Joachim Gauck

(Newser) - A special assembly elected former German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier by an overwhelming majority Sunday to be the country's new president. Steinmeier was elected in Berlin by the assembly made up of the 630 members of parliament's lower house and an equal number of representatives from Germany's...

(Newser) - German President Joachim Gauck has become the highest-profile political figure to say "nyet" to next year's Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The former pastor, whose position is largely ceremonial, says he plans to stay away because of the Putin regime's human rights abuses and harassment of the...

(Newser) - Germany today elected a former anti-Communist pastor as president, with 72-year-old Joachim Gauck receiving 991 of the 1,232 ballots cast, reports the AP . Gauck assumes the largely ceremonial post in the wake of the resignation of Christian Wulff, who quit last month in a scandal over financial favors. He...