Berlin Wall: Angela Merkel hails fall as 'dream come true'

The fall of the Berlin Wall has shown the world that dreams can come true and "nothing has to stay as it is", German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said.

Speaking 25 years after the event, Mrs Merkel said the message for those in countries where rights were threatened was that things could get better.
Earlier she attended a service for the former East German regime's victims.
The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 to stop people fleeing from communist East Germany to the West.
Its fall in 1989 became a powerful symbol of the end of the Cold War.
Later in the day white balloons marking a stretch of the wall will be released to symbolise its disappearance.
'Easy to forget' The day's events began with a brass band playing, evoking the trumpets which brought down the walls of the biblical city of Jericho.
Chancellor Merkel, who grew up in East Germany, and other officials laid roses in one of the remaining sections of the wall.

Ms Merkel and the city's mayor placed roses in a remaining section of the Wall

Crowds have flocked to the remaining stretches of the Berlin Wall

Illuminated white balloons, seen here near the Brandenburg Gate, mark the route of the Berlin Wall

A guard tower still marks the "death strip" between layers of the former wall that divided Berlin

Speaking at the opening of a new information centre about the Wall, Mrs Merkel said it was easy to forget what had happened and it was important to remember it.
"We can change things for the better," she said. "This is the message for... Ukraine, Iraq and other places where human rights are threatened.
"The fall of the Wall showed us that dreams can come true. Nothing has to stay as it is."
Ms Merkel will be joined later by former Polish trade union leader and president Lech Walesa and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader.