Google Donates €1 Million To Help Refugees In Need

Mark Wilson writes: The on-going refugee crisis in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East has grabbed hearts and headlines around the world. As European governments argue over who should take in the thousands of desperate people, European citizens have criticized the speed and scale of the help offered, whilst simultaneously donating money, food, and equipment to help those in desperate need. Now Google has stepped in, offering €1 million ($1.1 million) to the organizations providing help to refugees. In addition to this, Google.org (the branch of the company 'using innovation to tackle some of the world's biggest challenges') is setting up a page to make it easier for people to make donations, and says that it will match any money donated by Google users.

Comments

That's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

but it's a drop in the bucket of resources needed for this migration. What I'm wondering is, where's the U.S pledge to take in migrants? After all, it's the U.S who is dropping bombs and seeding weapons into the regions these migrants are fleeing from. Or maybe they're just not interested because you can't have any cherry-picking under these circumstances?

Re:That's nice

[WORLOK]

Where is the Saudi and other muslim duty to take in their islamic brethren?

Re:That's nice

[buchner.johannes]

This comic claims that climate change is one of the triggers (combined with the authoritarian regime, of course):
https://www.upworthy.com/tryin...

The UN has warned for years that climate change will lead to water and food shortages, and therefore political instabilities. This seems to be the first clear example, with probably many to follow as deserts expand.

Re:That's nice

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Muslims don't view non-Muslims as "brothers and sisters." We are "Kafirs" to them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Re:That's nice

[ColdWetDog]

Sweden and the United States give asylum to about the same number of refugees every year. Not per capita, but in absolute numbers. Also, the US gives 0.19% of their gross national income to foreign aid, compared to 1.02% of the above example.

It's the usual scenario. USA creates a big mess, other countries are stuck in it or have to clean it up.

And the US funds 22% of UN operating needs. Then it's Japan (19%), Germany (9.8%), France and the UK. That rounds out the top 10.

Sweden isn't in there. Neither is Saudi Arabia (sitting on piles of cash and basically a neighbor), neither is Russia (who contributes mightily to the Syrian war effort).

You should spend some quality time understanding how the world works. It's complicated.

Re:That's nice

[Pinky's Brain]

Up to a point, presently Europe is being driven into a situation where a future civil war with ethnic cleansing on a scale unknown in history is on our doorstep (regardless of who wins). Giving migrants more aid and convincing more people to try their luck in Europe is a dangerous game, easy to play for American liberals though who at worst have a bunch of Catholics with a few drug problems on their doorstep.

Google should spend that money in Africa and the Middle East.

Re:That's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweden isn't in there.

Sweden pays 1% of the UN funding. The US pays 22%, since they have a GDP that is 28 times bigger (they should have paid even more, but of course they've always whined about it, often by refusing to pay their fair share, and the UN reduced their quota accordingly).

Anyway, back to the refugees. If the US took in the same amount of refugees per capita as Sweden, they would receive about two and a half million refugees per year. That would alleviate a lot of suffering, and is all that matters in the end.

Re:That's nice

[allcoolnameswheretak]

The ISIS war in the Middle East is Muslim against Muslim. Any action from the U.S. or other civilized nations is irrelevant. It's Muslim against Muslim, they cooked their own stew,

Not quite right. ISIS was founded by former Sunni members of Saddam Husseins armed forces. After the invasion of Iraq, the US had the genius idea of sanctioning all military personnel that served under Saddam by permanently excluding them from serving under any new government. This left thousands of officers and ten thousands of other enlisted personnel without any perspective at all in the new, Shia dominated Iraq.
The leadership of ISIS are disgruntled, unemployed former officers of the Iraqi army. The whole religious undertone is a means to attract foot soldiers and to keep the simple minded folk in line. The real war is about power and control of resources, as it has always been.
Had the US followed a policy of reconciliation and inclusion, none of this might have happened.

