Berlin rejected almost one in every 20 citizenship applications in 2025, as the city’s immigration authorities combine faster digital processing with significantly tougher checks aimed at combating fraud. According to figures released this week by the Landesamt für Einwanderung (LEA), 4.9 percent of all naturalisation applications reviewed last year were refused. At the same time, the authority approved a record …

African-American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson died on 17 February. The Baptist minister and two-time US presidential candidate was a towering moral voice whose powerful oratory helped shape the civil rights movement in the decades following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Widely regarded as one of the most respected global moral figures of the past 70 years, Rev …

The European Union and India formally signed a far-reaching Free Trade Agreement (FTA) at a high-level summit on 27 January 2026 in New Delhi, after almost two decades of intermittent negotiations. Once ratified by the European Parliament, EU member states and India’s institutions — a process expected to run through 2026, with entry into force likely in 2027 — the …