On refugees

DJ I'm not advocating refugee camps in the middle of nowhere - simply suggesting that there is land available, which with modern technology could be used productively. Apart from an initial investment, I see no reason why such an enterprise could not be self sufficient - exporting small high tech products and financial services, growing a little fresh food, importing the rest. An entreprenurial individual could set up an internet based trading company selling, books, clothes, whatever, without the goods going anywhere near the location of the company. Island communities can thrive without either road or rail links, especially nowadays. Are you saying that in centuries past refugees and the people who were evicted during the clearances did not improve their lives by settling in and developing Countries such as Canada and Australia? The advantage of my idea is that there are no indigenous people needing evicted.

Actionaid do things like building wells, to save them walking four miles a day for water.
However, they always manage to fill those four hours, usually by growing more crops to feed the family.

Yes it is thought far more beneficial to help women than men as the women bring up the next generation.

As ever!

Women usually do, daphne.
If you look at Actionaid, it's usually the women who are helped to improve their lives. That's because they are the ones that do the subsistance farming and looking after the children, who don't have the education.
It's also the women who help others once they have been educated.

Having a look at all the answers on that quiz is enlightening, Jalima.

The US gave $4.5 billion to the Syria fund between 2011 and 2015.
They sold $33 billion of weapons to the gulf states in 2015.
Turkey spent $6 billion on refugees in one year, up to August 2016. If Turkey is spending that much in one year, we can hardly expect them to contribute to the fund as well.

Fascinating article, Jalima. It looks as though those refugees have managed to organise themselves well. A number go abroad to study and some will possibly find jobs abroad, so maybe they will disperse in time. Interesting to read that the women do most of the organising .

Well, I got two answers wrong which just shows that I have no answer to the problems either.
However, how can any of us know the answer if such as the UN can't sort it out?

The oldest refugee camp is over 65 years old
Followed by: www.sadr-emb-au.net/refugee-camps/

Generations of people displaced and still no answers

I don't agree with the idea of pushing them somewhere out of sight and just supplying them with goods and no roads or rail, etc.
How are they supposed to improve their lives from there?

Wouldn't it be better just to go with what is there now?
I am thinking of places like Bangladesh, where ActionAid has provided floating platforms for people to grow crops on, where before they would have lost their crops to flooding.

www.actionaid.org.uk

This dream of mine may well seem ridiculous (perhaps I read too much populous Sci-fi in my youth) but please bear with me.

There are vast areas of the earth which are uninhabited or very sparsely populated eg cold deserts, hot deserts, arctic regions, mountains, deep seas. These areas are just left alone because they are valueless UNLESS some high value commodity - oil, plutonium, gold - is discovered. Then quickly, with human ingenuity, settlements are established and maintained - at least as long as the 'Gold Rush' lasts.

Science Fiction and Fact is rife with plans for the establishment of bases and colonies on other planets/moons, with technology providing climate controlled domes and underground areas where crops can be grown and a reasonable life style maintained. If these developments can be realistically contemplated on far distant planets, then surely they are achievable here on earth. There are historic examples of underground cities, mountain kingdoms, irrigation making the deserts bloom. We already have submariners living for months under the sea, workers living on platforms in the middle of the North Sea, established research stations in the Arctic and Antarctic. With the development of wind and solar power, communications, air freight - it is no longer necessary to establish road and rail infrastructure over vast distances. Hi-tech industries, financial businesses could flourish anywhere given a skilled workforce, likewise Holiday Resorts which in the main would require a less skilled workforce. There would also be a need for support services, builders, teachers, the whole range of occupations. It would not be my choice to live in an 'artificial' environment - I get claustrophobic in a shopping mall - but a town like that would suit many people and must offer a better life than being trapped in a war torn country, or shanty town beside an overcrowded city.

That, in a nutshell is my dream. The UN to take over these valueless empty areas, use the overseas aid budgets to develop essential infrastructure, then open the doors to refugees and economic migrants alike. This would relieve the pressure on overcrowded countries, cities, whilst providing the opportunity of new start for what we used to call 'displaced persons'.

Feel free to pick this concept to pieces if you will, but can you come up with a better idea?

For Syrians to get to Turkmenistan, they would have to go through Iraq and Iran.
If I were Syrian, I wouldn't fancy that, either.
No, Europe is definitely the best bet.

Here's an interesting infographic and quiz to find out how much you know about refugees.

www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/09/refugee-crisis-europe-160915102053180.html

Western Europe is nowhere near as cold as parts of Russia and Central Europe. As dj says, there are Syrian refugees in Russia, mainly working in textiles industries. www.onenewspage.co.uk/video/20160309/4031591/Russia-Language-school-launches-integration-course-for-Syrian.htm

www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/04/syrians-armenia-refugee-story-150412132753714.html

Syrians have gone to Armenia, but Armenian refugees are going to Turkey.

Russia has accepted 5000 refugees, but the UNHCR is worried because some who have not been given refugee status there are being sent straight back to Syria.
To put it into perspective, the UK has resettled 5102.

So all pile into Europe (which can be pretty chilly) and languish in large numbers (of young men) as daylight dawns that its not the place of golden opportunity that they seem to think it is. As other posters have said the best answer is for them to remain in their own countries if only they can be returned to some sort of peace and order. That's the big problem.

How would they get there?

I know little about those countries, but they don't speak Arabic and they seem a bit bleak. Kazakhstan has set up two refugee camps.

Islam is about the only thing which links them and there are many different forms of Islam. It's a bit like saying that Orthodox Russians would feel comfortable living in the American bible belt.

Thanks durhamjen, when you put it like that its obvious.

ps click on the forward arrow to the next map, I copied the wrong one.

Neither would I, especially as a woman.

Culturally, Syria has more in common with Europe than it does with Gulf states.

Iwas thinking of the Central Asian states, More to the west of Afghanistan. Green on this map:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-Soviet_states#/media/File:USSR_Republics_Numbered_Alphabetically.png

It's cold, and they don't know the language would be my guess, Im68.
Anyway, they are being bombed by the Russians in cahoots with Assad. They'd just be sent back to be bombed again.

A million in Saudi in 2013, daphne!
If I were Syrian, I wouldn't want to go there - out of the frying pan scenario.

None of them go to Russia, I wonder why.