Re:That's nice

[Rei]

I know it's common to blame the US for everything - and I'm generally no big fan myself. But the US just hasn't been a big player in this thing up until recently. And their local "dog in the game", the FSA, hasn't exactly had the largesse showered down on them. Here's a rough timeline:

March 2011: Protests start
July 2011: FSA forms
October 2011: Turkey lets the FSA operate a command headquarters on its side of the border.
April 2012: Reporters covering describe the FSA as flush with well trained soldiers, but with little intel or weapons available to them. A ship containing small arms believed to be destined for the FSA was intercepted.
November 2012: After infighting, the FSA joins as part of the Syrian National Coalition.
December 2012: Saudi Arabia begins arming the FSA with weapons shipped from Croatia.
March 2013: Due to a lack of weaponry, many fighters start deserting the FSA to the much better armed Al-Nusra Front. Al-Nusra (and increasingly with time, Daesh) begin coming into conflict with FSA over territory, and invariably winning as they do.
April 2013: US begins shipping nonlethal aid to the FSA
Late 2013: Reports of the first light arms shipments from the US to the FSA.
February 2014: FSA replaces its chief of staff due to "paralysis within the military command". The "Southern Front" of the FSA forms
April 2014: Small numbers of US anti-tank weapons systems start showing up in Syria. Southern Front of the FSA starts a string of successes against government forces.
August 2014: Unconfirmed reports of a nonagression pact between the FSA and Daesh to focus on Assad
Sep 2014: US begins bombing Daesh, increases light arms transfer to FSA. No approval given for transfer of antiaircraft systems, however.

ISIS and al-Nusra wouldn't be anywhere near as powerful as they are today had the US helped arm the FSA properly and early. But the US has been trying to avoid getting its hands dirty until the very last minute (for example, the Yazidi slaughter), and so these things happen.

The vast majority of the deaths in this conflict, according to international monitors, come from Assad, who's been using chemical weapons, barrel bombs on towns, long-range surface to surface missiles against cities, etc, as well as running a vast network of intelligence centers believed to have killed tens of thousands of prisoners. He has the air superiority and he's been using it. He also gets around one ship per week loaded with heavy arms from Russia and Iran - the former which has recently been reported to have significantly upped their local presence, building a base to handle over a thousand Russian soldiers. While Russia is reportedly planning to focus on Daesh, not the FSA, and the US isn't officially focusing on Assad, there's some serious potential for the two sides to butt up against each other, particularly as Daesh weakens.

Daesh, while gaining great notoriety for its efforts to publicize its brutal means of execution, its destruction of antiquities, its reestablishment of slavery (particularly sex slavery), and many other factors, nonetheless ranks a far second in the number of casualties caused. That said, it's obvious why the main international focus has been on them and the threat they present rather than on Assad.

What's the solution? Damned if I know. Way too many people have a dog in this game now. Russia thinks Assad is geopolitically too important to let go. Huge numbers of Syrians would rather die fighting than live under him - whether serving in secular or Islamist militias to try to bring him down. Daesh is the most powerful and wealthy of the militias, and this acts as a draw - not just locally, but for international fighters as well, even for those who don't give a rat's arse about Assad and just want to see a caliphate resurrected. The US, for obvious reasons, will never accept a super-well-funded and armed terrorist state establishing itself, and large numbers of people in the west aren't too keen on the c

Re:That's nice

[drooling-dog]

I'm non-Muslim and have friends who are Muslim. This may come as a shock, but they are not all the same, any more than all conservative Christians are ignorant xenophobes. They're not all ignorant xenophobes, right?

Re:That's nice

[fustakrakich]

Had the US followed a policy of reconciliation and inclusion, none of this might have happened.

It's hard to sell mass quantities of weaponry that way. If you want them to buy more, they have to use what they already have.

Re:That's nice

[Rei]

There's already lots of people in Syria who want to fight both Daesh and Assad, but are poorly armed. If you want a military solution, why don't you start with actually arming them properly rather than involuntarily drafting refugees?

Re:That's nice

[JaredOfEuropa]

The vast majority of people currently flocking to Europe are not refugees from the war, but emigrants with economic motives. Throwing money at them is only going to encourage even more of them to make the (often dangerous) trek.

