A former East German human rights activist Joachim Gauck is to be Germany's next president - a largely ceremonial role. Officials said Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government and the main opposition parties had agreed on Mr Gauck's nomination. The previous President Christian Wulff, an ally of Mrs Merkel, resigned on Friday over a loan scandal. Mr Gauck stood against Mr Wulff for the presidency in June 2010 but was defeated after three rounds of voting.
Iran says that it's halted oil sales to France and Britain
in retaliation for
a European Union ban on Iranian oil which takes effect in July. A spokesman said Iran would instead sell its oil to new customers. Our correspondent Joe Lynam says the move will have little impact.
What I think is interesting is that they have picked out Britain and France specifically because Britain and France are major diplomatic players of course, but they are not major purchasers of Iranian oil. If they really want to make an anti-EU statement, they would just say 'We are banning oil exports to the European Union.' But that would shoot themselves in the foot because Italy accounts for 7% of Iran's exports of oil, Spain about 6% and Greece around 3%. So they're diplomatically
slapping
Britain and France in the face, but it will have no impact on France or British supplies of oil because they don't buy that much.
South Africa has announced that it's deploying 1,000 troops along its borders to try to halt a rising tide of