protests spread to East Germany. 
 
On November 4, 1989, a half-million demonstrators gathered in Alexanderplatz in East Berlin. Five days later, a government spokesperson mistakenly said the East Germans were now free to travel to the West, prompting tens of thousands to rush to crossing points along the 43-kilometer barrier. 
 
In the confusion, border guards opened the gates and thousands of people surged across the frontier, cheered by crowds on both sides of the wall. Within hours, Berlin residents were taking pickaxes to the concrete wall, as the city erupted in wild celebrations.  People reenact the symbolic wall opening, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the falling wall in the outdoor area of the German-German museum in Moedlareuth, Germany, Nov. 9, 2019.The fall of the wall is seen as a key moment in the collapse of communism. Just two years later, the Soviet Union imploded and the Cold War was declared over. 
 Tensions between East-West 
 
However, tensions between East and West have resurfaced. Relations between Russia and the West plummeted following Moscow’s forceful annexation of Crimea and support for rebel fighters in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Arms control treaties have been ditched, and many world leaders have warned of a new Cold War. 
 
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also attended the ceremonies to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall. In a speech on the eve of the anniversary, Pompeo warned that “the West lost our way in the afterglow of that proud moment,” adding that the U.S. and its allies should “defend what was so hard won.” 
 
“We thought we could divert our resources away from alliances, and our militaries. We were wrong,” Pompeo said. “Today, Russia — led by a former KGB officer once stationed in Dresden [President Vladimir Putin] — invades its neighbors and slays political opponents.”  Tourist take photos at the remains of the Berlin Wall after commemorations celebrating the 30th anniversary of its fall, at Bernauer Strasse in Berlin, Nov. 9, 2019.Pompeo also criticized Russia’s treatment of the political opposition. He said China was now using methods of oppression against its own people that would be “horrifyingly familiar to former East Germans.” 
 
Beijing labeled Pompeo’s comments as “extremely dangerous” and said they exposed his “sinister intentions.” 
 
Pompeo also warned that NATO needed to evolve as the alliance approaches its 70th anniversary. His comments followed sharp criticism from French President Emmanuel Macron, who warned this week in an interview with The Economist that NATO was becoming “brain-dead” in the absence of U.S. leadership. 
 
Washington has repeatedly called on European NATO members to meet the bloc’s military spending target of 2% of gross domestic product, warning it will no longer shoulder the burden of European defense. 
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Germany marked the 30th anniversary Saturday of the opening of the Berlin Wall, a pivotal moment in the events that brought down Communism in eastern Europe.Leaders from Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic attended a ceremony at Bernauer Strasse — where one of the last parts of the Berlin Wall remains — before placing roses in gaps in the once-fearsome barrier that divided the city for 28 years.Axel Klausmeier, head of the Berlin Wall memorial site, recalled the images of delirious Berliners from East and West crying tears of joy as they hugged each other on the evening of Nov. 9, 1989.German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives with a rose at a ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, in Berlin, Germany, Nov. 9, 2019.Klausmeier paid tribute to the peaceful protesters in East Germany and neighboring Warsaw Pact countries who took to the streets demanding freedom and democracy, and to then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of reforms.The protests and a stream of people fleeing East Germany piled pressure on the country’s Communist government to open its borders to the West and ultimately end the nation’s post-war division.Thirty years on, Germany has become the most powerful economic and political force on the continent, but there remain deep misgivings among some in the country about how the transition from socialism to capitalism was managed.From right, the presidents of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Hungary Janos Ader, Poland Andrzej Duda, Slovakia Zuzana Caputova and of the Czech Republic Milos Zeman, are seen at Berlin Wall ceremony, in Berlin, Germany, Nov. 9, 2019.German Chancellor Angela Merkel acknowledged this in a recent interview with daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung, saying that “with some things, where one might have thought that East and West would have aligned, one can see today that it might rather take half a century or more.”Speaking at a memorial service in a small chapel near where the Wall once stood, Merkel commemorated those who were killed or imprisoned for trying to flee from East to West Germany and insisted that the fight for freedom worldwide isn’t over.“The Berlin Wall, ladies and gentlemen, is history and it teaches us: No wall that keeps people out and restricts freedom is so high or so wide that it can’t be broken down,” she said.Merkel also recalled that Nov. 9 remains a fraught date in German history, as it also marks the anniversary of the so-called Night of Broken Glass, an anti-Jewish pogrom in 1938 that foreshadowed the Nazi’s Holocaust.Light installations, concerts and public debates were planned throughout the city and other parts of Germany to mark the fall of the Wall, including a concert at Berlin’s iconic Brandenburg Gate.
 
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There’s a new statue of Ronald Reagan, the 40th U.S. president, on a terrace of the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, a stone’s throw from the iconic Brandenburg Gate.It is a long time coming, for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and other supporters of the project. They had been pressing Berlin city officials for years to erect a statue in a public place, but Berlin officials demurred, noting that many factors and people contributed to the fall of the Wall on Nov. 9, 1989.The Reagan supporters finally settled for a statue on the grounds of the embassy — American soil in the heart of Berlin.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attended the unveiling Friday, calling it a “monumental moment” as the artwork appeared. The statue memorializes Reagan’s 1987 speech in which he exhorted then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”Two years later, the Wall began to come down on live television. After a surprise announcement by an East German official that Easterners would be allowed to travel to the West, effective immediately, Berliners took hammers to the concrete barrier and started dismantling it themselves.WATCH: The Fall of the Berlin Wall, 30 Years On
The Fall of the Berlin Wall, 30 Years On video player.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives with a rose at a ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, in Berlin, Germany, Nov. 9, 2019.Child of former East GermanyGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel, herself a child of the former East Germany, says Ossies are the real heroes behind the fall of the Wall. Peaceful protests began in September 1989 in the East German university town of Leipzig and spread to other eastern cities, culminating in the November decision to open the Wall in Berlin.“The peaceful revolution and November 9, 1989, was the work of the citizens of the GDR,” Merkel told the magazine Der Spiegel this week. “We are happy to share it, including the joy, but it was done by the citizens of the GDR with a huge amount of courage.”This is perhaps why Berlin officials resisted the Reagan statue. To Germans, this was not Reagan’s win. It was Germany’s.Matthias Stausberg, who grew up in the West German town of Betzdorf, was living in Berlin in 1999 when the city celebrated the 10th anniversary of the fall of the Wall. He describes coming home from work to find his roommate watching archival footage on television.“As I walked into the room,” Stausberg says, “he turned to me, tears running down his cheeks, saying ‘This was really our finest hour.’ And it was.”Now based in London, Stausberg is well-versed in the discussions about how and why the Wall fell and why the Wall remains, invisibly, in German culture.But, he says, “All of that doesn’t take away from the beauty of the moment itself. When do these profound political transformations ever play out peacefully? Those days beginning in the evening of November 9th were days of unparalleled joy. The world was watching Germany, and for once, it was good news.”
 
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