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Turkish President Recep TayyipErdoansaid Sunday that violence in Syrias Idlib region threatens to cause another Syrian refugee crisis akin to the one that began in 2015, according to Reuters.

Speaking in Istanbul Sunday, Erdoan said Russian and Syrian offensives in the region had driven more than 80,000 people toward Turkey. He added that Ankara was trying to the best of its possible to bring an end to the bombings, saying a Turkish delegation would travel to Moscow to discuss the issue Monday.

Unless Europe takes steps to stop the violence in the region, Erdoan added, the continent was likely to see an influx of refugees fleeing the war zone similar to 2015s, according to the news service.

Turkey invaded northeastern Syria following the U.S. departure from the region in October, with Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir PutinVladimir Vladimirovich PutinFormer pro golfer advanced business interests of indicted Giuliani associates: report Trump faces pivotal year with Russia on arms control Repeat of 2015 migrant crisis inevitable without action: Turkish president MORE reaching a new arrangement to demilitarize northern Syria by the end of the month.

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Repeat of 2015 migrant crisis inevitable without action: Turkish president | TheHill - The Hill

Swedens right-wing Sweden Democrats are now neck and neck with the ruling Social Democrats in opinion polls. Though vilified and demonized, the partys success represents a complete failure of liberalism in the face of reality.

The Sweden Democrats - who were until recently dismissed as a fringe, racist party - are now surging in the polls. A voter survey, commissioned by the Dagens Nyheter newspaper last week, puts the party within 0.2 percentage points of Prime Minister Stefan Lofvens left-wing Social Democrats. Moreover, voters now agree with the partys policies on nine out of nine issues.

On immigration, 43 percent of voters side with the party and its leader, Jimmie Akesson. Only 15 percent favor Lofvens policies. Likewise, 31 percent favor Akessons position on law and order, compared to 19 percent for Lofven.

The press has not made Akessons ride to the top easy. Yet, most outlets have failed to dig up dirt on the 40-year-old politician, who like Frances Marine Le Pen, has made a point of distancing his party from its extreme-right roots and presenting a clean-cut image.

Akesson was rounded in the media for admitting to an online gambling addiction several years ago, but voters evidently didnt mind. Akessons past comments about homosexual parents were dug up by author Jonas Gardell for a much-publicized op-ed two weeks ago, readers gave him their vote a week later regardless. Do-gooding musician Bono even made a spectacle of comparing Akesson to Hitler before last years elections, to no avail.

Its not difficult to find the real reason for Akessons popularity. Sweden is in the throes of a crime wave. Murder, assault, rape, threats, and harassment have all skyrocketed since 2015, according to the countrys Crime Prevention Council. Sexual offenses in particular have tripled in the last four years, while murder and manslaughter have more than doubled.

Furthermore, Sweden has emerged as the hand grenade attack capital of Europe. In 2018 there were 162 bombings reported to police, and 93 reported in the first five months of this year, 30 more than during the same period in 2018. The level of attacks is extreme in a country that is not at war, Crime Commissioner Gunnar Appelgren told SVT last year.

A 2017 investigation found that immigrants, the majority of them from the Middle East and North Africa, were behind 90 percent of shootings in Sweden. Meanwhile, the countrys police force has identified 50 immigrant-heavy neighborhoods as vulnerable - a term many have taken to mean no-go zones.

The Sweden Democrats reject multiculturalism, and have proposed a tightening of immigration law and a return of refugees to their home countries. The party has advocated life without parole for serious offenses, and the deportation of foreigners found guilty of serious crimes.

Many of us remember another Sweden, Akesson wrote in an op-ed last month. An everyday life where crime was there but not so close. Crime that was not as crude and ruthless as what we see today.

Akessons paean to the past has been criticized as the typical nostalgia of nationalism, but in its place, Lofven has only offered denial, blaming segregation, poverty and unemployment for the crime in Swedens ghettos.

