Australia the land of opportunity

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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, Australia the land of opportunity
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Australia the land of opportunity

Australia, being the last habitable continent discovered by mankind, has given most people the opportunity to emigrate and start a new life.
I took that opportunity myself and migrated to Australia, in the early sixties, where I started a new way of life and from being a farmer, I became involved in building, So, Australia has been good for me in this way, but that was in the early sixties, today it might be different.
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Australia the land of opportunity

Dear readers, this post is the continuation of our last post, how to defend our homes from these pests, we were talking about the damage the white ants do and ways of how we can minimise the damage they do. Of course, these articles that we are posting here, they are articles taken from my life story, which cover a very large range of subjects.

So, having talked about the white ants, today we are changing subject and we are asking ourselves, if Australia is still the land of opportunities, because from my life observations, I believe that when I came to Australia, there were some good opportunities for us to improve ourselves, but today I am not so sure about that. But, as you may know when you start asking this sort of questions other questions arise, this is only natural because we need to compare the present time with the past.

So, let us start by telling you the opportunities that we had in the past when I came to Australia, so that, we would be able to compare the opportunities that we had in the past, to the opportunities that we have today in Australia, and how those opportunities played a part in the lives of those people that migrated to Australia then. Today it might be slightly different, but I suppose that every one of us is a bit different, you see, whether we are emigrant, or we have been born here we have our own story to tell, and we are pretty sure that everyone have a different story to tell and different views of the present and the past, according to our own life experiences and the work that we do or did; but let me tell you my personal story, so that you could see my own life experience the same way as I have seen it and then compare it to today’s opportunities, if you like.

If I were to use only my personal experience in Australia as a standard, we will have to say that Australia opportunities today are not as good as they used to be, because things have changed a lot since I came to Australia. Now if we would like to compare the fewer opportunities that are still available today, with what used to be available in the sixties I am going to write the opportunities of the sixties in my life story right here, just the way I have lived and seen them happen to me personally and to the other people that came to Australia in the early sixties, as well as the Australian people that were born here, and then, my life story opportunities could be compared with what is available today; but first of all let us start with what the majority of people in the world think about Australia today.

Today, everybody in the whole wide world thinks that Australia is still the land of opportunities, and that is the reason why people are still trying hard to migrate to Australia; but, are all those opportunities still there, one may ask? Or is it just a myth now and the opportunities that existed in the past do not exist any longer, or they are a lot less than they used to be especially for those unskilled people that are coming to Australia these days.

Having been a migrant myself a long time ago in the early sixties, and being in a way lucky to find some relative that helped me to settle here in Australia, I know that migrating to another country is not an easy thing to do specially if there is no one waiting for you and help you when you arrive, and it is even harder if you don’t speak the language of the country you are migrating to, but today there is a great movement of people throughout the world that migrate from one country to another, and a lot of people want to come to Australia one way or another, they even risk their lives during their journey, boarding unseaworthy boats that might just break up and disintegrate in the ocean, and most of those people could drown, when there is no help.

Therefore, when I hear or see people migrating today like desperado that want to reach Australia at all cost, I always go back mentally to the times when I legally migrated myself and think what I could and would have done if there had been no one to help me when I arrived in Australia; here I should say that just thinking about it makes me shudder, so, to see these people these days trying to come by boat illegally and knowing that they may not be welcome here make me wonder how desperate they are to try to migrate at all cost; they must be really desperate to try to migrate this way.

But then, there is also this other reason, because of the television and the computer people compare their own standard of living in their countries where they are born, with what they see on TV or say public programs on the computer, like Face-book and others programs, and they compare what they see with way they live in their own country, so, they believe that they would be better off if they would be able to come to Australia, because everybody seems to think that Australia is the land of opportunities.

Looking at what is happening these days we know that the world has got a real problem with people migrating to other countries like Australia, as we all know, here in Australia we are very upset about those people coming in by boats, and we would like to stop them and even send them back where they came from. Now, here I need to say that in Europe is even worse with people coming in from North Africa every day, they are so many that is hard to count them and we might have a guess and say that the same amount of people that migrate illegally to Australia in a year may migrate to Europe in a week or even less than that. But anyhow here we are not going to talk that much about illegal migrants, because we want to talk about if Australia is still the land of opportunities.

Believe that this post is becoming too long, so we will continue with our next article talking about Australia in our next post called; But is Australia still the land of opportunity?

See you soon.

