The Economist reports that in 2014 there were 500,000, half-a-million asylum applications from north African migrants. We do not know if that is an average annual figure, or an upward or downward statistical blip. However, it is certain that there are a lot of illegal, unwanted migrants attempting to get out of turbulent Africa & Arabia and into the relatively stable, wealthy, sane countries of Europe; and that the numbers are growing month by month.
Germany, at the heart of Europe, perhaps recalling the 50 million homeless, displaced Europeans after the Second World War, leads Europe in offering to take 300,000 refugees. Several thousand refugees have died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea, to Italy, in tiny boats filled several times over capacity by people-trafficking gangsters. Many others have died at the hands of people-traffickers, trapped in large lorries or trucks without food, water or air. It is an immense and harrowing human tragedy which all we civilized persons, across the planet, should help to resolve.
IMMEDIATE ACTION THIS DAY: What has changed in Europe since 1945 is that population density has doubled to 200 - 300 people per square kilometer, putting stress on the entire infrastructure. However, the UK should work with the rest of the European Union to immediately, without delay, bring in tens of thousands of the refugees to camps in Britain and Europe; and from there to work and invest for as long as it takes to decently resettle these families. We cannot close our eyes to this tragic humanitarian crisis.
MAKE AN OASIS OF SPACE, PEACE, PLENTY & SAFETY: My advice to Europe is to deal with Egypt and neighboring countries that border the empty Sahara Desert (0.5 persons per sq km) and invest billions of Euros to create and sustain areas of new long-term economic activity that will attract the refugees. Initially, Europe should build civilized, well planned, spacious, well protected, well serviced, long term refugee camps in Egypt of sufficient quality to attract the migrants. What Europe invests in the camps will be saved by taking pressure off European borders. These camps should also be bases for major civil engineering to bring water from the sea into the heart of the Sahara - as has been proposed for over 100 years. Do NOT simply take the land - think of Israel and buy out the few inhabitants; it'll be a small investment that will save billions of dollars in future strife.
Greening the desert: There have been many viable plans put forward to use such transformed areas to generate electricity that would power the whole of Europe and North Africa. It is in Europe's interests to pay for the work and in Egypt's interests to enjoy the massive inward investment, high-tech trades and very long term transformation.
There are several other areas in the Sahara which could be transformed in the same manner - linking the world's oceans and thus international trade to what are currently some of the most inhospitable, under occupied regions. If, that is, The One True God allows mankind to make such progress.
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Letter to The Guardian - 27th August 2015.
If Europe and the media want
positive solutions for African & Middle Eastern migrants (2,000 a day
head through gaps in Hungary’s border fence – Guardian 27 August 2015), we
could revive Mediterranean canal engineering proposals to flood below sea level
regions such as the uninhabited 19,605 sq km Libyan Desert, Qattara Depression, within Egypt's borders. The new
coastline could also house the German proposed solar arrays to power the whole
of Europe.
High-tech industry, superb holiday areas, innovative active
immigrants, major permanent UN or EU troop centres, and a wetter climate would
bring great wealth and safe havens. Otherwise, we could ask Europe’s old
friend, Russia, which has only 9 people per sq km, to find room for the
refugees. The UK has 262 densely packed people per sq km. - Noel Hodson, Oxford.
SAHARA – 0.5 people per sq km
QATARA DEPRESSION – 60 metres
below sea level – 19,605 sq km
RUSSIA - 9 people per sq km
EUROPE – UK 262 people per sq km
WORLD – Top tax havens 19,000
people per sq km
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