The segregation is because there is...too high unemployment in these areas. But that would have been the same regardless of who had lived there. If you put people born in Sweden under the same conditions, you get the same result he said in an interview with SVT last month.

However, unemployment has fallen as shootings have risen. Even if unemployment alone is to blame for violence, Lofven did not mention the fact that the unemployment rate among migrants in Sweden is triple the national average, while 90 percent of refugees who arrived since the 2015 migrant crisis are unemployed.

Instead, his government has engaged in across-the-board denialism. The taxpayer-funded Swedish Institute puts out videos downplaying the crime problem and literally telling critics on Twitter that nothing has happened here in Sweden. The institute has also created an Arabic-language advertising campaign inviting prospective migrants in with promises of generous welfare benefits.

Lofven publicly denied the existence of no-go zones in a statement given at the White House last year. But when crime statistics tell a different story, the Ministry of Justice has a plan for that too: suppress politically sensitive information, meddle with figures, and ignore embarrassing results.

Lofvens liberalism may have resonated with voters when he came to power in 2014. But the migrant crisis and subsequent crime wave that followed a year later proved its undoing, as the country was repaid for its humanitarianism in blood and a drain on welfare. A quick google search reveals hundreds of articles that pose questions like Why is Sweden shifting to the right?

The answer to that question is simple. Liberalism has clashed with reality, and lost.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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Triumph of the right in Sweden is a result of the total failure of liberalism - RT

Hundreds of unaccompanied migrant children on the Greek island of Lesbos are living in conditions that pose severe risks to their physical and mental well-being, Human Rights Watch said in a new report. The Greek government announced plans to resettle children on the mainland, but aid organizations on Lesbos see little improvement so far.

Unaccompanied minors on the Greek island of Lesbos are being exposed to degrading conditions and often left to "fend for themselves," according to areportthis week from Human Rights Watch.

The research draws on anonymized interviews with 22 children from October this year, some as young as 14, living on Lesbos. Severe overcrowding in Moria, the island's main camp, has led to a lack of age-appropriate accommodation for children traveling alone or separated from family. The majority of the children spoken to for the report were living either in areas alongside unrelated adults, or in a large informal area that has sprung up outside the camp.

The report calls for an urgent response to the dangerous and unsanitary conditions the children are living in. One 16-year-old interviewee reported sleeping on a cardboard carton on the floor.

Sharing tents with adult strangers

Lesbos, alongside other Greek island "hotspots" on Samos and Chios, has experienced the biggest increase of boat arrivals since 2016, when the EU-Turkey Deal was introduced in an attempt to stem the flow of refugees to the continent.

With over 18,000 people now in a camp with capacity for little over 2,000, thousands -- includingthose with complex health needs, pregnant women, and young children -- are sleeping in tents on the rough, sloping ground of an olive grove. The area is often referred to as the "jungle" by those living there.

There are currently 968 unaccompanied and separated children on Lesbos, according to the latest UN figures. With only 147 spots for age-appropriate accommodation outside the camp, and 210 spaces inside Moria, hundreds are being left vulnerable and exposed to insecure, and sometimes violent, conditions.

Interviewees in the Human Rights Watch report described having to share tents with adult strangers, or on the ground without shelter -- some for as long as three months.

One 16-year-old interviewee from Afghanistan said in the report that he couldnt sleep while in the large main tent in Moria camp, intended for new arrivals. "There is no control who will come and sleep in there," he said. "The most difficult [thing] is that there's no light in the tent at night because the lamps are broken. It's terrifying because you don't know who or what is moving inside the tent."

"Everything is dangerous here -- the cold, the place I sleep, the fights," said one 14-year-old interviewee, who stated they lived in a rat-infested tent with 50 other people.

Not enough shelters available

There has always been a fragmented child protection system for unaccompanied minors on the island, Elina Sarantou from legal service provider HIAS on Lesbos, pointed out. Problems have included lack of information, an inefficient guardianship system, poor quality asylum interviews and delays, and inhumane reception conditions.

