The Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago on Nov. 9, 1989. A team of Reuters correspondents and multimedia journalists from Berlin and London will be covering the major event in a completely new way — Berlin Wall 2.0. The team from The Berlin Project are joining forces with the Reuters text, pictures and TV correspondents in Berlin to present real-time coverage and impressions of everything going on in Germany’s reunited capital city.

You can also view the best of Reuters’ content on our Berlin Wall global coverage page, follow the team in Berlin on Facebook and get a behind the scenes look at Berlin 2.0 by visiting The Berlin Project. Please send us your thoughts and memories by commenting on the live blog below.

By Sunanda Creagh

Just over a decade ago, Indonesians took to the streets to protest. Now they can make themselves heard without even leaving home.

A Facebook group supporting two senior officials from the anti-corruption agency, who many people think have been framed, has attracted almost half a million members in just four days.

This digital people power may well be one reason why on Monday, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono launched a probe into the case.

It’s the second time Facebook has played such an important role in a public debate in Indonesia. Earlier this year, thousands “rallied” online in support of a woman who had been charged with defamation for complaining about her treatment in hospital.

Indonesia is the world’s seventh-biggest user of the social networking site, according to Inside Facebook, and 8.23 million of its 8.52 million Facebook addicts joined up in the last year. The new information minister, Tifatul Sembiring, is a daily user of microblogging site Twitter, and says he wants to use it to seek policy ideas.

After decades of authoritarian rule, Indonesia is now a flourishing democracy yet many individuals still feel frustration that their voices and opinions are seldom heeded by politicians. So will online social networking sites contribute to Indonesia’s political future or is this just a passing fad?

PHOTO CREDIT/REUTERS/Beawiharta

                                                      By Michael Perry

Australia is being invaded!!

Well, thats the impression you get if you’ve been reading the Australian media headlines.

Photographs of a rickety wooden ship crammed with 260 Sri Lankan asylum seekers, which was intercepted by Indonesia as it sailed to Australia, have been splashed across newspaper
frontpages this week and dominated TV news bulletins.

“Six more boats on the way” and of a “Flood of 10,000 boatpeople”, warned headlines. “Acting to stem the tide” and “No vacancy for boatpeople”, said headlines on stories of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd moves to stop boatpeople arrivals.

Monitoring the political pulse, webwite breakfast politics was swamped with asylum seeker stories on the morning of Wednesday Oct. 14, the day after the latest boat was intercepted in Indonesia’s Sunda Strait, between Java and Sumatra islands.

But what is invading Australia? Boatpeople? Or divisive politics, sparked by an opposition trailing badly in opinion polls, mixed with ignorance of the facts by Australians?

In recent months Australia has seen a steady flow of boatpeople arrivals off its northwest coast. More than 1,600 have arrived so far this year, mainly people fleeing violence in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

But the numbers are a drop in the ocean compared with the tens of thousands of asylum seekers sailing across the Mediterranean to Europe each year.

In 2007 alone more than 51,000 people arrived on the coasts of Itay, Spain, Greece and Malta. In the first seven months of 2009, the number of illegal immigrants entering Italy doubled to 15,000, leading to new laws carrying a four year jail term for entering the country illegally.

 In 2008 there were 16 million refugees and 26 million internally displaced people worldwide, said the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in June.

 Pakistan topped the list with 1.8 million refugees, followed by Syria with 1.1 million and then Iran with 980,000. Afghanistan accounted for the largest number of refugees at 2.8 million and Iraq next with 1.9 million.

While Australia’s media and some politicians warn of a rising tide of refugees, the number of refugees in Asia-Pacific actually fell six percent in 2008, in contrast to a rise in Europe.

The UNHCR’s 2008 Global Trends report on refugees and displaced people mentions Australia only once, acknowledging that it accepted 11,000 refugees in the year. Australia is absent from
any list of asylum destinations.

Contrary to popular impression, aircraft is the preferred mode of transport for Australia’s illegal arrivals. Some 96 percent of illegal arrivals don’t come via a rickety boat but sitting in the comfort of an aircraft. Backpackers and other tourists who overstay their visas account for the majority of Australia’s illegal immigrants.

