Radio Spaetkauf Berlin

Berlin now has two top level football teams after FC Union jumped up to the Bundesliga by winning a play-off match. FC Union started back in the DDR. Their die-hard fans actually helped rebuild the stadium in Köpenick with their own hands. Maybe they could help finish BER?

Enjoying the heat? Spare a thought for horses pulling tourist carriages in the city center. New rules now apply - carriage operators have to stop if air temperature in the shade reaches 30 degrees Celsius.

There’s been another attempt to crack down on the food sellers in Thai Park. Police and Ordnungsamt officers raided the park on a recent Saturday. But a district official revealed it was all for show. Arne Herz from the CDU said: “We don’t want to ruin the market, we just want to show the residents that we’re doing something.”

Get ready for a rent increase letter. Berlin’s landlords association has advised its members to try to increase rents by as much as possible before June 17. That’s because the city government is working on a new law that would freeze everybody’s rent for the next five years. Landlords are terrified, and are racing to squeeze out one last rent rise first. Residents are being advised not to agree to any rent increase without consulting a renter’s association first.

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Are you paying too much rent? Probably: 70% of Berlin landlords are illegally overcharging, says lawyer Daniel Halmer of WenigerMiete.de. He’s offering a no-win no-fee service to fight your landlord for a rent reduction. He’s helped people save up to €600 a month. Tricks landlords use include overstating apartment size by up to 30%. Everybody who has rented an apartment in the last three years could win a rent decrease.

Berlin could soon get public electric grills – thanks to a very unexpected source of money – East Germany’s stolen millions hidden in Swiss bank accounts. The DDR leaders stashed state money abroad as the socialist state collapsed. Now it’s coming back. The Mitte district wants to use it to put coin-operated grills in Monbijou Park. Maisie thinks it could be used for better purposes.

The Breitscheitplatz Christmas Market truck attack in 2016 might have been prevented if Berlin police weren’t so obsessed with trying to evict anarchist squatters. A Berlin parliamentary inquiry has heard that police monitoring the alleged truck attacker, Anis Amri, were called of his case in June 2016. They were instead reassigned to focus on left-wing squatters in Rigaer Straße in Friedrichshain, who were illegally evicted from their squat. Amri allegedly went on to join a terrorist cell, undetected. Former justice minister Frank Henkel’s ideologial war against hippies had serious consequences.

This episode was recorded live ahead of the Mobile Kino open air screening at Insel der Jugend. Hosts are Maisie Hitchcock, Jöran Mandik, Joel Dullroy and Daniel Stern.

It’s pride month in Berlin but a virus outbreak is highlighting how policy makers keep failing the LGBTQi community and shows we learnt nothing from the last pandemic. People are being stigmatized and shamed, the vaccine program is slow - sound familiar? This time it’s monkeypox. We talked to queer activist Pansy about how it is affecting the gay community.

Pansy is hosting an actual DRAG RACE on Tuesday, July 26th in Hasenheide. Find more infos via Pansy’s instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pansypresents/

Meanwhile a new database has been launched to make it easier for all queer people to find the sexual health services right for them. Our new editor Anne-Marie Harrison went out to interview founder Anna Wim about her platform Fluide BLN http://fluidebln.de/

Correction: In the recording, Anna Wim is incorrectly referred to as “she.” Anna identifies as nonbinary and uses “they/them” pronouns. We apologize for the error, and many thanks to Anna for speaking to us about their important work.

Also: You might not know it if you don’t drive a car, but the past few weeks Berlin’s roads have become the site of an incredible youth-led protest movement. Hundreds of young people of the Letzte Generation movement have been putting their bodies and clean criminal records on the line by blocking traffic, in some cases glueing their hands to the road, to draw attention to the dire threats of climate change. This has enraged drivers, who have physically attacked the protesters, with police often standing by and doing nothing to stop the assaults. We’ve met one of these incredible activists. https://letztegeneration.de/

And: Berlin schools are in bad shape, there aren’t enough teachers and the ones we do have are overworked. Now international teachers in Berlin are being left out of a scheme to offer better pay and pensions. We talked to Ryan Plocher, a US teacher and active GEW union member, who is helping to plan strikes to try to get better conditions in Berlin schools. https://www.gew-berlin.de/ueber-uns/about-us

We’ve recorded this episode live at the wonderful Podfest Berlin, organized by our very own Dan Stern. It was a blast! If you missed it - all recorded podcasts will be published before long. To find out more, head over to https://www.podfestberlin.com/