A ceremony Thursday marked the completion of a major expansion of the US Air Force's Ramstein airbase in Germany, the main US military transport hub in Europe, according to dpa. The work was needed after Rhein-Main Air Base on part of Frankfurt International Airport was closed at the end of 2005 to allow the airport to expand. Operations were moved to Ramstein and another German base, Spangdahlem. A US spokeswoman said the works had cost more than 400 million euros (530 million dollars). She added that the concentration of US military facilities at Ramstein, in the city of Kaiserslautern and nearby was the biggest outside US soil, with 16,000 US military personnel stationed in the region. If 7,000 American civilians, 6,000 non-US civilians and US military families were added, the total size of the military community numbered 53,500, she said.
