New Berlin Airport might be Forever Delayed, expert says

New Berlin Airport BER Terminal

Photo: The new Berlin airport - view on the main terminal / CC BY-SA 3.0 by Fridolin freudenfett (Peter Kuley) - own work

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Today the Berliner Zeitung has some bad news for everybody who thought, that it would be soon possible to arrive at and/or take off the new Berlin Airport BER – or actually the newspaper is quoting an expert who has some bad news: according to Dieter Faulenbach da Costa, who was part of the BER planning team until 1999, too many mistakes were made – and it might have become impossible to open the the airport at all.

Dieter Faulenbach da Costa is quoted saying that things have happened, that should never happen to any large scale project. While now some parts and details of the airport are changed to meet legal regulations, other details will then have to be changed, to work together with the changes. This will then again evoke other changes – and so on…

The airport opening was first scheduled for 2011. Currently, other experts, and also the city’s major Mueller are of the opinion, that an opening of the airport is still possible at end of the year 2017. However, many major project milestones are currently delayed. So we will probably  soon find out, if there will be another delay for the grand opening…

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New Order’s new Video for Singularity feat. West Berlin in the Eighties

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Watching the video (vimeo.com) and reading the lyrics for New Order’s song Singularity I must admit that I don’t really know why the band decided to have Eighties West Berlin footage as a ‘back drop’ for the video. But maybe that’s just me. And on the other hand I also must admit that I do enjoy seeing Eighties footage from West-Berlin anyways and always – even if the footage shown in the video for Singularity is already well known from last year’s B-Movie – Lust and B-Movie: Lust and Sound in West Berlin 1979 – 1989.

Yes, of course – I know –  Joy Division do occur in the movie. And the film actually follows Mark Reeder (wikipedia) who moved from Manchester to Berlin in 1978 and who basically brought Joy Division to Berlin, building a musical bridge Manchester and Berlin.  And so it seems the band does somehow recall their early Berlin days and pays tribute to their Berlin audience from the Joy Division era – and their Berlin mentor Mark Reeder. Nice.

If you haven’t seen B-Movie – Lust and B-Movie: Lust and Sound in West Berlin 1979 – 1989 yet: go see it! It’s really worth watching – even if you haven’t been in Berlin in the Eighties. And it’s now actually finally available on DVD: b-movie-der-film.de7see also:

Traffic Accidents in Berlin

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Last Friday together with the Berlin Senate the Berlin Police presented the new Traffic Accident Statistic for Berlin. The good news: over the years the number of fatal accidents went down. The bad news: the total number of accidents went up.

The main cause for accidents on Berlin streets are mistakes made when people make a turn – causing over 10.000 accidents on Berlin streets in 2015 alone. Runner up with nearly 6.000 accidents is what I would call selfishness: people either ignore the right of way, or they just don’t care.

Most of the traffic accidents (over 70%) are (of course) caused by cars – or actually car drivers. The number is even higher when we look at the number of car drivers involved in traffic accident: over 75%.

So if you happen to visit Berlin please be careful. Even though Berlin may look and feel quite relaxed, there is a lot of bad things happening also – traffic accidents being one of them. Please be careful, take your time – and also look after others. Only because the traffic lights are green doesn’t mean you are actually safe. Thank you!

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Police arrests two ‘terror suspects’

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On Thursday night German Police arrested two people, suspected of planning a terror attack in Germany. According to media reports the men had planned an attack on Berlin’s popular sight Checkpoint Charlie and/or on Alexanderplatz. The police however could not confirm such details.

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Fatal Car Racing in Berlin

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Last Monday’s fatal car accident in West Berlin’s shopping area between KaDeWe and Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church is only the tip of another iceberg. Two young men had been racing down Tauentzienstraße (continued from Kurfürstendamm) – crossing at least two red traffic lights – crashing into a third car and killing its driver.

In 2014 alone Berlin saw over 3000 traffic accidents caused by speeding – and 52 people got killed in traffic accidents. That means that on average every week one person gets killed on the streets of Berlin.

In the recent years Car Racing continued to be quite a common problem in Berlin. Mostly young men driving across the city a high speed – in 2014 some 38 special speeding tickets were issued for illegal racing.

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Berlin Weather in January: cold, wet, windy – and sunny

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In January we had again something of everything: some wind, some rain, some snow – and some sunlight. The temperature went down to something like -12°C and up to around +12°C – not too bad, but also not really nice. Overall I would say: the Berlin Weather in January was “ok” so far.

Berlin Winter Weather - sunshine on Oderberger Stasse Prenzlauer Berg in January

Sunshine on Oderberger Stasse Prenzlauer Berg

On the weekend it may however become a bit stormy. Some warm air is meeting with some cold air. Temperatures are expected to be slightly above 0°C – rain and winds will probably dominate the weather condition on Saturday and Sunday. Well… Have a nice weekend then!

PS: Feel free to check this weather map of Deutscher Wetterdienst / German Weather Service: