Mediterranean migrants- specific questions

Sand

recedite wrote: »

We saw in the Brexit referendum a significant difference between London and the surrounding areas/counties.

Yes. London was heavily Remain in the Sea of Leave that is England. London and the rest of England are increasingly distinct from each other: culturally and politically. A lot of that is down to migrant communities clearly not finding common cause with the new countrymen, but what I found most interesting was a third of South Asians did, voting Leave. The rationale being that a global Britain outside the EU would serve their interests better. There was no instinctive connection to Europe or view of the UK within Europe in either case. The EU is built on the instinct for ever closer union of Europeans, by Europeans, for Europeans. Are the new Germans and new French going to have the same instinctive support for the EU as an alternative to terrible conflict when France and Germany's WW2 and post-WW2 history is increasingly not the history of their people? Will they make the same sacrifices politically?

You see something similar in the US. While Trump gets called isolationist, its worth noting that the US have been withdrawing and pivoting away from Europe under Obama (who prioritised the Pacific) and Bush (who clearly didn't prioritise 'old Europe). Trumps detachment from Europe is nothing new. At least some of that is a decreasing number of US leaders who have any real connection with Europe as less and less Americans have European connections.

We're going to see similar developments within Europe itself as certain European countries become less and less European in their connections and outlook.

We already saw a clash between the Visegrad countries and the old Franco-German alliance over who controls the EU. That resulted in a stalemate, because although Macron/Merkel won in court, the ECJ decision was timed to be released just as the mandatory migrant programme was ending. And they have not dared to try to implement it again since.

Yes, the Polish government has the view that accepting illegal mass migration would be costlier than accepting fines from the EU for non-compliance, and in that I agree with them. As Merkel has found out, illegal migrants are not just for a defined period of time: they are for life

Its incredible that no European electorate has ever given a mandate for such far reaching changes, yet the eurocrats continue to push the agenda regardless. It shows how out of touch they are.

Yes, I'm of the view that Europe's people have not suddenly shifted to the populist right. They have remained largely moderate. The radicals are Europe's mainstream politicians. If the SDP in Germany falls from 45% support in the 1970s to barely 20% today, its a reflection on their radical policies. Not ordinary voters who priorities remain largely fixed.

Take London, an English city for 10 centuries, but in the space of 4 or 5 decades 'native' Britons have become a minority in their own capital. Under current projections (no wild predictions - just current conditions continuing), 1 in 5 Germans will be Muslim by 2050, from next to none in the 1960s. That is not even considering the German population from non-Muslim migrant communities. There is going to be several states where people able to trace their roots back centuries within the same region or nation of Europe are going to become close to a minority.

You might consider these changes to be welcome, neutral or negative but the fact remains its an incredibly radical change in less than a century. To see something so significant in European demographic history you'd have to go back as far as the collapse of the western Roman empire when Germanic peoples hugely changed the Roman societies and political entity they migrated into (largely unopposed I might add). The Empire did not just potter on under new management, it collapsed. Closer to home, Ulster vastly changed with the plantations (which admittedly were forced) and we're still dealing with the fallout more than 400 years later. In each case the people changed, so the politics and instinctive beliefs and loyalties changed. The idea that certain regions of Europe can experience such radical demographic shifts and yet things will carry on as before is very wrong in my opinion.

I don't think it's a deliberate policy though. That is what makes it difficult to address. I think of it like the climate change crisis. We know the facts. We know where things are going and we know we don't want that end result. But we don't change course...

Humans are not good at rational thinking. We have a huge propensity to ignore evidence we don't want to believe and to favour the short term over the long term.

imme

recedite wrote: »

Is Juncker not aware that there are already legal immigration procedures in every European country? for example; Ireland

woop-de-do

every country is going to have legal procedures for immigration

The majority of people looking to move to Europe are outside of these schemes.
It is the issue of our times.

People looking to move from poorer countries to richer countries, it's human nature!!!

recedite

imme wrote: »

People looking to move from poorer countries to richer countries, it's human nature!!!

Of course. So why not let them fly into Europe directly, without immigration controls?
It seems inhumane to make them pass through Libya where they are badly treated, and then make them paddle the 12 miles out to international waters where the European ships are waiting with the free stuff.

imme

recedite wrote: »

Of course. So why not let them fly into Europe directly, without immigration controls?
It seems inhumane to make them pass through Libya where they are badly treated, and then make them paddle the 12 miles out to international waters where the European ships are waiting with the free stuff.

