From the Huffington Post
An Egyptian billionaire provided new details about his plan to buy an island to receive hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria and other conflict-ridden nations, in an interview that will air on CNN Sunday.
Naguib Sawiris, who as CEO of the Cairo-based Orascom Telecom Media and Technology is believed to be worth at least $2.9 billion, spoke on an episode of “Fareed Zakaria GPS” that will air Sunday.
The first step of his plan to resolve the refugee crisis requires getting the consent of Greece or Italy, from whom he plans to purchase the island. Since the refugees do not have visas, there must still be a country willing to process their entry.
Sawiris appeared to imply that providing some kind of legal status for the refugees, even on an uninhabited island, would be harder than buying the island itself.
“You can’t just take people and put them on an island that you bought that falls under jurisdiction,” Sawiris told Fareed Zakaria, according to a transcript of the interview.