Four dead and several wounded in German hospital fire
Four people died after a fire erupted at a hospital in the northern German town of Uelzen, local police said Friday, with the cause of the blaze still unknown.
Several people were injured in the blaze, which occurred on Thursday night, the police said in a statement.
The fire broke out at 10:45pm and when emergency services personnel arrived, flames were visible on the third floor as well as "a lot of smoke", according to police.
"Calls for help were heard" from the building, the police added, and the hospital was evacuated as the fire was extinguished.
According to German media reports, the four people who were killed were patients.
Authorities have launched an investigation into the cause of the fire.
German inflation rises following period of decline
German inflation rose in December, as the pace of price rises picked up again after months of steady decline, according to preliminary data released this week.
Consumer prices climbed 3.7 percent year-on-year, up from a reading of 3.2 percent in November, according to the federal statistics agency Destatis.
The last monthly increase in the indicator was recorded in June, and the renewed increase was anticipated by analysts.
"The main reason for the rise in inflation lies in the past," said Fritzi Koehler-Geib, chief economist at public lender KfW.
A rise in energy prices in December 2023 as compared with the previous year could be put down to government support for household bills at the end of 2022.
The change "makes today's energy prices appear higher in comparison, even though they have fallen further in recent months", Koehler-Geib said.
Farmers' protest leaves Economics Minister stuck on a ferry - while government drops part of planned subsidy cut
A group of farmer protesters prevented Economics Minister Robert Habeck from leaving a ferry on the North Sea coast, sparking outrage.
More than 100 protesters blocked the jetty in Schlüttsiel on Thursday evening, a police spokesman said. The Vice-Chancellor therefore had to return to Hallig Hooge on the island of Hooge, and could only reach the mainland on another ferry during the night.
German farmers trying to storm the ferry on which the vice chancellor, Robert Habeck, was returning from his holidays.
— Christian Odendahl (@COdendahl) January 4, 2024
Hard to overstate how Germany’s political discourse is going off the rails. pic.twitter.com/7faHFXNPsY
Around 30 police officers were called to the scene, saying they had to use pepper spray. No injuries were reported.
Politicians from the government, as well as from the opposition CDU, publicly slammed the protest action on Friday morning. Britta Haßelmann, leader of the Greens in the Bundestag, said it was an "attack on Robert Habeck's privacy".
It came after the government announced that it will drop part of its plans to cut agricultural subsidies following massive protests in December by farmers.
READ ALSO: Disruption as farmers on 1,500 tractors protest in Berlin
Contrary to the initial plans, a discount on the vehicle tax for agricultural machinery would be maintained, Chancellor Olaf Scholz's spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in a statement.
Tax breaks on fuel used by the same vehicles would not be scrapped completely but reduced progressively, Hebestreit said.
The move was agreed in light of new information on the state of the government's finances and "in order to avoid the sometimes considerable bureaucratic effort for the companies affected", he said.
But farmers in the industry don't believe this goes far enough.
An end to farmer subsidies was initially announced in December after a shock court ruling upended the government's spending plans.
The move almost immediately prompted significant protests by farmers, who descended on central Berlin in their thousands.
The protestors blocked one of the main roads in the heart of the capital with tractors and dumped manure on the street.
German car sales go up but EV sales go down
Sales of new cars in Germany increased in 2023, official data showed Thursday, but an end to government subsidy programmes saw electric vehicles lose ground on fossil-fuel models.
A total of 2.8 million new cars hit the road in Europe's largest economy last year, an increase of 7.3 percent on 2022, according to the KBA federal transport authority.
Among the different engine types, sales of petrol vehicles increased most, up 13.3 percent on 2022 to 979,000.
The strong rise meant that altogether, petrol and diesel-powered cars saw their market share increase after years of relative decline.
By comparison, battery-powered vehicle sales increased by a more modest 11.4 percent to 524,000, while sales of plug-in hybrids more than halved to 176,000.
Weather: cold front moves into Germany
After torrential rain which has caused severe flooding in several parts of Germany, snow and icy temperatures are hitting the country.
Temperatures will hit between highs of 3C and lows of -8C - a significant drop to what we've experienced in the last weeks.
There are concerns about the high water in flooded areas turning to ice.
On Friday members of the German army (Bundeswehr) were set to travel to Saxony-Anhalt to help in flood-hit areas.
READ ALSO: Germany braces for blast of snow and freezing temperatures
We updated this story to include new details on the hospital fire
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