What are they meant to do when they get to Europe?
Sell umbrellas on a street in Genoa or sunglasses on a beach in Benidorm?

What do the people who end up in dire straits in Libya foresee for themselves when they get to Europe, streets paved with....

If you were going from Bamako or Asmara to get to Europe and went overland to Libya would you not know in advance that Libya is broken down, stories or slavery, rape (high incidences of male rape have been reported), inhumanity.

How could you not prepare for a journey of that life-changing nature and find out what you could, prepare yourself.

You're surely basing your 'flight to freedom' on something you've heard from a friend relation etc etc that has already made the journey or basing your decision on a story/movie that you've come across.


In this I'm reminded of a Nigerian woman recently interviewed in the Irish Times series 'New To The Parish'.

Herself and her husband came to Ireland a number of years ago, which would have involved at least one intermediate stop in a European country.
The woman was sick of Direct Provision, why can't they be a part of Irish society etc etc. she asked.

Haven't we all heard of Boko Harem, she asked. Herself and her husband had to move house several times on account of Boko Harem.

Her husband had been the best paid man in the country and had all sorts of qualifications.

Any reports I hear about Boko Harem are in rural areas in specific parts of Nigeria.

4068ac1elhodqr

There is an interesting and surprising statistic that was published last week, Sweden will have a Muslim population of up to 30.6% (of their total population) in 2050.

recedite

imme wrote: »

Any reports I hear about Boko Harem are in rural areas in specific parts of Nigeria.

Its the equivalent of a Cork family demanding to stay in the USA without a green card, on the basis that "the troubles" are still ongoing in parts of Belfast.

Sand

The first of the Nigerian would-be-illegal-migrants have been returned home from Libya on Tuesday. Their stories, as you might imagine, are chilling. Hopefully people heed them and avoid putting themselves in the hands of these criminal groups. Hopefully the various NGOs collaborating with the criminal groups also heed them and stop encouraging people to do so. Amnesty International in particular are making fools of themselves.

rgossip30

https://www.independent.ie/world-news/middle-east/libya-and-italy-bid-to-stop-flow-of-migrants-36394047.html

This story is just a repeat of what is happening there nothing new .

recedite

rgossip30 wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/world-news/middle-east/libya-and-italy-bid-to-stop-flow-of-migrants-36394047.html

This story is just a repeat of what is happening there nothing new .

I can see a few differences compared to last year. In the text it says

"The Italian navy already has a presence in Tripoli port, providing "technical" assistance to Libya's coastguard, according to Italian and Libyan officials."

Whereas last year the Italian navy were picking up migrants floating in rubber dinghys just off the coast, and ferrying them back to Italy. So, from the migrants point of view, the Italian navy has switched sides.

The boat in the picture is a long range ocean going wooden vessel, with a fancy outboard motor. And its operating at night. The smugglers will want that boat back, so they will have to be very careful to avoid meeting the Libyan Coastguard. The MSF ship they have the rendezvous with is 74km out to sea. That is much further out than before.
Last year the NGO ships were going in to the 12 mile territorial limit and picking up the migrants in disposable dinghys, in broad daylight.

recedite

Amnesty International seem to be awash with money these days.

Now they are threatening to take European governments to court because illegal immigrants in Libya aren't receiving their entitlements there.

After interviews with refugees, asylum seekers and migrants and meetings with Libyan officials and others with knowledge of the abuses, Amnesty claims it now has sufficient evidence to take leaders of EU states to international courts over alleged abuses of human right obligations.“You will see us in court,” said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty’s Europe director.

Ah well, a barrister never refuses a fee.

Following the provision of ships, training and funding from the EU and Italy to the Libyan coastguard, the number of arrivals to Italy fell by 67 per cent between July and November compared with the same period in 2016. Deaths at sea have been reduced commensurately.

It seems to me we have turned a corner, and are now starting to see the results of more successful policies and better co-operation.

Less deaths, less profit in the people trafficking industry, and less illegal immigrants landing in Italy. The people most upset about this seem to be Amnesty International and George Soros.

Sand

recedite wrote: »

It seems to me we have turned a corner, and are now starting to see the results of more successful policies and better co-operation.

