BERLIN (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed on Sunday to support former East German rights activist Joachim Gauck for the presidency, averting a fight with opposition parties that might have distracted her from tackling the euro zone crisis.

Merkel confirmed her support for Gauck, 72, two days after Christian Wulff, her hand-picked choice for president in 2010, resigned in a scandal involving financial favours.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Joachim Gauck, a former anti-Communist human rights activist in East Germany who is set to become the next German president, is a moral authority to be reckoned with.

Gauck, who has been called Germany’s answer to Nelson Mandela, was one of a number of Protestant pastors who helped bring down the communist East German regime, setting the stage for the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification in 1990.

BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel bowed to pressure on Sunday and agreed to back popular opposition candidate Joachim Gauck to become president, averting a political fight that might have distracted her government from solving the euro zone crisis.

Merkel confirmed her support for Gauck at a press conference in the Chancellery with leaders of the other major German parties. The announcement paves the way for the 72-year old protestant pastor and former East German rights activist to be confirmed in the post by Germany’s Federal Assembly in the coming weeks.

BERLIN (Reuters) – German state prosecutors have asked the Bundestag to end the legal immunity of President Christiaan Wulff whom they suspect of accepting undue privileges, in an escalating scandal that could hurt Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Wullf has come embroiled over the past two months in a scandal over money, power and political favours that could cost him his job and damage Merkel who installed him in the largely ceremonial office in 2010.

BERLIN, Feb 16 (Reuters) – A non-professional cast of
Roma actors portray a family struggling to survive in “Just the
Wind”, a gritty drama inspired by real-life attacks against
Hungary’s Roma community which premieres on Thursday at the
Berlin Film Festival.

The film, by Hungarian director Bence Fliegauf, depicts a
family living in a shack in a wood where several other Roma
families have already been gunned down.

BERLIN/PARIS, Feb 15 (Reuters) – Germany’s economy
contracted slightly in the last three months of the year while
France eked out an anaemic level of growth, suggesting the euro
zone may succumb to a mild recession with its high debtors still
deep in the mire.

German gross domestic product contracted 0.2 percent in the
fourth quarter, a slowdown from upwardly revised 0.6 percent
growth in the July-September period, data showed on Wednesday.

BERLIN (Reuters) – German analyst and investor sentiment leapt to its highest level in 10 months in February, reinforcing signs that Europe’s largest economy is returning to growth as the rest of the euro zone faces a mild recession.

The ZEW think tank’s monthly poll of economic sentiment jumped for the third month in a row, to its highest level since April 2011, smashing expectations and sending the euro to a session high against the dollar.

BERLIN, Feb 12 (Reuters) – Boundaries between
kidnappers and hostages are blurred in Philippine drama
“Captive”, which stars French actress Isabelle Huppert and
premiered at the Berlin film festival on Sunday.

Directed by Filipino Brillante Mendoza and shot with a
hand-held camera, the film is loosely based on real life events
and tells the story of a group of holiday makers and
missionaries kidnapped in the Philippines by an al Qaeda-linked
rebel group.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Spanish psychological thriller “Dictado” (Childish Games), depicting a man spooked by a little girl who revives a dark secret from his childhood, had viewers also on edge at its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival on Saturday.

When Daniel’s childhood friend commits suicide, he takes the man’s seven-year-old daughter into his care. But some of the girl’s simplest actions put him on edge as they recall ominous childhood memories.