[C8]

I am struck by how many stories I see about boat people trying to find a new home. This is an incredibly desperate situation. I cannot imagine trying to live on a crowded boat for this long. The nations responding to these migrants are growing tired. This seems like the kind of stuff that may lead to a permanent change in the international communities views about the importance of humanitarian policies vs. anger over feeling invaded. I also can't help to notice that most of the migrants appear to be Muslim (but are not being taken in by rich Muslim nations)

from this:
http://news.yahoo.com/worries-grow-rohi ... 51524.html

Malaysia turns away 800 boat people; Thailand spots 3rd boat
LANGKAWI, Malaysia (AP) — Rohingya and Bangladeshis abandoned at sea following a crackdown on human traffickers had nowhere to go Thursday after Malaysia turned away two wooden boats crammed with hundreds of hungry people. Thailand, too, made it clear the migrants were not wanted.

"What do you expect us to do?" asked Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Jafaar. "We have been very nice to the people who broke into our border. We have treated them humanely, but they cannot be flooding our shores like this."

"We have to send the right message," he said, "that they are not welcome here."

Thai Prime Minister Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, meanwhile, said his country couldn't afford to host the refugees.

"If we take them all in, then anyone who wants to come will come freely," he said. "Where will the budget come from?"

He had no suggestions as to where they should go, saying: "No one wants them."

Meanwhile England says no to migrants
http://news.yahoo.com/mediterranean-mig ... 18927.html

Britain says Med migrants should be turned back
Brussels (AFP) - Britain called Wednesday for migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to be turned back, threatening to scupper a new European Union plan for quotas to redistribute migrants across the continent.

he comments came as the European Commission was set to unveil president Jean-Claude Juncker's blueprint for dealing with an unprecedented wave of migrants fleeing conflict and poverty in North Africa and the Middle East.

The plan's most controversial elements are a mandatory redistribution of asylum seekers across the 28-member European Union and the use of European military force against smugglers in Libyan waters, according to a draft seen by AFP.

But British interior minister Theresa May said London would take no part in the quota scheme and said it would only encourage more people to make the dangerous sea crossing and risk their lives.

Israel is also rejecting migrants
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/mid ... iddle-east

HOLOT, Israel — As Europe struggles to stem a spring flood of migrants from Africa and the Middle East trying to cross a deadly Mediterranean Sea, Israel has begun to toughen its stance toward refugees, telling unwanted Africans here they must leave now or face an indefinite stay in prison.

Israeli authorities are sending letters to the first of 45,000 Eritrean and Sudanese refugees, informing them they have 30 days to accept Israel’s offer of $3,500 in cash and a one-way ticket home or to an unnamed third country in Africa, or face incarceration at Saharonim prison.

Migrants sent back to Libya

http://www.punchng.com/news/coast-guard ... -to-libya/

Coast guard sends migrants back to Libya

MAY 5, 2015 : ALJAZEERA
print

Hundreds of African migrants en route to Europe have been returned to detention centres in Libya after being rescued overnight on Monday by the Libyan Coast Guard, 12 hours after setting out across the Mediterranean.

Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel Hamid, reporting from Libya, said the coast guard had rescued five rubber dinghies – each carrying about 100 migrants – off Libya’s western coastline.

Hamid said that the migrants, from countries including Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Senegal and the DRC, were distraught to learn that they would be returning to a detention centre somewhere in Libya.

“To reach this point they have travelled for weeks, sometimes months. They have to work to earn enough money for the journey and to be picked up on a day where there’s good weather conditions is a huge disappointment,” Hamid said.

“Their stories are ones of people desperately trying to escape the turmoil they were born in to.”
Amina, a young woman from Ghana who is three months’ pregnant, told our reporter she was hoping to give birth in Italy.

“I’m very stressed out. I’m frustrated, because I don’t even know where to start, I don’t even know what to do because right now I have nothing. I have nothing,” Amina said.

Alima, another young woman from Nigeria, said her father was killed by Boko Haram fighters and that she had promised to send money to her mother when she set off.

