Marrying across nations and cultures is a growing trend in Germany as new official figures show that the number of bi-national couples in the country has doubled since 1996. As reported by the Federal Statistical Office on Friday (21 September), 1.5 million bi-national couples, where one partner has German and the other a foreign nationality, are currently living together in …

Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court has ruled that Ousman Sonko, a former interior minister of Gambia suspected of human rights abuses, must remain in Swiss detention until January 2019. In a decision published on Monday, the Bellinzona-based court rejected Sonko’s appeal challenging his detention. According to the court, various people have been interviewed as witnesses or informants. Their statements confirmed the …

Against the backdrop of fighting among militia groups in Tripoli, Vincent Cochetel, the UN Refugee Agency’s special envoy for the Central Mediterranean route, told Italian press agency ANSA in an interview that the situation in Libya has become ‘extremely critical,’ and that the agency no longer has access to official detention centres. Vincent Cochetel told ANSA that as of the …