Less deaths, less profit in the people trafficking industry, and less illegal immigrants landing in Italy. The people most upset about this seem to be Amnesty International and George Soros.

Clearly there is an NGO-political complex that has developed over the past 20-30 years and successfully diverted significant public funds to their own ends. If illegal migration is ever resolved, those people have poorer 'career' prospects so they'll clearly be against any effective solution that doesn't involve facilitating illegal migration.

It strikes me as particularly ironic that they attempt to claim governments are colluding with human trafficking: they had no issue when NGOs and governments did so to facilitate illegal migration. Groups like Amnesty International have completely lost the run of themselves if they are campaigning *against* reasonable measures taken to end the illegal migration that has caused so much misery and death for so many people.

In other news, it appears sanity is prevailing within the EU. Its planned that the EU quotas of migrants imposed on member states is scrapped. It was always a panicked bailout of Germany, trying to make Merkel's own stupid policies on illegal migration everyone else's problem. Its unfortunately caused division within the EU. Moral hazard alone implies that Germany must recognise that 1 in 5 Germans will be Muslim by 2050 on current trends and the policies of the German government. Even more will be non-Muslim migrants. Germans have to determine today if they are okay with that outcome and then either act to prevent it, or accept they have to own the problems that come with that outcome. That is their decision to make. But they cant continue to kick the can down the road by exporting the outcomes of their policies to other member-states.

I think there is scope for the EU to listen to their member-states and recognise the aim needs to be to prevent illegal migration, not manage it, or facilitate it. Once that mental barrier is crossed, there will be less strife between the Visegrad group and member states like Germany. Italy, Spain, Greece all need assistance, but help in preventing illegal migration, not collaborating with it.

recedite

From the link above;

The president of the European council, Donald Tusk, will tell EU leaders at a summit on Thursday that mandatory quotas have been divisive and ineffective, in a clear sign that he is ready to abandon the policy that has created bitter splits across the continent.

What we are seeing here is the admission of failure by old Europe (the Franco-German alliance) to impose their will upon the newer eastern member states of the EU (the Visegrad countries)

When the dust settles, the centre of power of the EU will have shifted considerably eastwards. This power shift is the most significant change in the EU since Brexit.

There is a lot of change going on in within the EU over the last year, but very little reporting of it. You have look carefully to deduce most of it.

Sand

Back in 2015/16, it was claimed that asylum claims which were found to be groundless would be quickly processed by European states. The failed asylum seekers deported. Trust the system.

The reality is a little different. Afghanistan is largely a safe country - there is no rational cause to flee Afghanistan entirely. As a result 50% of Afghan asylum claims are rejected. In 2016, 200 Afghans were deported from the entire EU. In 2017 500. There are over 170,000 Afghan cases pending. Half of them will fail, all other things being equal. At the current rate it will take 170 years to deport the failed cases back to Afghanistan. The vast majority will die of old age in Europe without ever seeing Afghanistan again.

And even at that pathetically slow rate, NGO and activists are energising themselves to prevent any deportations of failed asylum claims. The reality is there is no distinction placed between economic migrants and refugees by open border advocates. The presentation changes but the policy is always the same.

In the process of failing the Afghanistan test, it will be interesting to see how the Syrian refugees (who are genuine, but should have been helped near Syria) will be handled. The situation in Syria has changed. ISIS is largely crushed, the 'western' Syrian opposition never really got off the ground as a fighting force, Russia is pulling out (Mission accomplished). The Assad regime has won the civil war. There will still be some fighting against hold-outs, but there's no doubt of the outcome.

Having lost the war, the aim of the EU and its member states needs to be to work with the Assad regime to bring pointless fighting to an end quickly and to prepare to 'win the peace'. Recognition of the Assad regime, with 'Marshall Plan' style economic aid linked to basic guarantees on the physical safety and rights of returning Syrian refugees. Russia helped the Assads survive. But the EU can help the Assads prosper. Those conversations with the Assad regime should be happening now, and red lines about the removal of the Assads need to be walked back. Once the fighting is largely ended, the EU policy should be to begin to return Syrians home to rebuild their country.

