. part of the Borders, Immigration and Citizenship Bill, they will have to earn the right to a passport rather than simply achieving it through five years residence. The latest measure will end the automatic right to stay and replace it with a new system of earned citizenship and temporary residence. will have to demonstrate a good ability in English and a knowledge of life in Britain before becoming citizens. Immigrants who do no voluntary work will qualify only after eight years and those who become unemployed will be asked to leave. Bill will deny full access to social benefits, including social housing, to those who have not completed a new period of probationary citizenship of between one and five years. The aim is to link the gaining of a British passport to a greater commitment to the British way of life. Immigrants convicted of serious criminal offences could be barred from citizenship and those found guilty of minor crimes may face delays in having their applications processed. Bill will also reduce the restrictions on people from overseas, but who have a British-born mother, applying to become a citizen. Children born to British mothers before 1961 will be able to apply for citizenship. Previously it was passed on through fathers.
The Government proposes to levy a top-up fee on immigrants to create a fund expected to run to? 20 million. Cash from the fund will be distributed to local authorities facing short-term pressure because of an influx of migrants. Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: These proposed reforms are a tacit admission that the Government has failed in its seven previous immigration Bills. We need to re-establish controls over our borders so we can count people in and out. Smith, the Home Secretary, will also unveil reforms to the police service, including plans for directly elected police authorities. Although the issue does not generate much public interest, it is generating concern within political parties and threatens to put local councillors at loggerheads with Westminster frontbenchers. have been expressed by Labour local government leaders that direct votes for police authorities might lead to right-wing groups gaining political control of the police in ballots where the turnout was low. is wider concern among the police that this is part of a trend towards politicians obtaining power over the direction of policing. parts of the proposals are less controversial and include laying down minimum national standards for neighbourhood policing teams and a new structure for police pay. will be given powers to take fingerprints while they are out on the beat and to use hand-held computers and other devices to cut down on paperwork. Under the Coroners and Justice Bill, the Government plans to introduce new investigative witness anonymity to protect witnesses to gang-related killings. It will also reform murder law, including the abolition of the partial defence of provocation, and modernise the law on assisted suicide. Bill also includes establishing a sentencing council for England and Wales to make sentencing more consistent and introduces a scheme to stop criminals selling their stories. The Bill applies to England and Wales, with some elements extending to Scotland and Northern Ireland. to hold some inquests in private on the ground of national security appear to have been put on hold after criticism from MPs and justice campaigners.25, 2007the New York TimesObama s American ExceptionalismA. PrebleBarack Obama s meteoric rise from relative obscurity to presidential contender has been aided by the debate over the war in Iraq. Obama, who was not a US Senator when Congress voted to go to war in 2002, has worn his opposition to the war as a badge of honor. But as Christopher Preble argues, that will only carry him so far, ecognizing the need to lay out a foreign policy agenda defined by more than opposition to the war in Iraq, Senator Obama set out to explain his broader vision for US foreign policy in an April 2007 speech before the Chicago Council of Global Affairs. speech contained a healthy helping of high-minded rhetoric about the need to stay on the offense, from Djibouti to Kandahar, of leading a global effort to keep the world s deadliest weapons out of the world s most dangerous hands, of the need to build stronger alliances, and of leading a stronger push to defeat the terrorists message of hate with an agenda for hope around the world. few concrete recommendations, including his proposal to increase US foreign aid spending to $ 50 billion by +2012, are conventional in the sense that they are designed to appeal to his party s liberal base. underlying message implies a willingness to use force abroad that might be nearly indistinguishable from that of the current occupant of the White House.conventional is his invocation of Franklin Roosevelt. Obama, channeling FDR, explains that the United St...