Refugees in Greece arrive with money and iPhones, checking with friends on the best places to go. Many arrive in Greece, Italy and Hungary, but very few stay in those countries even though they are safe there. They prefer Germany, Sweden and the UK, where the welcome is much warmer and comes with a house, medical care, a generous stipend, and the possibility of work. In Belgium, they see a large influx of young males (mostly from Iraq), all with identical rehearsed story about Syria and of course no papers to prove their identity. A great example is the story behind little Aylan, made famous by that heart-wrenching picture showing him washed ashore on a beach in Turkey. As it turns out, his family was already living in prefect safety in Istanbul for a few years, after fleeying the troubles in Syria. The father had tried to get asylum status in Canada (he has a relative there) but was denied. He then decided to try Europe, possibly because here he'd get the $14k in dental work he needed for free. He loaded his family in a crappy little boat and tried the crossing, which failed terribly as we know. The father lived, and is now back in Syria of all places to bury his family. This is a great tragedy, but it was brought on not by the war in Syria, not by ISIS, not by cold-hearted Europeans denying such people refuge, not by ruthless human trafficers, but by the man's own god-damned stupidity.

We in Europe (the vast majority of the people, not the politicians) do not want these people here. We'll take real refugees and care for them as best we can, but there are limits to what we can take. The social fabric in Sweden, Germany, France and other countries is already under tremendous strain, despite desperate attempts by media and government to paint a rosy picture. Should we do nothing? Of course not. One of the things we can do for example is to help Turkey manage the vast influx of refugees, help set them up in decent camps, and ensure that they stay there. Another thing we can do is what Australia does: tow these immigrants back from where they came, and destroy the boats. But the one thing we should be doing is to make it crystal clear: if you are not a real refugee, there is no future for you here.

Re:That's nice

[thegarbz]

Yes climate change is what is making people flee to Germany. Not Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, Hungry, Slovakia, or the Czech Republic, but Germany (give or take a country depending on the path to German). Clearly Germany is the only place left in the world with food and water. This is all about climate change and they couldn't possible get food, water, or even a life free from war in any of the other countries they are passing through on the way to Germany. This has nothing to do with the almighty Euro at all.

Re:That's nice

[PolygamousRanchKid]

If you want a military solution, why don't you start with actually arming them properly rather than involuntarily drafting refugees?

We tried arming Muslims with Iraq . . . guess where all those armaments are being used now . . .

Re:That's nice

[PolygamousRanchKid]

There is an ancient Arab Proverb, that goes something like this:

I fight against my brother. But my brother and I fight against others in my neighborhood. The boys in my neighborhood fight together with us, against people in other parts of the city. All the people in my city fight against people in other cities.

Scale that as you will.

Shias have been fighting Sunnis since day one. When Muslims are not killing Westerners, they are killing each other.

Re:That's nice

[dunkelfalke]

The second I in ISIS stands for Iraq. Which is a country that has been invaded by the USA and had its secular government destroyed.
So yep, they are to blame.

Re:That's nice

[alvinrod]

A lot of Muslims are as afraid of the extremists as everyone else. When the government can't maintain control and order and extremists can murder other Muslims who speak out against them with impunity, you're not going to see many people standing up to the extremists. Look at what they did to one girl who just wanted to get an education. Standing up to that takes a kind of bravery that most people simply don't have.

Re:That's nice

[PolygamousRanchKid]

A long time ago, the folks in a country ruled by a formidable Imperialist Empire got up the courage to fight against them. The folks will ill-armed, untrained, and just country bumpkins, more or less. You can fight tyranny. But the will of the people needs to be there.

Islamic countries tolerate persecution of females wanting to get an education . . . because that is what Islam says. Get rid of Islam, and then your girls can go to school safely. Otherwise, don't bother me with your own problems.

Re:That's nice

[Rei]

People who complain about people from other countries having cell phones and stuff like that have a strange concept of what life is like in poorer countries, As if everyone either lives like they do in America, or they're a mud farmer who sleeps in the dirt every night.

Travel to a poorer country some time and see how people live. You still find things like smartphones, TVs, washing machines, etc. They're generally lower quality or older, but most definitely present. You find a lower average number of "modern conveniences" per household, but that number is certainly not "zero". Buildings aren't built to as high of standards, but they're still fine for getting a night's sleep. People still have cars, even if the number per capita is lower and they average older/cheaper models. People in countries with ~$5k/yr per-capita GDP are not mud farmers. And that's exactly what Syria's per-capita income was before the civil war.