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Australia the land of opportunity
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Next time with, but is Australia the land of opportunity

How to defend our homes from these pests

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, how to defend our homes from these pests
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How to defend our homes from these pests
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Timber house on wooden stumps, this picture shows you the ants-capping on the stump, which would prevent the ants and most crawling pests to enter you house, it is also the barrier that stops the white ants to enter the house from inside the stump itself, since the white ants cannot eat away the steel ant capping. 

How to defend our homes from these pests

The white ant problem

How to defend our homes from these pests

Dear readers, this post is the continuation of our last post, these wooden houses need some care, where we were telling you my life story and about these wooden houses that we found in Australia. We were saying that there are pests that destroys the houses, and we were asking ourselves what could be done. There are a few things that we can do to prevent these pests destroy our homes; the first thing that one has to do is to check that there is a barrier that stops the white ants to enter your building, for instance if your house is a high-set house on stumps, check that at the top of the stumps there is a metallic ant-capping; this metallic ant capping is usually a large galvanized round dish or square of metal and it is bent down at the edges so that any crawling insect will find it difficult to enter your house that way; we hope you can see the picture? The ant capping prevents also the white ants to enter through the timber stump itself, if the stump has been infested with white ants, because when they reach the top of the stump they cannot eat through the metal capping and so they are stopped entering that way, of course there are a lot of different buildings and a lot of different ways to set a barrier; but sometimes the white ants find their way around.

Now there are ways that one should be looking for if there are white ants; here the first thing that we have to keep in mind is that white ants eat everything from inside and they don’t like to be exposed outside for long, so, the first thing one can do is to tap on anything that is made of wood; if the wood sounds hollow then the white ants might have eaten the inside, so, a complete check is needed to see what is the cause; another way to look for white ants signs is that if they are forced to go outside to move from one place to another, they will construct a tunnel, so that they can go up and down without being seen, so, one has to look for these signs anywhere under the building: Now some expert has told me that what happens here is that the white ants need moisture, so, they have to travel to the ground to get the moisture and then they go up again their tunnel to eat the timber; now if the building is solid and there is no other way for the ants to go up they will construct their tunnel from the ground up, so, we should be looking for signs to see if there are ants tunnel constructed, and if there are tunnels, it means that there are white ants also, therefore you need a pest control expert to poison these pests, and you need him fast.

Some natural enemies of the white ants

White ants have very few enemies because they live and hide inside the timber, but there are some natural enemies of course in their natural habitat, a couple of which are pictured here. As I said before, one needs to learn the signs how to spot the white ants presence, and do something if you find that they are there, otherwise they could eat your house away pretty quickly.

Here under we have pasted two links about termites that other Huber’s have written for you to check them out.

How to Control Termites Naturally

Termite Control

Good luck to all houses owner!

Dear readers, our intention here is that we are going to write several hubs and talk about houses, how to own them, how to maintain them and how to build them, because that is what I have done during my life; so, even though in our next hub will be talking about: is Australia the land of opportunities, we will be talking about the opportunities that I had in the house building industry, when I came to Australia.

So, see you soon in our next hub.

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How to defend our homes from white ants
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Next time with, Australia the land of opportunity
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These houses need some care

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, these wooden houses need some care
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These wooden houses need some care
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This is a typical worker cottage, which is a smaller and a cheaper version of the Queenslander, but they both need some care, they need to be painted outside to keep the timber from rotting.











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These wooden houses need some care

Dear readers, this post is the continuation of our last post, the Queenslander house, which is a large wooden house, built for the deeds that we have here in Queensland. Now let me explain their maintenance needs. You see, just as most of us thought, when we saw the first time these wooden houses, they need some maintenance and care.

For those people that have not own or lived in timber houses before, they should ask questions about them, before they get involved in owning one of these houses; perhaps the first question that would come to their mind is: are these houses safe to live in, and how long these houses can last? And then, what sort of maintenance they require? You see, they have a right to know that, so, let me try to explain this timber housing situation.

Timber houses need more maintenance that masonry houses; because first of all, you need to paint them for the timber to last longer, otherwise the timber on the outside walls will slowly rot away, but then, there are also some advantages because, you see if you want to change something, it can be done easily and cheaper than if you have a masonry house, therefore, it is a lot cheaper also to do some alterations, so, it can work well after all.

Having said that we need also to say, that these wooden houses have some problems of their own, apart that they need to be painted for the external timber to last longer, they also have some vermin problems, which are the enemies everywhere in the houses, because the timber is more vermin friendly than masonry and bricks and cement, but the normal vermin are not a big problem for the house structure itself.

