Saturday, October 17, 2009

Secretary Clinton to visit Berlin

This just in: Clinton to attend Berlin Wall anniversary: German official

BERLIN (AFP) – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will attend a ceremony in Germany marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a German government official said on Friday.

She will join a host of world leaders for celebrations in Berlin on November 9, dubbed the "freedom party", which will take place at the capital's Brandenburg Gate.

Festivities will open with orchestral music, followed by thousands of gigantic dominoes being knocked down in the centre of the capital to symbolise the fall of the wall.

US President Barack Obama has already said he will not attend the celebrations as he will be in Asia.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are among those expected in Berlin for the ceremony.



Well, this is a bit of a change of pace for our girl as her recent tours have been rather heavy on the side of serious negotiations and messages. I am glad to see that she will be there as our representative among world leaders who respect her. This will be a very happy occasion.

Ten or twelve years ago, while surfing the web, I ran across this very touching personal account of The Fall of the Berlin Wall by Andreas Ramos. It is the only written personal acount of that event, and I have kept the link all these years because for anyone who grew up in the Cold War that spawned that wall, this story of how it came down is amazing and powerful. I hope you find it as uplifting as I do.

Oh, and note to Andreas, I hope you are able to go to this anniversary as well. You deserve to be there for this!