This is what should happen, if the exceptional and protected status of refugees means anything. People have grown cynical, but if its clearly demonstrated refugee status is a conditional shelter, then it should reassure host nations in future crisis. However, there are still refugees from the Yugoslav civil wars from 25 years ago in Sweden so I don't hold out much hope. The problem for European governments is that people are less forgiving of centrist parties fumbling with the mass migration issue. Even the Swedes are tiring of this. If they don't act, more and more countries will follow the path of Austria and turn to politicians who will act.

rgossip30

https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/fewer-migrants-are-using-sea-to-reach-europe-after-curbs-36462889.html

There maybe less but they still come .

4068ac1elhodqr

rgossip30 wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/fewer-migrants-are-using-sea-to-reach-europe-after-curbs-36462889.html

There maybe less but they still come .

Perhaps, but IOM GMDAC data shows about x3 times as many migrants arrived by sea in to Spain through August 2017 as arrived through August 2016. These sunbathers must have got a bit of a shock:

recedite

Another big change recently is the number of repatriations back to the country of origin, even before they cross the Med.
It seems some sort of EU task force is now operating in North Africa.

..the IOM, with EU funding, which allowed so far the voluntary return to their countries of origin of 13 000 migrants since January (2017). The work of the Task Force will be closely coordinated with the Libyan authorities and be part of the overall joint work that the African Union and the European Union, and the United Nations, will intensify to dismantle traffickers and criminal networks, and to offer opportunities of development and stability to countries of origin and transit, tackling root causes of migration.

Its not clear whether there are cash bribes for the returnees, or just free fares involved.


I think the days of RTE broadcasting footage of the Irish navy merrily plying the Libya-Italy ferry route, decks lined with "rescued refugees", are well and truly over.

rgossip30

https://www.independent.ie/life/travel/travel-news/first-ever-direct-ferry-route-announced-from-ireland-to-spain-36493404.html

I wonder how many stowaways will this service accommodate as Spain's migrant numbers increase .

4068ac1elhodqr

rgossip30 wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/life/travel/travel-news/first-ever-direct-ferry-route-announced-from-ireland-to-spain-36493404.html

I wonder how many stowaways will this service accommodate as Spain's migrant numbers increase .

'Unexpected items in the baggage area'.

26hrs is some jaunt across the windy seas,
can fly to NZ in about the same amount of time.

Sand

Merkel's open doors policy of 2015 is the gift that just keeps giving. There is roughly 350,000 Syrian refugees who arrived in Germany that year.

From March 2018 they'll be able to apply to bring their family members to Germany as well. So their spouse, children, and in some cases (i.e. if they claim to be a minor) their parents and siblings. So the numbers of Syrians in Germany could quadruple or more to over 1.4 million. And that is just the class of 2015, and just the Syrians. The same rights apply to other nationalities who are accepted as refugees by Germany.

Germany delayed this right in 2016 by granting Syrians a second tier refugee status, as they grasped just what Merkel had done, but in March that suspension ends. The CDU and CSU parties (not Merkel herself) want strict limits on migration and a complete end to family reunification. This has been resisted by the FDP (leading to the collapse of those coalition talks) and is likely to be resisted by the SPD too. The announcement of Germany's willingness to accept family reunification applications in March was a shot across the bows from a SPD minister.

It reinforces why the whole migrant quota issue was so important for Germany to evade the hard choices, and why the quota has to be resisted. Mass migration is not a short term problem. Germany was warned time and again, but now they will learn at their own speed.

recedite

Sand wrote: »

There is roughly 350,000 Syrian refugees who arrived in Germany that year.
From March 2018 they'll be able to apply to bring their family members to Germany as well. So their spouse, children, and in some cases (i.e. if they claim to be a minor) their parents and siblings. So the numbers of Syrians in Germany could quadruple or more to over 1.4 million. And that is just the class of 2015, and just the Syrians.

from the link..

the Federal Employment Agency, has estimated that the reintroduction of family reunification for those with subsidiary protection would bring 50,000 - 60,000 additional relatives into Germany

That seems an incredibly low estimate. I think the German officials must still have their heads in the sand. Either they are misguided, or the "break it to the public gently policy" is continuing.

donaghs

Sand wrote: »

Merkel's open doors policy of 2015 is the gift that just keeps giving. There is roughly 350,000 Syrian refugees who arrived in Germany that year.

