I just wonder why the Muslim brothers with billions of dollars next door won't do much to help....one Egyptian billionaire did offer to buy an island for them, but would like to see more but don't expect much from them
Hi Caramel, I read that too. Egyptian billionaire Naquib Sawaris offered to spend $1 billion to buy an island from Greece or Italy for the Syrian refugees/immigrants to relocate to. Obviously it is not a full solution but it could be the start of a strategy: relocate, isolate, reintegrate.
So, a bilion bucks to get started. Compare that to the $220 B-B-Billion that Qutar is spending on its blood-stained preparations for the 2022 FIFA world championship in that country. (1200 workers, mostly Nepalese, have been killed in construction accidents so far.) This mind boggling misallocation of resources should be considered a crime against humanity.
I'd love to se the G7 and G20 countries put some economic presure on the oil rich Arabian Peninsula countries to at least provide some financial help. The pressure would of course be coordinated trade embargoes. You know, we cut back on buying oil from Saudi Arabia, The United Arab Emirates, Qutar, etc., until they start pitching in.
A few suitcases full of petrodollars would be pretty handy to those countries doing the heavy lifting, whether helping them where they are or taking them in. Side benefit: what a shot of adrenaline to our oil industries.
We all know there's a Nordic Model for prostitution, but there's also one for refugees. Sweden has been the most welcoming and generous country in the EU towards refugees. Those good-hearted, blonde-haired souls now have 16% of their population being refugees. Even after 15 years, refugees' employment rates only reach 60%. Immigrants receive 58% of welfare payments.
An interesting read:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/swedens-ugly-immigration-problem/article26338254/
In short, refugee assimilation is painfully slow and expensive. This especially when the cultures contrast as much as they do between Western Judeo-Christian values and Middle Eastern values. I can't think of one example where it has worked.
One more thing. I'll bet that Time Magazine makes the late, three year old Mr Alan Kurdi of Syria its Man Of The Year for 2015.