The greatest enemy of these wooden houses are the termites, or white ants, as some of us calls them; The white ants, can really destroy entire buildings by eating the wood from the inside, a lot of times, people don’t even know, that the white ants are there eating their houses away, while they are living in them; you see, unless you know what you are looking for, it is hard to see any sign of them from the outside. So, one day suddenly, one can find out by toughing or putting some pressure on a spot, where the white ants have eaten the wood from inside, and here one can have a great shock to see this happen, as everything starts collapsing inward and where there was a wall now there is a big hole.

Therefore, it would be worthwhile to learn how to recognize the signs, if there are white ants; and call an expert to check the building if you are going to buy it.

I think I have said enough in this post, so, see you with our next post, how to defend our homes from white ants.

See you soon.  

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Genzano it story
These wooden houses need some care
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, how to defend our homes from white ants.

The Queenslander House

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, The Queenslander house 

This post has been taken is from my Hub Pages articles, to see more click on the link below. 

Australian houses in Brisbane
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A large Queen-slander, note the pretty design, all the open space on the verandas and also all the open space under the house, which could be used in very hot summer days to catch the breeze and stay in the shade.
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Some fret works that can be found in and outside those old houses, if we think about it, these decorations are nice to have in your house, at least I like them.

The Queenslander House

Dear readers, this post is the continuation of our last post, Australia wooden houses. So, in this post we will continue to talk about wooden houses, but the house we are going to talk about is the queen of all wooden house. So, the name that has been given to this house, it is because it has been built in Queensland, but it could have the same name, if it was built somewhere else because of its size and other things, hence it is the queen of all other wooden houses.

So, let me explain, the Queenslander house is a large timber house; some of them are pretty too, and they serve the inhabitant very well, as they have been built to take the advantage of the hot climate, in Brisbane and north Queensland regions, which are humid and hot. Now since I have been working in these houses to maintain them, let me describe them to you a bit more in details. As anyone can guess there are a few different types of these houses, but here to make it easier we are talking about the large real Queenslander and the workers cottage, which is a small and cheaper version of the real Queenslander.

As we have already said above in this post, when the first settlers arrived here, there were plenty of trees around to make timber, a lot of this timber is called hardwood, which as the name suggests is hard and very strong, some of this timber are even stronger and longer lasting than the European oak or other strong European woods. So, the houses were strong and secure, the only natural real enemy of these houses were the white ants (termites), which are able to eat through the wood and destroy the houses. The termites are native to Australia and if one goes up north in Australia one could see strange ground made mounts of earth springing up from the ground, these is how the white ants live, they eat wood from the inside and they make these mounts of earth.

So as you can see this was another reason why the houses were built on stumps. The stumps were made of whole sections of trees that are very resistant to rot; of course the white ants could still be able to eat those stumps, but they were treated with some paints and at the top they all had a capping of metal that would make a barrier to the white ants if they came from the inside the stump and also a barrier to the other ants or crawling insect from the outside.

We have to say that some of these timber houses have been made also pretty, because timber can be cut to different shapes easily, so, they were somehow pretty compared to the house made of masonry, which would be very expensive to decorate them with masonry, so, the houses are usually square boxes with a roof at the top.

Decorative fretwork was easy to make with timber, so, a lot of these houses had some decorations in them, in one way or the other. Now I can go on, and on telling you how these houses were made, but that would be hard to do, so, I am going to search the Internet for photos that could show you what I mean, about fretwork and other timber names, anyhow there are a lot of names given to these pieces of timber that would be hard for me to name, and for the readers to understand what is meant by that name. So, I am going to leave it to your imagination, once you see some photos of the houses and the fretwork in them.

I believe I have said enough in this post, so, see you in our next post, these wooden houses need some care.

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The Queenslander house
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Australia wooden houses

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, Australia wooden houses
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Australia wooden houses
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This type of houses shown here, were very popular in Brisbane, when I came in the sixties. They are average houses that workers could afford to buy, they usually have three bedrooms, a lounge room a kitchen a bathroom and some of them even a dining-room, when the kitchen was not large enough to dine in. Some people call them the worker cottage, because they were built manly for the workers, since they were cheap enough for them to buy.

Australia wooden houses

Dear readers, we have written a few posts about refugees in the world, which affects the Italy as well, since I am a Italian we have posted them in this blog of, Genzano it story, but today we would like to go back to my life story, starting from where we left off last time, so, this post is the continuation of the post, welcomed at my Brisbane address, this post is the continuation of that post, and we are going to talk about the Australian wooden houses.