Different refugees have had different levels of luck. Some have lost everything they had, such as shells hitting their house. Others are simply in areas about to be overrun, but still have their possessions. When a person flees, they sell everything they can't take with them, and take with whatever they can. In a country where so much has been destroyed, there's always a market for replacement possessions - as well as a market for opportunistic groups to get goods for cheap. The money from selling whatever they couldn't take with becomes their funds for their trip. Small, important things like phones are one of the least likely things a person would sell. The biggest worry of a fleeing family is of becoming separated. The ability to get information is also critical. We live in a modern era.

Re:That's nice

[dunkelfalke]

Take a dictionary, look up what a secular government is. And saying that the States have invaded a country and destroyed its government is not hate speech, it is just the sad truth. Even sadder is the fact, that Iraq was just one of too many countries USA has invaded and destroyed their governments.

Re:That's nice

[fustakrakich]

it's because of Muslims.

Hired actors. Nobody's doing this shit for free.

Only good cops themselves can solve this problem with bad cops. Ask your good cop friends to speak out in their union hall against bad cops . . . oh, they won't . . . I get it. That is the root of the problem. good cops condone bad cops. Once they reject it, it will be gone. When non-cops condemn bad cops, cops don't listen.

You confirm the power of propaganda over the weak, uninquisitive mind.

Re:That's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

We in Europe (the vast majority of the people, not the politicians) do not want these people here.

Please speak for yourself.

Re:That's nice

[fustakrakich]

You're just trolling with bullshit. Nothing to see there...

Re:That's nice

[spyfrog]

We Europeans are getting extremely feed up with US of A starting wars and then expecting us to wipe up after them. You started the Iraq war. Where did the refugees come? Here. You started the invasion of Afghanistan. Where did the refugees come? Here. Every single time you start a wars, we pay the price with floods of refugees. You should really clean up your act. US never, every, takes its responsibility of the clean up. You never takes all the refugees. We are always the ones who have to make your work. USA took in about 232000 refugees last year. Sweden took over 100 000 with a population of 9 millions. United states is simply not doing its share. Fix this problem. Now.

Re:That's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

We in Europe (the vast majority of the people, not the politicians) do not want these people here.

Please speak for yourself.

He is, and, for better or worse, he's also speaking for a lot more people than you'll probably be comfortable admitting feel the same way as he does.

A straw poll on Friday at my place of work, one person in thirty was pro taking these people in, so there's a wee bit of a difference betwixt what I'm hearing from people at work and on the street, and what I'm being fed by the media and the politicians.

(For the record, I wouldn't be here if my country of origin hadn't taken in my Huguenot ancestors)

Re:That's nice

[KeensMustard]

You're talking about Iran, right?

Re:That's nice

[zennyboy]

A long time ago, the folks in a country ruled by a formidable Imperialist Empire got up the courage to fight against them. The folks will ill-armed, untrained, and just country bumpkins, and a large French army

FTFY

During the American Revolutionary War (American War of Independence; 1775–1783), France recognized and allied itself with the United States in 1778, declared war on Great Britain, and sent its armies and navy to fight Britain while providing money and matériel to arm the new republic. French intervention made a decisive contribution to the U.S. victory in the war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: That's nice

[unixisc]

That's b'cos in most Muslim countries, the non-Muslim population has fled. Why did they flee? In most cases, it was b'cos under Islamic law, their status was that of dhimmis, or 3rd class citizens. That exodus has become more pronounced in recent years, w/ Egyptian Copts, Lebanese Maronites, Iraqi and Syrian Assyrians, et al moving to non-Islamic havens.

So once they're gone, Muslims are only surrounded by other Muslims. Normally, that should make them all very happy, but guess what? There is that small question about what is the true Islam? In all other societies, people of different sects of a religion recognize their differences and move on. In Israel, you don't have Reform Jews or Orthodox Jews trying to obliterate each other. In France or Austria, you don't have Catholics try and persecute Protestants. In Britain or Germany or Netherlands, you don't have Protestants try making life hell for Catholics. Even in Russia, you don't have the Orthodox Church persecuting Catholics or Protestants. In Sri Lanka or Thailand, you don't have Mahayana or Theravada Buddhists trying to wipe out each other. In India or Nepal, you don't have Vaishnavs and Shaivyas try and obliterate each other. Main reason being none of their scriptures say anything on the subject.