Yet, the media and politicians routinely whip up a storm over boatpeople arrivals, ever since former conservative Prime Minister John Howard used the issue to win the 2001 election.

** This post is from Alertnet, the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s global  humanitarian news Web site.**

Earthquakes, floods, the global recession and recurrent famines have been keeping aid professionals across the world as busy as ever. Such crises hit poor countries the hardest, focusing increasing attention on preventing and preparing for disasters rather than dealing with their devastating aftermath.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, is one of the biggest sources of humanitarian and development aid in the world. For emergency response to recent earthquakes in Indonesia, it has provided $4.4 million - more than any other donor so far.

To help the Philippines currently recovering from two typhoons, the European Union and some member-states have contributed a total of $5.6 million - again, more than sent or promised by any other foreign donor.

How to help the developing world, not just when they are disasters, will be at the core of debates among heads of states, top European Union officials, Nobel Prize winners and other experts at an international conference in Stockholm between Oct. 22 and Oct. 24, called European Development Days.

Ahead of the conference, European Union Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Karel De Gucht will take questions from readers on this year’s topics for discussion: the impact of the economic crisis on developing countries, climate change and the link between democracy and development.

You can participate by using the comments section below or by using the #askEUaid tag on Twitter. Please post your questions by Thursday, Oct. 15.

We will get as many of your questions to De Gucht as possible and will publish his replies by the end of the week, so keep checking back!

New to Twitter? If you aren’t using Twitter already but want to post a question or see what other people are asking De Gucht through Twitter, just get yourself a Twitter account, search for the #askEUaid tag and view all questions. You can post a 140-character question yourself, making sure you use the #askEUaid tag somewhere in your post so it sits with all the other posts from people across the Twittersphere.

       By Golnar Motevalli

Herat province in west Afghanistan is seen as one of the country’s safest areas. It is one of the largest, most prosperous Afghan provinces — its capital’s wide, smooth and tree-lined boulevards are a far cry from Kabul’s crumbling skyline.

But the past few months have seen a sharp increase in violence.

Last month a cabinet minister and former militia leader, Ismail Khan, was the target of a bomb attack in Herat city. A day earlier, Herati traders took to the streets to protest against rising insecurity in the province.

Khan, who is seen by many Heratis as an icon of the anti-Taliban and anti-Soviet mujahedin, was unharmed, but three civilians were killed.

 The district of Guzara in Herat has seen a spate of Taliban attacks, including the shooting dead of three men and the hanging of another and an ambush on a policeman’s home in which his teenage son was killed.

Since July at least 29 civilians have been killed in insurgent-linked attacks in Herat. Foreign troops, mainly Italians and Americans, are hit by roadside bombs or ambushed on a weekly basis.

While these attacks do not put Herat on a par with southern provinces such as Kandahar or Helmand — where the Taliban have grass-roots support in many areas — they still point to a considerable rise in instability in Herat, when compared to the same period last year.

Although the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, focusses mainly on the insurgency in the Pashtun tribal belt of the south and east, in
an interview with CBS news recently, he said the spread of violence to the mostly Tajik north and west was worse than he had expected.

Some analysts, including Ahmed Rashid, a prominent authority on the Taliban, have warned that the Taliban has been pushing further westwards and northwards for the past year in an effort
to consolidate gains already made in northern provinces such as Badghis and Kunduz — where there are mainly European troops.

Iran might also have reason to be alarmed. Last month, three Afghan policemen at a checkpoint very close to the border with Iran were killed in a Taliban ambush about two months after they attacked an Iranian engineering company, killing one employee.

U.S. military and Afghan officials have said that the rise in Taliban attacks in the west is partly a result of July’s U.S. operation “Strike of the Sword” in southern Helmand province, which has pushed Taliban fighters to the west and north.

 Farah province, which is sandwiched between Herat and Helmand, has also seen a sharp spike in violence since the U.S. operation and the Taliban now command checkpoints in districts
such as Bala Boluk.  In April I accompanied U.S. and Afghan army patrols in Bala Boluk, but on my second visit to Farah in August, I was told the entire district was now pretty much a no-go zone.

 Could Herat’s Guzara district, where much of the Taliban-related violence has taken place in the past months, be on the same slide into Taliban control?

