Word: citizenship
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...election campaign in Germany took an ugly turn last week when the country's far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) threatened a black member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party. Angolan-born Zeca Schall, who has German citizenship, was featured on CDU campaign posters in the eastern state of Thuringia, which is holding a regional election on Aug. 30. The posters went up on Aug. 1; 10 days later, the NPD attacked Schall on its website, calling him a "n_____ for the CDU party quota," telling him to "go back home to Angola" and urging...
...Currently, barring any criminal record, most who settle in the U.K. can apply for citizenship after about five years. The new probationary-citizen plan would lengthen an immigrant's total wait to an estimated six to 10 years, according to the Home Office. (The wait for those immigrating on the basis of family ties would jump from two years to between three and seven...
...According to Jean-Christophe Dumont, an international migration specialist for the OECD, the longer wait could mean the new test actually has the opposite of its intended effect. He points to studies carried out in Europe, the U.S. and Canada that have shown that once granted citizenship, immigrants perform markedly better in the job market than they did while they were waiting to get their passports. "The less certitude there is - the longer the process takes - the less an immigrant might invest in his host country," he says...
...Critics have also attacked the ways points could be awarded. Some worry that the "active citizenship" fast track would coerce candidates into volunteering, while the suggestion of political canvassing raised more than a few eyebrows. Some note it could lead to a bias toward the ruling Labour Party. (Watch a TIME video with PM Gordon Brown...
After the war, Scheungraber spent decades living a quiet, unassuming life at his home in Ottobrunn, on the outskirts of Munich. He ran a furniture shop, sat on the town council and even won a medal for outstanding citizenship. In 2006 he was sentenced in absentia to life in prison by an Italian military tribunal, but he wasn't deported and never served any time. After German prosecutors got onto the case, Scheungraber went on trial in Munich in September 2008. "The past caught up with the defendant," said prosecutor Hans-Joachim Lutz after the verdict was delivered on Tuesday...