Word: citizenship
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...staunch proponent of tighter immigration policies, the SVP says Switzerland naturalizes more foreigners than any other European nation, and official figures seem to support that claim. The party charges on its website that more than half of all citizenship requests - in 2006, approximately 50,000 were granted in this country of 7.5 million - go to immigrants from the Balkans and Turkey. The SVP claims those immigrants commit a disproportionate number of violent crimes and abuse Swiss social and welfare benefits. Some official statistics do attribute the rise in serious infractions to resident foreigners, but the numbers are not clear...
...amendment to a national vote. It seeks to overturn a 2003 Federal Court ruling that deemed ballot box votes on naturalization an infringement on the rights of would-be citizens. The decision was handed down after residents of the town of Emmen in central Switzerland repeatedly voted to reject citizenship applications from non-Western European nationals living in their midst...
...argues that in a country based on grassroots democracy where voters can challenge any legislative decision by launching a referendum, the people, not what the party considers to be lenient government authorities, must approve each citizenship request. Each community must pick a competent panel to decide who among the local applicants is eligible for naturalizations, with the final decision left to the voters, the SVP says. While this system may be more difficult to implement in large cities, in small towns and villages, says Francis Matthey, a former socialist parliamentarian and currently President of the Federal Commission on Migration...
...more educated women, Khan said. This experience led the organization to open schools for boys, she said. Khan also said that India’s rural, isolated communities demonstrated the need to “be sensitive” of the “tension between education for global citizenship and being true to their cultures,” while post-Soviet Central Asian countries showed the importance of providing “relevant education,” including a “large component of technical and vocational education.” Amyn Pesnani, a student at Harvard Business...
...remains one of the striking differences found in the majority of black American churches. An unjaundiced assessment of our nation's moral standing along with a willingness to call it stridently to account have long been evident in black church pulpits. Yet there is a simultaneous call to good citizenship and a grateful acknowledgment of our country's wonderful opportunities. In sum, we love our country rather than remain infatuated with it. Stephen Richardson, NASHVILLE...