by Julian Borger in New York
US president sought to rally the morale of embattled liberal democracies at the summit, which is labouring under the shadow of resurgent east-west tensions
Barack Obama warned on Tuesday that the world faced a stark and urgent choice between striving for fairer open markets and democracies or falling prey to the lure of populist demagogues, xenophobia and division.
In his final address to the UN general assembly, the outgoing US president sought to rally the morale of embattled liberal democracies stumbling under the strains of globalisation, inequality and migration.
“There appears to be a growing contest between authoritarianism and liberalism right now,” Obama said. “Given the difficulty in forging true democracy in the face of these pressures, it’s no surprise that some argue the future favours the strongman, a top-down model, rather than strong, democratic institutions.”
The UN summit this year is labouring under the shadow of resurgent east-west tensions and an apparently intractable conflict in Syria, where those divisions have proved a daunting obstacle to resolution.
In his own farewell address, the UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, who also has only a few months left in office, vented his anger at the international community’s failure to halt the Syrian conflict. He accused “powerful patrons” of warring parties on all sides in the five-year war of having “blood on their hands”. . . . . . . .
To read the full piece from The Guardian, click here.