And are the Italian troops, who make up the bulk of main foreign force in Herat, and whom the Taliban perceive as weaker than their U.S. counterparts, capable of containing the growth of the insurgency in the west?

[Pictures of a mosque in Herat and a bombing]

By Zeeshan Haider

Pakistan is battling Taliban militants, trying to patch up relations with old rival India and struggling to revive a limping economy but another issue has preoccupied the country over recent days: the sighting of the moon that markes the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

A row erupted when the Eid al Fitr holiday that follows Ramadan was celebrated in several parts of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) on Sunday, a day ahead of the rest of the country. Many Pakistanis say that violated a spirit of harmony and unity that should mark one of the
most important events of the Islamic calender.

Some clerics in NWFP announced on Saturday evening that the crescent moon, which marks the end of a month in Islam's lunar calender, had been sighted, meaning Ramadan was over and Eid would be celebrated the next day. But a government-appointed body of clerics responsible for
moon-sighting rejected the announcement, citing reports from the Meteorological Department that said the moon could not be seen on Saturday.

Clerics in  NWFP, a religiously conservative region on the Afghan border dominated by ethnic Pashtuns, have called Eid early before but this time the politicians jumped into the fray. The Awami National Party (ANP), a secular party ruling NWFP which is also part of the federal coalition, backed the clerics from its province who called Eid early.

Analysts say the ANP's stand could be a aimed at winning the support of conservative Pashtuns.

Some ANP ministers exchanged barbs with Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman, the head of the federal government's moon-sighting committee, and called for his removal.

Minister for Railways and senior ANP leader Bashir Ahmed Bilour described Rehman as a "remnant" of Pervez Musharraf, the former military ruler who stepped down as president last year after ruling the country for nine years, and said he should be replaced by Mufti Shahbuddin Popalzai, a hardline cleric from NWFP who called Eid early.

Rehman responded by saying Bilour was trying to stoke religious tension by promoting the conservative Popalzai.

"By demanding that Popalzai be made chairman of the Reut-e-Hilal (moon-sighting) Committee, Bilour is paving the way for Talibanisation in other parts of the country," the News newspaper
quoted Rehman as saying.

Both Bilour and Rehman later toned down their rhetoric.

Bilour apologised for some of his remarks while Rehman said he would not oppose Popalzai's appointment as a member of the central moon-sighting committee.

But debate is still raging in the media, amid calls for the federal government to take steps to ensure unity on religious questions.

"I have a simple suggestion to permanently end the annual moon-sighting controversy: a compulsory course in astronomy for all members of the Reut-e-Hilal Committee as well as those clerics who think that the moon should appear in Pakistan on the same day as in Saudi Arabia,"
Shakir Laskhani said in a letter published in the News newspaper on Thursday.

The daily said in an editorial headlined "Moon madness" scientific methods should be employed when sighting the moon.

"The time has come to find rationality".

[Reuters pictures of Lahore's Badshahi mosque and sighting of the moon in Malaysia]

By Golnar Motevalli

On Friday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — accused by thousands of Iranians back in June of stealing Iran’s own disputed election — congratulated Afghan president Hamid Karzai on being re-elected.

It was a bit premature: even Karzai himself hasn’t actually claimed victory in last month’s presidential poll.

While in Iran, the election results were announced swiftly after polls closed, in Afghanistan there is still no official result a month after the vote, and a second round run-off could now be delayed until next year. 

A preliminary count of votes shows Karzai with a majority, but the election has been marred by accusations of fraud, most levelled at Karzai’s supporters.

The U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission found “clear and convincing evidence of fraud” and has ordered a recount of 10 percent of polling stations, which could mean ballots are nullified and Karzai may face a second-round run-off.

Afghanistan has not experienced the kind of post-election protests that ran in Iran after the election there, but diplomats in Kabul fear that a disputed election result could undermine the government and increase instability.

Comparisons between Karzai’s election and Ahmadinejad’s are awkward for Western leaders, especially U.S. President Barack Obama, who has already sent thousands of extra troops to Afghanistan and is considering whether to send more.

A few months ago I asked Karzai as he left a press conference in Kabul if he had spoken to Ahmadinejad about the elections in Iran when the two men met at a summit.

