Politics
Germany scraps fast-track citizenship programme
BERLIN: Germany’s parliament on Wednesday rescinded a fast-track citizenship programme, reflecting the rapidly shifting mood on migration in Europe’s labour-hungry economic powerhouse.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives pledged in this year’s election campaign to rescind the legislation, which allowed the “exceptionally well integrated” to gain citizenship in three years instead of five.
“A German passport must come as recognition of a successful integration process and not act as an incentive for illegal immigration,” Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told parliament.
The rest of the new citizenship law, a signature achievement of former Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrat-liberal-Green government, will remain intact despite conservative pledges at the time to undo innovations such as dual citizenship and the reduction in the waiting period from eight years to five.
The SPD, now junior partners in Merz’s coalition, defended their support for the change, saying the fast track was rarely used and the liberalisation’s essence remained.
Of 2024’s record 300,000 naturalisations, only a few hundred came through the fast track, originally planned as an incentive for the footloose and highly skilled to settle in a Germany suffering from acute labour shortages.
Candidates must demonstrate achievements such as very good German, voluntary service or professional or scholarly success.
“Germany is in competition to get the best brains in the world, and if those people choose Germany we should do everything possible to keep them,” the Greens’ Filiz Polat told legislators.
Attitudes towards immigration have soured dramatically, partly because of the strain high migration levels have placed on local services. That shift helped propel the far-right Alternative for Germany party to first place in some polls.
- Trump threatens to jail Chicago mayor and Illinois governor.
- National Guard troops gather outside Chicago despite opposition.
- Former FBI chief due in court to face criminal charges.
CHICAGO/WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday called for jailing Chicago’s mayor and the governor of Illinois, both Democrats, as his administration prepared to deploy military troops to the streets of the third-largest US city.
Neither Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson nor Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has been accused of criminal wrongdoing, though both have emerged as prominent opponents of Trump’s immigration crackdown and deployment of National Guard troops in Democratic-leaning cities.
Trump’s call to imprison the two elected officials comes as another high-profile political rival, former FBI Director James Comey, was due to appear in court to face criminal charges that have been widely criticised as flimsy.
Trump has frequently called for jailing his opponents since he first entered politics in 2015, but Comey is the first to face prosecution.
On his social media platform, Trump accused Johnson and Pritzker of failing to protect immigration officers who have been operating in Chicago.
“Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also!” Trump wrote, referring to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
Johnson signed an executive order on Monday creating an “ICE Free Zone” that prohibits federal immigration agents from using city property in their operations.
“This is not the first time Trump has tried to have a Black man unjustly arrested. I’m not going anywhere,” he said on social media.
Pritzker, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, likewise said he would not back down. “Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power. What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?”
Trump has vowed to harness the power of the federal government to target his enemies. Aside from Comey, his Justice Department is investigating several other high-profile critics. All have denied wrongdoing, and Comey is expected to plead not guilty to charges of lying to Congress.
Meanwhile, a federal judge ruled that ICE had violated a 2022 agreement that limits the agency’s ability in several Midwestern states to arrest immigrants without a warrant, in an opinion that could limit some of the aggressive tactics adopted by ICE since Trump returned to office.
US District Judge Jeffrey Cummings said the agency had wrongly declared the agreement was cancelled, and extended it until February.
Troops to Chicago
Hundreds of Texas National Guard soldiers have gathered at an Army facility outside Chicago, over the objections of Pritzker, Johnson and other Democratic leaders in the state. Trump has threatened to deploy troops to more US cities, which he said last week could serve as “training grounds” for the armed forces.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday found that most Americans oppose the deployment of troops without an external threat.
Trump has ordered Guard troops to Chicago and Portland, Oregon, following his earlier deployments to Los Angeles and Washington, DC. In each case, he has defied staunch opposition from Democratic mayors and governors, who say Trump’s claims of lawlessness and violence do not reflect reality. He has also said he will send troops to Memphis.
“My goal is very simple. STOP CRIME IN AMERICA!” he wrote on his social media platform.
Violent crime has been falling in many US cities since a Covid-era spike, and National Guard troops have so far been largely used to protect federal facilities, not fight street crime.
