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BERLIN Germany celebrates today the 25th anniversary of the night the Berlin Wall fell, a pivotal moment in the collapse of communism and the start of the countrys emergence as the major power at the heart ofEurope.

A 9-mile chain of lighted balloons along the former border will be released into the air early this evening around the time on Nov. 9, 1989, when a garbled announcement by a senior communist official set off the chain of events that brought down the Cold Wars most potentsymbol.

The opening of East Germanys fortified frontier capped months

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Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev stands in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on Saturday. He was attending a symposium on the fall of the BerlinWall. (Full-size photo)

Mikhail Gorbachev on Saturday had strong words for the United States and its allies over growing tension between Moscow and the West, a development that he believes has put the world on the brink of a new Cold War. Speaking at a symposium in Berlin as part of commemorations marking the 25th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the former Soviet leader said the Wests subsequent policy approach led to the current state ofaffairs.

Instead of building new mechanisms and institutions of European security and pursuing a major demilitarization of European politics, the West, and particularly the United States, declared victory in the Cold War. As a result, he said, a blister has now turned into a bloody, festeringwound.

Gorbachev said recent actions by the West including economic sanctions against Russia leveled by the U.S. and European Union in response to Russias policies in eastern Ukraine as well as discussions over the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization had further unraveled thesituation.

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25 years: Germans mark fall of Wall - Sun, 09 Nov 2014 PST