"The numbers however have now increased and it is therefore difficult, or even impossible, to ignore anymore," said Sarantou, adding that the current situation is directly related to shelter.

"In order for a minor to be transferred, a space has to open up on the mainland," Sarantou told InfoMigrants. "And since there are only shelters for a quarter of the minors in Greece, there is an obvious bottleneck."

In November the Greek government announced plans to respond to the severe overcrowding of hotspot areas such as Lesbos on the Greek islands. Plans include moving 20,000 people to the mainland early next year, and shutting camps on Lesbos, Chios and Samos - replacing them with 'closed' facilities that human rights advocates have feared will constitute detention centers. While transfers from the islands to the mainland have increased in recent months, high numbers of boat arrivals have also continued.

Relocation to the mainland

At the end of last month the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis also announcedNo Child Alone, a new scheme to respond to the situation of unaccompanied minors on the islands -- promising to quickly settle thousands of children on the mainland. HIAS however say they have seen little implementation on Lesbos so far.

At the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) pediatric clinic outside Moria, mental health activity manager Angela Modarelli says, since October, they have started to see unaccompanied minors accessing psychological support "because the situation is getting worse and worse."

"They are in an unknown place, an unknown world - not speaking the language - without any support," said Modarelli, adding they are treated like adults even though they are children. "Every night when it becomes dark, they have to find a way to keep themselves safe.''

"Mostly when they arrive to see us it's already a crisis moment," said Modarelli. She has seen cases of self-harm, depression, suicidal ideation and plans, sometimes attempts. "And we had kids of 16 and 17 having a plan to end their life. Because... this is too much. They dont see that they are welcome here."

Most of the unaccompanied minors interviewed in the recent Human Rights Watch report also reported experiencing psychological distress.

Although long term solutions are urgently needed now, Afshan Khan, UNICEF special coordinator for the migrant response in Europe, toldInfoMigrants,Greece could not be expected to provide this support alone.

"UNICEF is once again urging European Governments to increase pledges to relocate unaccompanied and separated refugee and migrant children, fast-track family reunifications for those who already have relatives in Europe and increase funds supporting response efforts," said Khan.

"Unaccompanied children are among the most vulnerable people on the Greek islands, and they need Greece and other European countries to take care of them," said Coss in the Human Rights Watch report. "The EU and its member states should demonstrate responsibility and care for kids who suffer there every day."

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A crisis within a crisis: Hundreds of unaccompanied minors left to 'fend for themselves' on Lesbos - InfoMigrants

Pope Francis has described indifference towards the migrant crisis as a sin and called detention centres in Libya as places of torture and despicable slavery.

The Pope, who has made defending refugees a key part of his time at the head of the Catholic Church, was speaking as he welcomed 33 migrants to the Vatican from a camp on the Greek island of Lesbos.

He said all detention centres, which are overcrowded and a hot spot for human rights violations, should be closed and migrant traffickers punished.

Exact migrant figures in Libya are difficult to determine with many held in unofficial camps where abuse is particularly rife, but the figure is believed to be well over 600,000.

So far in 2019 just under 100,000 migrants arrived by sea to Italy, Greece, Spain, Cyprus and Malta, according the UNs refugee agency. Some 1,277 are dead or missing.

While the figures are a far cry from 2015 when over a million made the voyage by sea, the percentage of deaths to arrivals has risen sharply.

"How can we fail to hear the desperate cry of so many brothers and sisters who prefer to face a stormy sea rather than die slowly in Libyan detention camps, places of torture and ignoble slavery?", the Pope said.

"How can we remain indifferent to the abuses and violence of which they are innocent victims, leaving them at the mercy of unscrupulous traffickers? Our ignorance is a sin."

Pope Francis criticised the policy of preventing migrants from landing in Europe, which has repeatedly seen rescue ships stranded in the Mediterranean and unable to dock.

This approach has emboldened the Libyan coastguard to lead rescues, which typically sees the migrants returned to detention centres.

"Serious efforts must be made to empty the detention camps in Libya, evaluating and implementing all possible solutions," Pope Francis said.