From March 2018 they'll be able to apply to bring their family members to Germany as well. So their spouse, children, and in some cases (i.e. if they claim to be a minor) their parents and siblings. So the numbers of Syrians in Germany could quadruple or more to over 1.4 million. And that is just the class of 2015, and just the Syrians. The same rights apply to other nationalities who are accepted as refugees by Germany.

Germany delayed this right in 2016 by granting Syrians a second tier refugee status, as they grasped just what Merkel had done, but in March that suspension ends. The CDU and CSU parties (not Merkel herself) want strict limits on migration and a complete end to family reunification. This has been resisted by the FDP (leading to the collapse of those coalition talks) and is likely to be resisted by the SPD too. The announcement of Germany's willingness to accept family reunification applications in March was a shot across the bows from a SPD minister.

It reinforces why the whole migrant quota issue was so important for Germany to evade the hard choices, and why the quota has to be resisted. Mass migration is not a short term problem. Germany was warned time and again, but now they will learn at their own speed.

The weren't only Syrians. Lots of Merkel's migration wave came from North Africa and Afghanistan.

dr.fuzzenstein

It's alway fascinating how passionately the Irish are engaged in internal affairs of foreign countries like Germany and the US.
But having lived here and seen Irish politics in action for over 20 years, I sympathise. Paying attention to just Irish politics would be like watching nothing but RTE.
After a while you feel like ramming pencils into your brain through your eyeballs.
I hope Angela Merkel will adjust her policies to your liking.

Sand

recedite wrote: »

from the link..
That seems an incredibly low estimate. I think the German officials must still have their heads in the sand. Either they are misguided, or the "break it to the public gently policy" is continuing.

European governments have consistently, for decades and in all countries, hugely underestimated immigration numbers. Its certainly in the interests of the CSU/CDU to massage down the numbers, but it's more likely simple incompetence.

Even if we presume a good proportion of these migrants are not actually married and don't have actual qualifying families, its certainly quite lucrative to sell automatic refugee status in Germany to those willing to play the part. A lack of paperwork to prove it can be explained away by the war, and the Germans simply cannot follow up each relationship anymore than they were able to keep track of the millions of migrants traipsing across their country.

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

It's alway fascinating how passionately the Irish are engaged in internal affairs of foreign countries like Germany and the US.
But having lived here and seen Irish politics in action for over 20 years, I sympathise. Paying attention to just Irish politics would be like watching nothing but RTE.
After a while you feel like ramming pencils into your brain through your eyeballs.
I hope Angela Merkel will adjust her policies to your liking.

German internal politics don't interest me all that much. But this great migration of peoples into Europe of the past few years is not internal German politics. Its a historic European event and it will change Europe for centuries to come. Its far more significant than Brexit - indeed Brexit is just a symptom. I pointed to some of the effects I expect in a post in this thread a few weeks ago.

recedite

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

But having lived here and seen Irish politics in action for over 20 years, I sympathise. Paying attention to just Irish politics would be like watching nothing but RTE.
After a while you feel like ramming pencils into your brain through your eyeballs.

Now you are becoming more Irish than the Irish themselves :pac:
But as pointed out, sometimes these things are of interest to us only for reasons of curiosity. Other times they are things that will end up affecting us.
As a small country, we are not entirely in control of our own destiny. A change in US tax laws for corporations, or some new EU directive would have a more profound effect on us than all the parochial chattering of the local politicians on RTE.

Tea drinker

Sand wrote: »

European governments have consistently, for decades and in all countries, hugely underestimated immigration numbers. Its certainly in the interests of the CSU/CDU to massage down the numbers, but it's more likely simple incompetence.

Even if we presume a good proportion of these migrants are not actually married and don't have actual qualifying families, its certainly quite lucrative to sell automatic refugee status in Germany to those willing to play the part. A lack of paperwork to prove it can be explained away by the war, and the Germans simply cannot follow up each relationship anymore than they were able to keep track of the millions of migrants traipsing across their country.



German internal politics don't interest me all that much. But this great migration of peoples into Europe of the past few years is not internal German politics. Its a historic European event and it will change Europe for centuries to come. Its far more significant than Brexit - indeed Brexit is just a symptom. I pointed to some of the effects I expect in a post in this thread a few weeks ago.

