The United States, meanwhile, is halting payments to the U.N.'s World Health Organization (WHO), the only body equipped to deal with a health emergency that knows no borders. This week, France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, a veteran politician known to prefer backstage diplomacy to grand public statements, emerged to give a chillingly stark warning on the global order. The era of multilateralism dates to the aftermath of World War I, when the United States spearheaded the 1920 foundation of the League of Nations, the precursor of the United Nations. "The ideal would be that regional entities (like the European Union) take up the baton" from larger organizations, she said. In an illustration of the fractured relationship between two nominal allies, the Turkish foreign ministry accused Le Drian of "trying to cover up the desperate situation that France is facing due to the coronavirus crisis."

Source: Libya Today April 24, 2020 04:52 UTC