“I don’t want to stay in Libya. I don’t want Libya to deport me. Please take me to Europe.”
When our reporter mentioned that so many people were dying at sea, another woman screamed: “We don’t care. We don’t care.”

Hamid reported that some of the migrants had first arrived in Libya to find a job, but Congolese migrant Patrick said fruitless efforts made him decide to go further north.

“And now from here we are going to face death,” Patrick said.
6,700 arrivals in three days

The migrants’ dreams were dashed as thousands of people successfully arrived at Italian ports after being rescued off Libya by European coast guards.

A French ship sent to boost EU migrants patrols in the Mediterranean rescued about 220 people off the Libyan coast on Sunday and handed them over to Italian authorities, officials said.

The migrants, who were reportedly mostly from Sub-Saharan Africa, were brought to the Italian island of Lampedusa, where they will be accommodated temporarily.

In a three-day period ending Sunday, more than 6,700 migrants were rescued in the seas north of Libya from overcrowded rubber dinghies and unseaworthy fishing boats sent out by smuggling rings, according to the UN High Commission for Refugees.

Ten bodies were found on Sunday on boats or in the sea.

Calm seas and mild temperatures fueled the spike in human trafficking – just like it did last month when nearly 6,000 migrants were rescued during a few days of good weather.

Al Jazeera’s Stephanie Dekker, reporting from the port of Pozzallo, on the island of Sicily, said that while some boats had docked, most of the occupants had yet to disembark.

“We’re being told that there is a rigorous one-by-one medical check-up going on to ensure that people do not carry transmittable diseases,” she said.

Italy has not yet released the total number of migrant arrivals in April, but the relentless stream of migrants this year is on track to surpass the 170,000 rescued at sea by Italy in 2014.

The surge of arrivals set Italian port mayors and charity organisations scrambling to find beds for the migrants

[SeaGypsy]

You are right C8 it's going crazy.

I can't see the push or pull factors going away anytime soon. Rohinga's are effectively victims of Muslim extremism within their ranks. Contrary to MSM spin the current effective ethnic cleansing going on in west Burma is largely a consequence of hideous acts by extremist Rohingas against Buddhists in a country dominated by the latter. The islamification of north Africa is nearing completion, where being of Arab descent is in fact much more important than following Mohammed. Black Africans are facing a choice in much of north Africa of slavery or death. Hence 'We don't care' in the woman refugee's response you mention.

What can be done? Shutting the gate seems to be inevitable politically. The current Mediterranean situation threatens Europe not just with mass immigration but with northern Europe tiring of Italy laying out the pathway for seemingly unlimited numbers of racially or religiously or economically extremely motivated refugees. The moral & ethical questions really dig at us as privileged westerners.

The only ethical & politically possible solution has to be doing something at the source, to give some sanctuary to people where they are from. Implied invasion of about a dozen countries in North Africa, massive increase & mandate for peacekeeping forces, long term internal agricultural & economic rebuilding programs funded in terms of decades. This is what is required to prevent pending disaster for hundreds of millions. There is no precedent for any of this. Very likely we are witnessing the beginning of die off.

[dolanbaker]

I fear that the only solution in the future will be to blow them out of the water, It will come to this eventually.
Regardless what the powers that be say right now.

[SILENTTODD]

Why should ANY nation have to accept the surplus population of another nation or culture?

[SeaGypsy]

It's not really about having to except for the PC left & UN. It is about they are going to keep going to these extremes. If they were armed it would be simple, as Dolan suggests, blow them out of the water. Doing that to unarmed boatloads of civilians is a whole new ballgame. The suggestion this is likely is not out of the ball park.

[MD]

Won't be room for refugees anywhere before long. Even here in the good old USA

[Ibon]

Won't be room for refugees anywhere before long. Even here in the good old USA

There was an opinion article today in the NY times about settling Syrian refugees in Detroit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/15/opini ... ght-region

All that available housing in the old rust belt cities in the NE just waiting for ME immigrants.

[ennui2]

Won't be room for refugees anywhere before long. Even here in the good old USA

That won't stop them from coming in anyway.