Hqave a read of "The strange death of Europe" if you can, personally I can only stomach small amounts of the book but it details what you said, Gov and NGO either underestimating or wilfully misleading the people

Varik

People jeering about trump looking for $25bn for his wall, while Germany spent €20bn in 2016 and had €21.3bn earmarked for this year 2017 (actual figures should be out soon).

Sand

Two interesting pieces in the Guardian last week

Firstly, a story on the fate of the migrants once they reach Europe

‘Migrants are more profitable than drugs’

There is a modern day slave trade occurring. But instead of slavers shipping people from west Africa to the southern US, NGO groups and EU navies are picking up slaves from Libya and delivering them to their new masters in Europe. Maybe they don't intend this to occur, but the migrants have no social network in Europe, no skills to seek employment and often don't even speak the local language.

What else can happen to these people other than they be victimised by criminals and gangs?

Second, in contrast to that reality there's a bit of propaganda from a supporter of mass migration to Europe (but not to his own country).

The refugee crisis isn’t about refugees. It’s about us

A couple of points struck me

Not a single refugee we met had willingly left their home, even when home was impoverished and undeveloped. The promise of economic prosperity is not more important than place.

This just isnt true. People travel from Afghanistan to reach Europe. Literally the other-side of the world. They do so not because there is no place safe from the Taliban between Afghanistan and Europe, but because of the promise of economic prosperity in Europe.

At this moment, the west – which has disproportionately benefited from globalisation – simply refuses to bear its responsibilities, even though the condition of many refugees is a direct result of the greed inherent in a global capitalist system.

Again, this is just not true. The most recent era of globalisation began in the 1950s. Since that time the west has gained in absolute terms, but it has lost economic strength relative to the rest of the world. And indeed, those gains have increasingly been notional as far as most people are concerned. Countless towns in the north of England and in the United States have been gutted of industry, with those jobs being replaced by insecure labour and zero-hour contracts, if at all.

It is instead countries like India, China, Korea and those in sub-saharan Africa that have disproportionately benefited from globalisation.

The West has disproportionately taken on the costs of accepting mass migration. To the extent that many European nations will become a minority within their own homeland this century on current trends. The writers homeland of China, by contrast was 93% Han in 1953. And is 92% Han today.

Perhaps the writer would be better addressing his countrymen and asking them to accept tens of millions of migrants?

The west has all but abandoned its belief in humanity and support for the precious ideals contained in declarations on universal human rights. It has sacrificed these ideals for short-sighted cowardice and greed.

The west cannot fix all the problems of the world, and neither can mass migration. Earth holds 7.5 billion inhabitants. Not even a fraction of them can move to and live in Europe. Its not a practical option. Encouraging mass migration only leads to vulnerable people handing themselves over criminal gangs to be enslaved, beaten, robbed, raped and murdered. Its an evil act.

creeper1

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

It's alway fascinating how passionately the Irish are engaged in internal affairs of foreign countries like Germany and the US.
But having lived here and seen Irish politics in action for over 20 years, I sympathise. Paying attention to just Irish politics would be like watching nothing but RTE.
After a while you feel like ramming pencils into your brain through your eyeballs.
I hope Angela Merkel will adjust her policies to your liking.

What you said would be true if Ireland existed outside the eu. Eventually the migrants and their families will get eu passports and the right to access the Irish job market and benefit system and all the other countries in the club.

Anyway it’s obvious merkel wants to set quotas for eu countries for intake of refugees.

recedite

Silvio Berlusconi has pledged to deport 600,000 illegal immigrants from Italy should his coalition enter government after elections on March 4th, as tensions simmer over the shooting of six Africans by a far-right extremist on Saturday.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/silvio-berlusconi-pledges-to-deport-600-000-illegal-immigrants-1.3381421
Regardless of whether this is realistic possibility, it does show the seriousness of the tension that now exists within Italian society. Berlusconi may be a crook, but he is a master of knowing what the people want to hear. Italians are losing patience, especially since the chopped up remains of that girl were found in the woods.


Those heady days when the Irish Navy would regularly pull into an Italian port and discharge a couple of hundred African migrants "rescued" from Libya, seem like a long time ago. I don't think our ships would be very welcome there now.

creeper1

Human nature. They open their hearts and homes to the fist 10 thousand, the next 10 thousand and maybe even another 10 thousand after that.

But there comes a point when “compassion fatigue” sets in.