At that time anti-Ahmadinejad protests were at their height in Iran. Karzai simply replied, “we just met and exchanged greetings”.

I asked Karzai if he had sought any advice or tips from his Iranian counterpart about how to conduct an election campaign. Karzai laughed-off my question and continued his way out of the room, surrounded by security and the usual scrum of photographers. 

(File photo of Ahmadinejad and Karzai)

The debate still rages over which side came out of the August 7-12, 2008 war better.

It’s true that Russia crushed Georgia’s army when it stepped in to help South Ossetian rebels but its forceful reaction to the Georgian attempt to retake rebel held areas scared its European partners and isolated the country. Only Nicaragua followed Moscow and recognised both South Ossetia and another breakaway region Abkhazia as independent states after the war.

And despite an overwhelming military victory, the war also showed up technological and organisational deficiencies in Russia’s army.

For Georgia, the unsuccessful war dented its reputation as a reliable and steady ally for the West in the notoriously unstable South Caucasus. It also slowed President Mikheil Saakashvili’s NATO ambitions and undermined his popularity at home.

Both countries present starkly different versions of the war and who started it. A commission headed by a Swiss diplomat hopes to provide some answers later this year.

In the meantime the peace remains fragile, an estimated 30,000 displaced Georgians still live in temporary accommodation and relatives of those killed — Georgians, South Ossetians and Russians — will mark the anniversary.

Click for more stories on the Georgia-Russia 2008 war from Reuters AlertNet.

Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan will take questions from Thomson Reuters clients on how Australia managed to avoid recession and where the economy goes from here, at 9:15 am AEST on Tuesday (7:30 pm on Monday, EST).

The so-called “lucky country” dodged recession partly because of massive government stimulus, a conservative banking sector and strong Chinese demand for its resources exports, but there are concerns its luck may eventually run out. While other rich nations grapple with record high unemployment, Australia is starting to worry about inflation, a possible housing bubble and an over-reliance on China.

Click here to watch the live video.

By Jacob Comenetz

Less than three months before Germany’s election, Chancellor Angela Merkel has become the unlikely subject of a new comic book.

Journalist Miriam Hollstein teamed up with political cartoonist Heiko Sakurai to tell the story, with pictures and speech bubbles, of  ”How Angie became our chancellor”, as the 64-page book is subtitled.

The authors say it is the first comic book devoted to the German chancellor in a country that lacks a tradition of comics and has a reputation for seriousness.

“Germans are ready for this kind of book,” said artist Sakurai, pointing out that the book is not only about entertainment. “Our comic is serious too.”

It tells the story of Merkel’s rapid rise to the top position in German politics despite what critics say is her lack of charisma. Along the way, she outfoxes numerous male opponents who attempt to stunt her progress.

A key turning point portrayed in the book came in January 2002 when Merkel made a secret deal with her conservative rival Edmund Stoiber, then the premier of the southern state of Bavaria who became the conservative candidate for chancellor that year. She promised to support his candidacy in exchange for his supporting her bid to become the head of the party’s parliamentary group.

“It was a daredevil move,” said Hollstein, adding it allowed her to get the upper hand in her party after Stoiber lost the federal election.

A scene from Merkel’s childhood reveals much about her cautious leadership style. She stands on a high diving board as two boys look on. “She’s been there for 45 minutes,” says one.

“Coward, she’ll never jump,” says the other as they turn to walk away.

At that moment, she jumps. And the caption reads, “Even back then one shouldn’t have underestimated her.” 

Sakurai, who has drawn Merkel hundreds of times for German newspapers, said while many aspects of her appearance had changed over time, he had always drawn her eyes in the same way. “This dull look, with the lids half shut, means we can’t look into her soul,” he said. “What does this woman actually want? Where is she going? We don’t really know.”

In the final scene, as her formal rivals Stoiber and former Social Democrat Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder drink themselves into a stupor while watching the returns come in on election night 2009, Merkel gets the final word.

“Cheers! Here’s to the old bird losing!” says Schroeder. Merkel then appears: “You boys only belong to the past, I, however, have gone down in HISTORY!”

But the book leaves open who will win in September’s election.