[Newfie]

@Sea gypsy and die off.

I've been think similar thoughts, the tapestry of civilization is just starting to unravel. Pretty unlikely to re ravel.

[SeaGypsy]

When I was a teen Australia welcomed tens of thousands of Vietnamese refugees, a few years later I saw a bicycle powered satellite TV in remote Nepal. Way before the internet I put together an idea that the west was making a big mistake in broadcasting the likes of Dallas & Days of Our Lives (nobody even goes to the toilet let alone having to work) into dirt poor communities globally. Now just about everyone has seen mobile tech, YouTube etc. The same escapist ideology driving the brainless end of our media (with the bulk of total production volume) now floods the world with fantastic versions of the west.

Our societies have mostly not dealt well with our own displaced, disenfranchised, addicted, violent, preferring escapism & blame games. Refugees require investment, but more importantly they require a genuine welcome from the communities where they seek to settle & work. Without appropriate investment in resettlement & training, people will not be able to work. Without a welcoming community, nobody will hire them. Recipe for social disaster instead is what we see developing. Inadequate investment, unsympathetic communities, alienation, dependence on welfare, cycling resentment fomenting street crime, riot, extremists on both sides.

The left refuses to acknowledge the fact I first stated, pull & push factors are not going away. There are enough 'spare humans' already to easily double first world populations & that is the trajectory we are on Our societies are polarised with magic pudding economics vs xenophobic paranoia. Neither of the extremes has it right, & the time is pressing. The longer dilly dallying lasts the more likely blasting boats to kingdom come becomes as the reality sets in.

[SilentRunning]

I'm predicting that in the near future, as the problem continues to worsen (climate change - massive starvation, water crisis, desertification, etc) that the better well off countries will start sinking the migrants boats, and/or shooting the migrants.

The rationale given will probably be that the boats were filled with "terrorists bent on destroying the homeland".

[ralfy]

In the long run, the problem might be driven by combinations of crises, including global warming, natural disasters, and peak oil, and thus affect most of the world's population. That includes the middle class and the rich.

[Theedrich]

Absolutely nothing is going to change until the “Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democracies” (WEIRD)-people start suffering in earnest (and maybe even lose their cable TV). Until then, we will feed ourselves simplistic, utopian solutions that others are supposed to implement. Once the overweight welfarites lose their SNAP debit cards, there might be some re-thinking. Meanwhile we can just expect more talk about Hope and Change from the One who is going to expunge our guilt and make it possible for us to avoid dealing with reality.

[Keith_McClary]

Won't be room for refugees anywhere before long. Even here in the good old USA

Yeah, give us your oil and strategic minerals. You can keep “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
We are basically building a wall around a developed world that depends on resources from outside.

[Newfie]

Mage we will blast them out of the water.

Or maybe we will find some other "final solution" so that they just "go away" before even reaching the boats? Some nasty disease perhaps?

[Loki]

Won't be room for refugees anywhere before long. Even here in the good old USA

Yeah, give us your oil and strategic minerals. You can keep “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
We are basically building a wall around a developed world that depends on resources from outside.

Not a wall, more like a check valve.

As for “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Yeah, fuck that. Bad idea from the get go, even worse idea now. Lifeboat ethics from here on out. I'm OK with that. Why aren't you?

[Keith_McClary]

Mage we will blast them out of the water.

Or maybe we will find some other "final solution" so that they just "go away" before even reaching the boats? Some nasty disease perhaps?

They are thinking about destroying derelict boats that smugglers might use. But it was pointed out that smugglers would just steal fishing boats.

[dolanbaker]

We in the west are being diluted and slowly eradicated.

Embracing multi-culturism has opened a can of worms in most European countries. I see that Russia has recently started to roll back on this by insisting that Russian is the only language and other measures.

Big problems everywhere. Our current "leaders" (worldwide) are clueless, of course some see it as a source of ever cheaper labour to be exploited.

This is probably the main reason that the issue hasn't been tackled head on, migrants are being used to keep the wage bills down by employing them as opposed to locals who have western lifestyles (& costs) that the low wage jobs can't sustain.