"We must denounce and prosecute traffickers who exploit and abuse migrants,"

The Popes comments came as he unveiled a cross adorned with a life jacket, which had been worn by a migrant who died last year while crossing the Mediterranean.

I decided to expose here this life jacket, crucified on this cross, to remind us that we must keep our eyes open, keep our hearts open, to remind everyone of the absolute commitment to save every human life, a moral duty that unites believers and non-believers, he said.

In 2016 Pope Francis flew three Syrian families languishing in Lesbos to the Vatican and he has been highly critical of the mistreatment of migrants.

Updated: December 20, 2019 04:35 PM

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Pope Francis decries Libyan migrant camps as places of torture and slavery - The National

Twenty-nineteen was another powerful year for world cinema, if not an entirely compelling one for American filmshence the fact that six of my entries for the past year were international movies. But its a masterpiece from one of the dominant voices of American independent cinema in the aughts that claims the No. 1 spot.

Ash is Purest White, the master Chinese director JiaZhangkes existential spin on the gangster epic, follows Qiao, the fiercelyfaithful girlfriend to Bin, a middling mobster. After serving five years inprison for firing a gun to protect Bin, Qiao must forge a new life, griftingfrom one mark to another while searching for Bin, whose allegiances haveshifted. Zhangkes direction and narrative preoccupations drift much like hisunorthodox heroine, following her on boat and train, and culminating in afascinating reversal of fortune. Doubling as a metaphor for Chinas owncomplicated growth over the 21st century, Ash is Purest White is a pristinejewel of movie with stylistic associations ranging from Antonioni to Scorsese.

Writer-director Trey Edward Shults stirring Waves is acombustible family drama of unusual enormity, and one that hits literally closeto home: It was filmed in Broward and Dade counties. When a shoulder injurythreatens to derail a star athletes plans for the future, it sets off a chainof tragic consequences presented with almost unbearable tension. A diptych of amovie, its second half, which follows his sister Emily through her firstbudding romance, is more contemplative, but no less profound. Set against thebackdrop of the brutal Darwinism of the college admissions process and thedouble standards society places on black Americans to excel, Waves is aguidebook for coping in the 21st century. Its emotionally draining, and worthevery minute.

This German import marries the harrowing solitude of asurvivalist drama with headline-ripped social commentary. During a characterssolo voyage to lush Ascension Island, she faces a brutal stormone renderedwith a camera that yaws from side to side along with her yacht, and anunnerving sound design that places us among the creaking infrastructure of theboat and the apocalyptic torrents of Mother Nature. But the movies darkestturn arrives later, when she happens upon a wrecked fishing trawler ofabandoned passengers, of whose plight the Coast Guard seems curiously unmoved.Examining the human capacity to turn a blind eye to the suffering of others, itsmoral heft reverberates like an unanswered SOS call.

In director Christian Petzolds slippery adaptation of AnnaSegherss World War II-era novel, he transforms her story about an unnamedFrench narrator fleeing the German invasion into a temporal jumble ofhistorical rhymes and repeats. It could be 1944, 1984 or 2014, and maybe itsall three of these. Petzold wants us to feel unmoored; this is a story, afterall, about dislocation as a permanent state. Transitis propelledby enough bureaucratic cul-de-sacs and absurdist ironies that its as if aKafka story was filmed in the slick style of late 1960s Hitchcock, to saynothing of the looming influence of Samuel Beckett. Petzolds unspecifieddystopia has plenty to say about the Nazi regime, about third-worlddictatorships, about todays unfolding migrant crisis, all of them connected bya universal condition ofstuckness.

Quentin Tarantinos black comedy, set against the backdrop of the Manson Family/Sharon Tate murder 50 years ago, is a chronicle of inside-Hollywood metafiction. Its a layered love letter to the films Tarantino himself famously binged while working the register at Video Archives in Los Angeles in his 20s, and is thus a cinephiles heaven. Tarantinos trademark leisurely pacinghis propensity to let scenes play out past other filmmakers expiration timesworks to the movies loosely structured favor. There is very little plot to speak of but a great deal of insightful observations, witty asides, and generous dips into kidney-shaped pools of Hollywood nostalgia. Yet the movies revisionist history, boisterous humor and self-referentiality skate over its blunt assessment of a studio system in its death spasms and a generation losing its innocence.

