Author: radiospaetkauf

The number of public bikes in Berlin increased to 6200 this week when Chinese company Mobike placed 700 of their orange and silver bicycles on the streets. They’re not to be confused with O-Bike, the Singaporean company that introduced 500 yellow-framed bikes just a few weeks earlier. In other cities, Mobike gives users credits for reporting broken bikes, and takes away credits for poor parking and “abandoning the bike when intercepted by police.”

The Berlin transport department says another three bike sharing companies have expressed interest in operating here. Radio Spaetkauf co-host Jöran Mandik discovered a watery graveyard of Lidl Bikes in the Landwehrkanal near Admiralsbrücke where some hater has been throwing them.

Police in Berlin recovered over 100 stolen items formerly belonging to John Lennon. A man has been arrested for allegedly selling the objects, worth an estimated €3 million, via an online auction website. They items were stolen from Yoko Ono by her former chauffeur, and passed on to a fence in Berlin. The auction website’s former managers says it didn’t know the items were stolen.

This Sunday is our very last live show of the year. Jim Avignon, an iconic Berlin illustrator and musician, is our special musical guest. The whole team will be on stage at the Comedy Cafe Berlin in Neukölln. Doors open at 3.30pm, show starts at 4pm, entry is free.

This episode was presented by Joel Dullroy and Maisie Hitchcock, and brought to you by Radio Eins.

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Dodgy Berlin real estate deals have been discovered in the Paradise Papers. According to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, a company called Phoenix Spree based on the Isle of Jersey has been buying Berlin property, forcing out tenants, putting up the rent, then sending the profits to offshore accounts where they pay little tax. Wondering why rents are going up and where that extra money is going? Now you know. Another trick highlighted in the Paradise Papers are so-called share deals. Investors avoid Berlin’s 6% property sales tax by buying shares in companies that own property, instead of the property directly. This trick robs the city of €100 million euros annually, according to the Berlin finance department. The Sony Center was sold for €1.1 billion in October under such a share deal. None of these tricks are illegal. They’re simply immoral.

The Berlin Police Academy in Spandau is in the headlines. An anonymous letter published in the Tagesspiegel alleged Arabic gang members were being accepted as recruits. A police union spokesman claimed gangs were grooming some of their members to get into the police academy, by holding them back from committing crimes to keep their records clean. Berlin’s chief of police, Klaus Kandt, says there’s no such infiltration going on. The anonymous claims were fueled by racism toward people from immigrant communities, he said.

Hasenheide, Kottbusser Damm, Karl Marx Straße will get bike lanes in spring 2018. They will be up to 2 meters wide, painted bright green, and separated from cars by posts in some places. Berlin getting another bike sharing company. O-Bike will soon place 500 of its yellow bicycles across the city. The city now has 5500 public bikes, and will have at least 9000 by the end of 2018. O-Bike will charge €1 for 30 minutes, €20 a month, or €80 a year – which could be an alternative to buying a bike.

Check out the temporary sculpture Monument in front of the Brandenburger Tor. It features three upturned busses, replicating a scene from Aleppo in Syria, where civilians hid behind busses to protect themselves from gunfire during the ongoing civil war. The sculpture will be parked in Berlin until November 26.

This episode was presented by Joel Dullroy and Maisie Hitchcock, and brought to you by Radio Eins.

Subscribe to Radio Spaetkauf on iTunes.

Support us with a monthly donation!

Almost 200 cyclists blocked traffic on Oranienstraße in a protest after a cyclist was doored and seriously injured. O-Straße is the third most dangerous street for cyclists in Berlin. What would happen if we painted our own bike lane? Over 34,000 bicycles worth almost €20 million are stolen annually in Berlin, only 3.5 percent are recovered.

Air Berlin’s turbulent descent into insolvency has reached its end. At 10.45pm on October 27 the final Air Berlin flight AB6210 from Munich will touch down at Tegel Airport, and the airline will cease to exist. Lufthansa won the bidding war to take over the majority of the bankrupt airline. It will purchase 81 aircraft and take on around 3000 employees and integrate them into its Eurowings brand. Lufthansa will soon carry over 90% of domestic German air traffic. Don’t be surprised if ticket prices start going up. Time to take a train? The low-cost rail company Locomore has recently re-launched, offering tickets to Frankfurt and Stuttgart for €9.90.

Berlin authorities have cracked down on homeless people camping in Tiergarten, where the murder of a 60 year old woman sparked politicians to claim the park had become lawless. Evictions have taken place in other locations. A homeless camp of around 70 people was cleared out from behind the Berghain nightclub. The Neukölln district council chartered buses to take homeless people back to Romania and Bulgaria. The number of homeless people staying in shelters has risen from almost 8000 in 2013 to over 30,000 in 2016, and an estimated 2000 are sleeping rough on the streets. Rising rents are forcing more Berliners out of their homes.

Come along to our next live recording at 6pm, Sunday November 5 at the Comedy Cafe Berlin.

This episode of Radio Spaetkauf is brought to you by Radio Eins, Berlin’s public broadcaster.

Subscribe to Radio Spaetkauf on iTunes.

Support us with a monthly donation!

Storm Xavier lashed Berlin with winds of 120 kilometres an hour on October 5. Public transport and flights were cancelled for most of the day, and regional train lines were cut for several days. Five people died from falling trees and car accidents, and 18 flamingos at the Berlin Zoo didn’t make it through the storm. How do storms get their names? You can pay €260.61 to name a storm. The money goes to climate research at the Institut für Meteorologie at Berlin’s Freie Universität. Sign up for one at http://www.met.fu-berlin.de/wetterpate.

Only weeks after Berliners voted to keep Tegel Airport open, Lufthansa has announced it will soon begin operating Boeing 747s at Tegel. Three 747 services will run daily between Tegel and Frankfurt due to high passenger demand following the Air Berlin insolvency. The airline will have to pay a €515 euro penalty per flight to land the noisy jets, none of which goes to the long-suffering residents of Pankow.

Following the German national elections, the Friedrichstadt Palast director Berndt Schmidt said supporters of the Alternative für Deutschland party should hand back their tickets. He later said AFD voters were welcome, but might feel uncomfortable in his multi-cultural, multi-sexual, multi-religious theatre. The AFD reacted by calling for Friedrichstadt Palast to lose 12% of its public funding. On Saturday October 7 the theatre was evacuated due to a bomb threat. Among the 1700 audience members were ten AFD supporters who were given tickets by their party.