Let us talk about, the convenient and pretty, wooden houses in Brisbane and Australia. When we came to Australia in the early sixties. We should say that we had a surprise, when we found that the houses here were made of timber, which were very different from the houses we had left in Europe, all build of solid masonry.

For us Italian migrants, that had lived all our lives in solid masonry buildings, even if some of them were rustic solid buildings, when we arrived in Australia at the beginning, it seemed a strange thing that in Brisbane lots of houses were made of wood, and most of them were set on wooden stumps, but then we started thinking, after all they were still good to live in anyhow, so, we got used to live in them rather quickly.

So, we had to forget about how we used to live in our motherland and also my native town of Genzano di Lucania, since now we were living now in Australia the Australian way, after all as the saying goes, when you are in Rome do what the Romans do, and we did just that; but then, what were the reasons and why these houses were made of wood, or to use another word for wood how the locals called it here, they were made of timber.

So, as you can see, this question arises, why these houses were made of timber and not masonry? And then try to see if they were better or worse that the houses made of bricks or masonry. If we use logic reasoning there is no difference whether houses are made of timber or masonry, as long as they are able to give the people that live in them that filling of safety and privacy that we aspect from them, when we live in our own home, they have fulfilled their role.

Having said that now let us see or guess the reasons why these houses were made of timber, and why they were set on wooden stumps.

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Wooden houses on stumps

The wooden houses on stumps of Brisbane and Australia

As we have already said above, in Brisbane a lot of houses are/were made of timber, but not only are they made of timber, they are set on wooden stumps. So, let us see the reasons why they were made this way.

From what explanations, we have heard from the locals, and also by using our own imagination and intelligence, one can come to the conclusion that there were several reasons why houses here were made of timber. The first reason is that when the first settlers started to build Brisbane, there were plenty of trees that could be cut down and make very good timber to build those houses; and then the people that came to live in Brisbane and Australia had a very good knowledge of how to use timber, since they came by boats and in the boats of those days, because they were mostly made of timber, there were always carpenters and carpenter tools on board, in case the boat needed some repairs, so, to use timber and build timber houses was the easiest way for them, since they had the knowledge the tools and plenty of timber in the woods surrounding Brisbane ,an also other parts of Australia that needed houses.

At the beginning the houses were just simple shelters, but as the time went by they became better and better, because the builders also became aware of what would work better in this climate, you see, here around Brisbane and northward, when the wet season comes the ground becomes too wet for the houses to stand on the ground, in hot summer days everything becomes too hot and there were lots of vermin on the ground, so, they found a way how to build houses that would avoid most of these problems; that is why in those times the houses on stumps became a necessity, of course slowly they became even better and even pretty, that is how the Queenslander house was born, which is a large timber house with verandas around them, that keeps the weather and the hot sun off the main walls of the house. One can see these pretty Queensland houses if you look around even today.

I believe that I have said enough in this post, so, see you in our next post, the Queenslander houses.

See you soon.

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Australia wooden houses
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Next time with, the Queenslander houses

Refugees and their problems

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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
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Refugees and their problems
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After the earthquake in central Italy, many inhabitant became refugees in their own country. The government promised help as if everything was going to be fixed immediately, but even today after 7 months these earthquake refugees, still live in substandard accommodations. So, their is still this problem going on.

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Italy has also find a way how to help these boat refugees, that find the way to Italy illegally, and they come in by thousands. So, they are a real concern. These boat refugees are a real problem, because there is no work for them, and very likely they are unemployable for lack of skills, or because of the language barrier.    

Refugees and their problems

Why so many refugees

Dear readers, as we have written in our previous article, Homeless and refugees,  today we should ask ourselves, why there are so many refugees in the world? Because they seem to come from anywhere and they go everywhere, some of them are real refugees, as we have explained in our article, since they are running away from natural disasters, or some disasters caused by wars that mankind wages, for one reason or another, or just because they like to fight wars, for some useless ideology that they have, which today the rest of the world condemns, as being useless and harmful.

Anyhow, these wars that they are fighting seem endless, as they have been going on for years, and they are causing a lot of people to leave their countries and become refugees. Then there are the people that are not happy with what they have, in their own native land. So, they become refugees, not because they are real refugees that have been displace from a natural disaster or war, but because they believe that if they go to another country, they could live a better life.