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Celine Sciammas historical romance is a defiant erasure ofthe male gaze, a domineering fixture and a theoretical bugaboo since the dawnof cinema. The story is simple enough: A painter, Marianne, travels to a remoteisland in Brittany to paint a commissioned portrait of the aristocraticHeloise, an unwilling subject who is soon to be shipped off to Milan in anarranged marriage. The women end up falling in love, which is, of course,forbidden. What could have been the stuff of Merchant-Ivory prestige cinemainstead borrows its syntax from rigorous filmmakers such as Ophuls, and Powelland Pressburger, co-opting their rigorous melodrama as a shot across the bow topatriarchies everywhere. Distinctions between artist and model, mistress andservant, and form and content burn away in the movies crackling fireplace,while its symbolic send-off is at once subversive and heartbreaking.

Greta Gerwigs masterly follow-up to Lady Bird extends her affinities for young women who chafe againstsocietys strictures. She shuffles the source material into an ambitiousbifurcated narrative that oscillates between the characters young adulthood,after three of the sisters have left the March family home, and a formativeperiod seven years earlier, when they all lived together as the Civil War woundto its bloody close. This approach allows past and present to rhyme in waysthat are both richly ironic and devastating, so that its themes ofproto-feminism, gender roles, sacrifice and patriotism can ripple across thecanvas like leitmotifs. Though in some ways her movie is a modernist, playfuladaptation, she is in the best way a reverential classicist, with countlessimages that evoke John Ford. Every shot resembles the sort of painting youwould like to step into.

Pedro Almodvars tender memory filmabout a reclusive,physically hurting filmmaker whose latest festival invitation prompts his past tolap against his present like waves on a beachfrontis unlike anything yet made from this naughty provocateur ofcandy-colored melodrama. Yet as a remembrance of things past and a lucidreckoning with the directors own weaknesses and misgivings,Pain andGloryis a pinnacle of autofiction, in many ways representingeverything his oeuvre has been building toward. He saves the films mostself-reflexive masterstroke for the marvelous final sequencean act of bravuramagic that, once you unpeel its layers, speaks to the curative properties offilmmaking.

WithParasite, the South Korean mad genius Boon Joon-ho has crafted a satire so funny, so savage and so necessary in our present moment of global unrest and anxiety that it makes Luis Bunuels bourgeois vivisections look almost tame. Think pieces will be written about popular cultures response to this young centurys grift, class envy and income inequality; many will lead withParasite. But its his refusal to demonize or caricature either of the movies warring families that renders the films pathos so powerful.Parasitehas a great deal to say about a range of other topics, toolike globalization American cultural appropriationbut its the moments of casual malice, whether delivered from the bubble of privilege, in one familys case, or by the need to feel superior toanyoneelse, in the others case, that condemn both sides.

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The title is seemingly cynical, as no movie has betterexplored the brutality and absurdity of the soulless divorce industrythanMarriage Story. Yet writer-director Noah Baumbach, whosescreenplay drew partly from his own divorce from Jennifer Jason Leigh, takesthe sober, cosmic view of marriages inextricable hold on people even whendocuments, and feelings, and life itself suggest otherwise. Marriage Storyischock full of lived-in insights that perhaps only a middle-aged person couldreliably write. And without much of a plot to propel the scenes forward, themovie assumes its power from its accretion of accurate details, its micro setpieces, its deadpan wit even in times of pain and sorrow. All of which is tosay thatMarriage Storyisdespite its achieved sublimity, thetears it will doubtlessly induce, and its characters (literal, in one case)open woundsan unlikely comedy.

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Top 10 Films of 2019 - Boca Raton