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Germany's President Horst Köhler has refused clemency to the convicted RAF terrorist Christian Klar. German President Horst Köhler has refused to grant early release to convicted Red Army Faction terrorist Christian Klar. Köhler's office announced Monday that the president had turned down Klar's plea for clemency, as well as a similar plea from fellow RAF member Birgit Hogefeld. Both Klar and Hogefeld are serving life sentences for murder. The 54-year-old Klar has been in prison for 24 years and is two years away from being eligible for parole. He is serving a life sentence for his role in the murder...

German president opens synagogue MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - President Horst Koehler said on Thursday anti-Semitism was still alive in Germany as he attended the consecration of a new synagogue in Munich, nearly 70 years after a notorious Nazi pogrom against the Jews. "Still today our dream of a normal Jewish life in Germany clashes with the reality that there is open and latent anti-Semitism and the number of violent acts motivated by right-wing extremism is rising," Koehler said in a speech prepared for the occasion. "It is the duty of all of us to get involved and act to prevent...

<p>Horst Koehler, the economist who will become president of Germany on Thursday, hopes to bring an American sense of optimism to a country that suffers from a weak economy.</p> <p>"Horst who?" was the headline in a major German national newspapers four months ago, when the center-right opposition Christian Democrats nominated Mr. Koehler for the largely ceremonial post. In May, a special national assembly endorsed him as president.</p>

BERLIN (Reuters) - Former IMF head Horst Koehler has been elected Germany's ninth post-war president by a special federal assembly in a poll overshadowed by the inclusion of a Nazi-era judge who sentenced World War Two deserters to death. Koehler, who quit as managing director of the International Monetary Fund to run for the largely ceremonial office, won an absolute majority on Sunday with 604 votes in the 1,204-member assembly. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's candidate Gesine Schwan, who gained 589 votes, was defeated in what opposition conservatives hope will be a harbinger for the ousting of the SPD-Greens government in a...