It's a different story w/ Islam. Mohammed himself once was at war w/ a group of Muslim insurgents, and massacred them and destroyed their mosque. So the question of 'what is true Islam' is a pretty major one in any Muslim country, and usually, it's defined by the major sect/madhab in force in that country. So in Saudi Arabia, true Islam is Wahabism. In Iran and Iraq, it's Shi'ite Islam. In Yemen, Egypt, Indonesia and Malaysia, it's the Shafi'i. In most of North Africa as well as Emirates, it's Maliki. In most of Sunni Asia - Jordan, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the 'stans', it's Hanafi. And in each of these countries, it's forcefully enforced (except in the stans, which still have their Communist era rulers).

So your implication above that Muslims are more tolerant of non-Muslims than they are of each other is hogwash. Best example being India's partition in 1947: there was a forced exodus of Hindus from the 2 Pakistans (one of which is today Bangladesh). In Muslim countries that still have significant non-Muslim populations, such as Malaysia or Indonesia, the majority of victims of Muslim violence are not Muslims: they are non-Muslims. In Iraq, ISIS still prefers persecuting non-Muslim Yazidis and Assyrians, even if they look at Shi'ites w/ equal contempt.

Re:That's nice

[Hognoxious]

For every incident that gets reported there are dozens that don't.

As for the mosque condemning it, well they would do, wouldn't they? They haven't got the numbers to just say "fuck off" yet. They're working on it, though.

Re: That's nice

[sackvillian]

In France or Austria, you don't have Catholics try and persecute Protestants.

I guess you intentionally didn't mention Ireland in this sentence?

In Israel, you don't have Reform Jews or Orthodox Jews trying to obliterate each other.

What about the assasination of the Prime Minister of Israel by a Jewish extremist, for starters?

You can find extremist nutters in every religion, but the root of country-wide religious warfare is always economic and political, first and foremost. The difference between Islam and Christianity in terms of modern-day violence has everything to do with the fact that the Middle East has been continually torn up by colonial powers and local warlords, whereas most Christian countries enjoy relative stability.

I'm proudly agnostic, but if you read through any of the holy texts, you'll find more than enough justification for violence if you're motivated to -- Islam isn't unique. It's the readers' lives that are the determining factor in extremism.

cheap pr, not real help scaled to google revenue

[Anonymous Coward]

Google yearly revenue is about 55 billion dollars
Google yearly profit is about 12 billion

so, by my math, 1 million in charity is less then, roughly, doing the math in my head, 6 hours profit ??? and it is probably tax deductible ?
and they are getting lits of great PR like this slashvertisement ????

another way to look at this would be to take the total salary of the top 100 google employees and ask what % of that google does in charity

Spend you money here, Google

[Tokolosh]

Blanket the Middle East with free, open and ubiquitous internet, by every practical means, together with Tor. These people have been living in the dark too long.

Then put a fence around the place and let them settle their own differences.

Re:How is this news for nerds

[radja]

clearly, they are fleeing from war to another country. That makes them refugees.

Throwing away water and food

[CanEHdian]

So what do we have to make out of this? These people are safe in Hungary.

Re:Something I don't understand

[Rei]

They're being given a lot of support by local pro-refugee groups, I know at least that much. There's even a caravan today of volunteers offering to drive refugees to their destinations so they don't have to walk.

A lot of pro-refugee people are driven to be even more accommodating in order to counter what they see as the attacks from the anti-refugee side. The anti-refugee side makes them feel unwelcome, so they want to do more than they otherwise would to make them feel welcome.

Counter-productive

[Begemot]

Solve the root of the problem, spend this money on education in the ME instead. Given a limited budget, spending it on the current refugee problem, knowing full well that bigger suffering is just around the corner, is counter-productive.

Re:How is this news for nerds

[Hognoxious]

clearly, they are fleeing from war to another country. That makes them refugees.

A migrant wants to get to place X. A refugee is just desperate to get out of Y.

"Fairl"ly stupid argument

[SuperKendall]

The US pays 22%.., often by refusing to pay their fair share

Since the U.S. has a GDP of around 17.4 trillion, and the world GDP is 77.3 trillon or so... 22% seems just about right.

Not wurde why it's a good idea to fund "world" military forces to go forth and rape little kids though.