Airport strikes start around Germany
The union Verdi began its warning strikes in aviation security late on Wednesday evening. The first strike took place in Cologne/Bonn, where the night shift for passenger control did not show up for work.
The participation rate there was one hundred percent, said Verdi union secretary Ă–zay Tarim.
"It was a successful start to the strike," he said in a statement.
Around 80 percent of the flight movements that were planned for Thursday in Cologne/Bonn were canceled there, according to the airport website early Thursday morning.
Tarim expected this proportion to increase as the day progressed. The consequences are even more serious at Berlin, Hamburg and Stuttgart airports, where all take-offs have been axed.
In DĂĽsseldorf, on the other hand, only a third of flight movements were cancelled, with two-thirds scheduled to take place throughout the day on Thursday.
A total of 1,100 flights have been cancelled at the participating airports.
READ ALSO: What passengers need to know about German airport strikes on Thursday
Inflation plummets in Germany
Inflation in Germany and France, the eurozone's biggest economies, fell sharply in January, data showed Wednesday, boosting hopes the European Central Bank will start to cut interest rates soon.
Consumer prices in Germany, Europe's top economy, climbed 2.9 percent year-on-year, according to preliminary data from federal statistics agency Destatis.
That was the lowest reading since June 2021, and down from 3.7 percent in December, when inflation had rebounded after several months of declines.
In Germany, lower energy prices helped to bring the inflation rate down while food costs also increased more slowly.
Closely-watched "core" inflation -- which strips out volatile food and energy prices -- eased to 3.4 percent in January from 3.5 percent the previous month.
Large demo planned against far-right this weekend
100,000 people have now registered for the long-announced human chain for democracy and against right-wing extremism this Saturday afternoon at the Reichstag building in Berlin.
The human chain of demonstrators is planned for 1 pm under the motto "We are the firewall".
"Racism, anti-Semitism and other forms of group-related misanthropy are on the rise," said the organizer alliance "Hand in Hand", explaining the motivation for the rally.
"We call on people to stop watching the right-wing normalization in Germany and Europe," they wrote.
'Guten Tag babes': Adele announces Munich concerts
Pop superstar Adele on Wednesday announced four open-air concerts in Munich in August, her first shows in mainland Europe since 2016.
The British singer will perform at a specially-created, 80,000-capacity venue in the southern German city on August 2th, 3rd, 9th and 10th.
The 35-year-old said she had been on the last stage of her Las Vegas residency -- "Weekends with Adele", which runs until June -- when she was approached about the Munich shows.
"A one off, bespoke pop-up stadium designed around whatever show I want to put on? Pretty much slap bang in the middle of Europe? In Munich?" she wrote in an Instagram post.
"That's a bit random, but still fabulous!"
Scholz vows to do all for 'huge' EU aid for Ukraine
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed Wednesday to rally European partners to cobble together support for Ukraine "so huge"Â that it would weigh on Russian President Vladimir Putin's calculations.
The pledge by the German leader, once criticised for dragging his feet on arming Kyiv, came with fears growing that support from Ukraine's biggest weapons supplier, the United States, could fall away.
"We will do everything to ensure that the joint contribution from Europe is so huge that Ukraine can build on it and that Putin would not be able to count on our support waning at some point," he told the German parliament ahead of an EU summit aimed at shoring up military support for Kyiv.
In recent weeks, Scholz had ramped up calls for other EU nations to dig deeper for Ukraine.
With reporting by AFP.
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