Barack Obama normally likes to talk about hope. Last week at the United Nations he had the audacity to fear. The US president conjured up a vision of a dystopian world: “Extremists sowing terror . . . Protracted conflicts that grind on and on. Genocide and mass atrocities. More and more nations with nuclear weapons. Melting ice caps and ravaged populations.” That is our collective future, according to Mr Obama, unless the world's leaders co-operate to find “global solutions to global problems”.
通常巴拉克•歐巴馬(Barack Obama)喜歡談論希望。但上週在聯合國(UN),他卻大膽地談起了恐懼。這位美國總統勾勒出一個反烏托邦式的世界:「極端分子散播恐怖的種子……懸而未決的衝突一再延續。種族滅絕和大規模暴行。越來越多的國家擁有核武器。不斷融化的冰蓋和飽受蹂躪的民衆。」歐巴馬認爲,這將是我們共同的未來,除非世界領導人展開合作,找到「解決全球問題的全球性方案」。