Tag Archives: Berlin

Deutsche Welle reports: A “loose, dangerous animal,” suspected to be an escaped big cat, was reportedly sighted in a Potsdam region on the fringes of the German capital on Thursday, police said. Authorities are using helicopters to track what they believe is a female lion and have called on residents to stay indoors, the RBB public broadcaster reported. Residents have …

Reuters reports: Tens of thousands men, women and children joined an anti-war demonstration in central Berlin on Sunday, with many waving Ukrainian flags or holding banners with slogans opposing the Russian invasion. Gathering near the Brandenburg Gate, symbol of a divided Germany during the Cold War, protesters – including people in wheelchairs and toddlers in pushchairs – walked through the …

ABC News reports: Germany’s capital Berlin will ban unvaccinated people from restaurants, bars, cinemas and other entertainment venues from Monday, as the country grapples with its highest surge in Covid-19 cases to date. From next week those who are not fully vaccinated will be excluded from a number of entertainment sites in Berlin, the city’s Senate announced on Wednesday, as …

Reuters reports: Berlin is racing to open six mass vaccination centres capable of handling up to 4,000 people per day by mid-December, the project coordinator told Reuters on Thursday, as the city waits for authorities to approve the first vaccines. An empty trade fair hall, two airport terminals, a concert arena, a velodrome and an ice rink will be turned …

The Associated Press reports: German police fired water cannons Wednesday at demonstrators protesting coronavirus restrictions in Berlin’s government district, after crowds ignored calls to wear masks and keep their distance from one another in line with pandemic regulations. As the cannons soaked protesters outside the landmark Brandenburg Gate, police in riot gear moved through the crowd carrying away some participants. …

The Associated Press reports: Thousands protested Germany’s coronavirus restrictions Saturday in a Berlin demonstration marking what organizers called “the end of the pandemic” — a declaration that comes just as authorities are voicing increasing concerns about an uptick in new infections. With few masks in sight, a dense crowd marched through downtown Berlin from the Brandenburg Gate. Protesters who came …

Reuters reports: At least one police officer was injured in Berlin on Saturday when around 500 activists shouting “Nazis out” clashed with an equal number of far-right activists marking the 31st anniversary of the prison suicide of Nazi convict Rudolf Hess. Many of the far-right activists, clad in red and white, hoisted the red, white and black flag of Hitler’s …

Deutsche Welle reports: Berlin was treated the surreal spectacle on Sunday afternoon of the Brandenburg Gate once again serving to demarcate two Germanys. On one side, some 5000 supporters of anti-immigration, anti-EU Alternative for Germany party (AfD). They congregated to express their discontent and often outright contempt for the policies of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government, particularly her welcoming stance toward …

CNN reports: Neo-Nazis marched in the streets of Berlin on Saturday as counter-protesters assembled to meet them, a week after a white supremacist rally turned deadly in Charlottesville, Virginia. Helmeted police in riot gear stood guard as right-wing demonstrators converged on the German capital to mark the 30th anniversary of the death of Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler’s deputy. Convicted at …

Germany’s The Local reports: A fire broke out at a sauna club in west Berlin on Sunday evening, tragically costing the lives of three men who were inside at the time. A fourth man was brought to hospital with suspected smoke intoxication, a spokesperson for the fire service said. But the spokesperson ruled out the possibility of further victims. The …

The BBC reports: A manhunt is under way across Europe’s Schengen states after prosecutors identified a suspect in the lorry attack on a Berlin Christmas market. A warrant was issued at midnight. Details were not given but media reports say the suspect is a Tunisian man named only as Anis A, born in 1992. His residence permit was found in …

The Guardian reports: At least nine people have been killed and many more were injured, according to German police, after a truck ploughed into a Christmas market in Berlin. The vehicle, a large black Scania articulated lorry, ran into the market outside the landmark Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church on Monday evening. Local reports cited police at the scene who said …

The Hill reports: A Tuesday morning WikiLeaks press event in Berlin did not produce an “#OctoberSurprise” to derail the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign that many had expected. “I’ve seen the internet and I understand there is enormous expectation in the United States,” said WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange via video conference at the event, celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the document-leaking …

As reported here several times, LGBT refugees from Syria and other nations continue to face abuse and violence in Europe’s burgeoning refugee centers. Yesterday authorities in Germany did something about it. Via The Local: Germany will on Tuesday open a shelter for homosexual refugees with space for more than 120 people, the association behind the project said. Speaking at a …

A Dutch artist is sitting in a Berlin gayborhood storefront where he is live-streaming photos and chats with unsuspecting local Grindr users to giant video screens in the window. Some of these men, perhaps unsurprisingly, are furious. Via Gay Star News: The project is called Wanna Play? But many Grindr users don’t consider the art playful, some consider it to …

Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit is retiring after 13 years. For years, Wowereit had enjoyed popularity far beyond the capital’s borders, not least thanks to a deft turn of phrase and considerable fearlessness in the face of the tabloid media. “I’m gay and that’s OK,” he casually remarked in the runup to his election in 2001, becoming the first high-profile German …

A cemetery for lesbians will open outside of Berlin on Sunday. The project, which is on the grounds of a Lutheran Church, has been criticized in the German press by writers who characterize its backers as lesbian separatists. “We are the first real generation of emancipated, feminist, open lesbians, and we need somewhere to be buried,” said Dr Astrid Osterland …

Via Jerusalem Post: Gad Beck, an anti-Nazi Zionist resistance fighter and the last known gay Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, died on Sunday in Berlin. He passed away in a senior citizens’ home six days before his 89th birthday, which would have been on June 30. Beck was a pioneering gay activist and educator in a severely anti-homosexual, repressive post-World …

Via JMG reader Adam. See his Flickr account.