海角大神

What country would not join an alliance of 鈥済oodwill powers鈥�? That is the question France鈥檚 foreign minister essentially posed to the world in a little-noticed speech at Harvard University last week. Jean-Yves Le Drian proposed a global alliance of goodwill powers to 鈥渞evive multilateralism, which has been the way of doing things since the end of World War II.鈥�

If that sounds vague, it is. There鈥檚 no sense of what this might look like, who might join, or what it might do. It is also expressly a rejoinder to the 鈥渦s first鈥� approach of America鈥檚 President Trump and others, such as Hungary鈥檚 Viktor Orb谩n. Yet it is not exclusionary. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not against anybody,鈥� Mr. Le Drian said, adding that, 鈥淕oodwill is just goodwill. It鈥檚 open to anybody.鈥�

Whether anything comes of the proposal is anyone鈥檚 guess. But the way Le Drian is approaching the issue is significant. Among many in the West, it is now no longer a given that working together across borders is a good thing. Global alliances can be seen as inefficient, ineffective, and unfair. In short, goodwill has eroded.

Refocusing international cooperation on the power of working together for everyone鈥檚 benefit is perhaps the best way to rebuild it.聽

Here are our five stories for today, which examine a drop in drinking from a global perspective, a new kind of civic activism percolating in East Jerusalem, and why artificial intelligence is no cure-all for our biases. 聽