Anyhow, we could say here that everybody has the right to look for a better life. But at the same time, because we don’t know how they live their lives, we should assume that their lives are bad, otherwise they would not move from where they are. But, we could also ask here, are their lives that bad that they cannot stay in their native country? Because their forebears have lived in those countries for thousands of years. When I think about that this way, I have my doubts about the reasons they are moving. So, I would like to find out more, before I could say if they are doing the right thing. You see. By doing what they are doing, a few of them might find something better, but you don’t want to do that at the expense of other people. I am saying this, because it seems to me that this is what is happening in the world today. So, let us talk about this worldwide problem.

We need to talk about this worldwide refugees problem, because they are already causing many problems wherever they go. You see, when people are displaced in large number, there are bound to be problems, because the countries they go to live in cannot cope with them, but not only that, they also carry with them the same attitude and their own problems that they had, in their countries of origin, so, most of the problems they are running away from will continue to stay with them; these problems could cause lots of trouble where they try to settle. But there is more to say here, to show you what I mean, because while I am writing this article, in Southern Italy two refugees have died in a fire, that has burned down their makeshift refugee camp.

The Italian authorities are investigating, and it looks like that some organized crime has been committed. They say that some corporals are involved, these corporals are people that illegally control the work of these refugees, since, they take these refugees to work in the farms around the camp for a fee. Something did not work their way, so they burned down the camp and two young people are now dead. I hope you see what we mean, when we say that the refugees carry with them their own problems.

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What could be done we may ask?

No one knows what is the best way to handle this refugees problem, the Italian authorities try hard to do their best. For a start, they go to help those refugees that their boats are in danger of sinking, or have already sung and try to rescue the refugees from the Mediterranean Sea. I that follow the Italian news on SBS, I know that there are too many days, when over a thousand refugees land in Italy, and that is just too many of them for the Italian authorities to handle properly, but they do their best. You see, Italy is not a big country and have already got their own problems with the earthquake refugees, that have been displaced as their houses have been destroyed from the earthquake, so, all these extra refugees put a strain on the authorities and the Italian economy.

Looking at all these problems that these foreign refugees cause, to the country they go to live in, we should start thinking if there is another way to solve this worldwide problem, but so far, nobody has come up with a good suggestion that could solve the refuges problem. Some people say that on humanitarian grounds, we should help these refugees, because they are human beings like us, so, I believe that we should help them. But when these same people that have been saved from drowning, they turn around and do nasty things to the native people in the country they are living, we should start to wonder if we are doing the right thing when we have saved them from drowning.

Because of all these nasty things that happen every now and then, and because there are also some terrorist elements in these said refugees. As we all know the many terrorist attacks that have happened in the last few years. Some leaders in the western world say that we should ban those people that are trouble makers. So, instead or running out to help them and bring them in your own country, we should try to stop them, at our own boundary. Like what President trump wants to do, he wants to erect a wall at the boundary between Mexico and USA. And, ban some people that come from countries that condones terrorist, to come to America.

Here I should say that perhaps President Donald Trump has got it right, just because he wants to stop the refugees, or at least slow down the refugees coming in thousands, when nobody has invited them to come. Of course, on humanitarian grounds we should think that they are people in need, so they should be helped, but this does not mean that they should be helped, before we help our own people in need of help. This is the question that we should ask ourselves. And then try to find an answer to that, so, we should investigate, if there are ways that would bring a better outcome.

Looking for anything that could help

The world today should look at this refugees problem more closely, so, not only they should try to help the refugees on humanitarian grounds, but they should make a greater effort to see if there are things that could be done in the countries of origin of the refugees, so that there will be less refugees in the world. In other words, we should investigate all the reasons why people become refugees, and then, do anything possible to fix the problems, which makes these people become refugees. I suppose that in the past we have already tried this in various parts of the world, but we have had a limited success.

In my own personal views, I believe that the world should not give up, looking for the reasons why these people become refugees, in the first place. Because there could be something that could be done, we should be looking at the reasons why these people become refugees, then try to fix those things that make people leave their own native land.

We need to fix these problems at the source, because tomorrow they might spread even more, and then, it will be harder to fix them. You see, today the refugees are already causing many problems in the western world, which could easily grow to unforeseen problems, which we intend to point out, in our next article, since this article would become too long, if we talk about it now.

See you soon, in our next article, cyber rip off. 

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Genzano it story
Refugees and their problems
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, cyber programs rip off
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