Protests over Trump’s immigration policies in Chicago and Portland had been largely peaceful and limited in size, according to local officials, far from the conditions described by Trump administration officials.
At an immigration facility in Broadview, Illinois, outside Chicago, four demonstrators held signs and chanted slogans on Wednesday in front of a wall of heavily armed officers. The administration has said National Guard troops could be sent to guard the facility, but none had arrived by early afternoon.
Pritzker has accused Trump of trying to foment violence to justify further militarisation, and his state has sued to stop the deployment. A federal judge on Monday permitted the deployment to proceed for the time being. Another federal judge has blocked the deployment to Portland.
Trump has threatened to invoke an anti-insurrection law to sidestep any court orders blocking him, which was last invoked during the Los Angeles riots of 1992.
- Countries signing joint statement include India, Pakistan, China.
- Statement criticises attempts to deploy military infrastructure.
- Taliban oppose any foreign military presence in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s regional neighbours appeared to unite against US President Donald Trump’s stated aim of taking over the Bagram military base near Kabul, according to a statement released after they met in Moscow.
The “Moscow Format” meeting on Afghanistan — the seventh such event hosted by Russia but attended for the first time by the Taliban administration’s foreign minister — included India and Pakistan.
The 10 nations also included Russia, China and Iran, as well as Central Asian countries.
In a joint statement released by Russia’s foreign ministry late on Tuesday, the 10 countries did not name the United States or Bagram itself, but seemed to take aim at Trump’s plan for the base, endorsing the Taliban’s position on the issue.
“They (the countries meeting) called unacceptable the attempts by countries to deploy their military infrastructure in Afghanistan and neighboring states, since this does not serve the interests of regional peace and stability,” the joint statement read.
Taliban opposition to foreign forces
At a press conference on Tuesday in Moscow at the conclusion of the event, the Taliban’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi reiterated his position.
“Afghanistan is a free and independent country, and throughout history, it has never accepted the military presence of foreigners. Our decision and policy will remain the same to keep Afghanistan free and independent,” he said.
The US Department of State did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Taliban’s first administration was ousted in 2001 by a US-led invasion of the country, triggering an insurgency by the group.
Bagram, just outside the capital Kabul, became the biggest and best-known US base in Afghanistan before the chaotic US withdrawal from the country in 2021 as the Taliban retook control.
Last month, Trump threatened “bad things” would happen to Afghanistan if it did not give back Bagram, and cited what he called its strategic location near China.
Current and former US officials have cast doubt on Trump’s goal, saying that re-occupying Bagram might end up looking like a re-invasion, requiring more than 10,000 troops as well as deployment of advanced air defences.
- Starmer begins trip to India to promote trade ties.
- Visas blocked previous efforts to seal trade deal: UK PM.
- Starmer trying to take more restrictive stance on immigration.
Britain will not pursue a visa deal with India, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, as he aims to deepen economic ties with the country following this year’s trade agreement.
Starmer begins a two-day trip to India on Wednesday, bringing a trade mission of businesses to promote the trade deal, which was agreed in May, signed in July, and is due to come into effect next year.
Starmer said that visas had blocked previous efforts to seal a trade deal, and that, having reached an agreement which had no visa implications, he didn’t wish to revisit the issue when he meets Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for talks on Thursday.
“That isn’t part of the plans,” he told reporters en route to India when asked about visas, adding the visit was “to take advantage of the free trade agreement that we’ve already struck”.
“Businesses are taking advantage of that. But the issue is not about visas.”
Starmer is trying to take a more restrictive stance on immigration amid high public concern about the issue, as his Labour Party trails the populist Reform UK party in polls.
He said visas would not be on the table in order to attract tech sector professionals from India, after US President Donald Trump hiked fees on H-1B visas, though he said more broadly he wanted to have “top talent” in Britain.
Asked if he would stop issuing visas to arrivals from countries that won’t take back foreign criminals or people wanted to deport, Starmer said it was a “non-issue” with India as there is a returns agreement, but it was something he would look at more broadly.
“We are looking at whether there should be a link between visas and returns agreements,” he said.
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