The Day The Wall Came Down -- Fred Kaplan, Slate

Why the fall of the Berlin Wall led to the world we know today.

On a Sunday afternoon 25 ago, as a Boston Globe reporter, I strolled through the rubble of what had been the Berlin Wall, wondering how I might explain to a younger person, 25 years hence, that there ever was a 12-foot-high wall in this space dividing one of the world’s most vibrant cities and binding together one of the world’s most sclerotic empires.

And now here we are, about to commemorate the golden anniversary of Nov. 9, 1989, when the wall came crashing down, East and West Berliners drank and danced together in the streets—saw one another, anywhere, in any mood—for the first time in nearly three decades, and the Cold War era of international politics, which had held the world in a gruesome equilibrium for nearly half a century, began to unravel.

Read more ....

Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- November 7, 2014

25 years after collapse of Berlin Wall: Is the Cold War over? -- Tamara Zamyatina, ITAR-TASS

After Berlin Wall, did West Germany absorb East, or vice versa? -- Sara Miller Llana, CSM

25 things you love about Berlin -- CNN

The third intifada is here -- Shlomi Eldar, Al-Monitor

Is Ahmadinejad Making a Comeback? -- Arash Azizi, US News and World Report/Al-Monitor

How We Got Here: Making sense of the Middle East landscape -- Conrad Black, NRO

Libyan army needs a Gaddafi general to beat Islamists in Benghazi -- Ayman al-Warfalli and Feras Bosalum, Reuters

Nigeria's anti-terror strategy isn't working -- Deutsche Welle

Bhutan: The Indian Army’s Front Line -- Victor Robert Lee, The Diplomat

Exclusive: U.S. eyes China partnership on Africa power - sources -- Joe Brock, Reuters

Falling Oil Prices May Not Pressure Iran, Russia -- Al Pessin, VOA

The Cost Of Putin’s Ukrainian Adventure: Russia’s Currency Is Plummeting -- Matthew Zeitlin, Buzzfeed

Ukraine’s separatists: Shrinking country -- The Economist

Obama's Letter to the Ayatollah -- Matthew Lee & Julie Pace, Real Clear World

Will Obama become a foreign policy president? -- Fareed Zakaria, Washington post

Who shot Osama bin Laden? Does it matter? -- Peter Grier, CSM