In this column, Professor Joaquín Roy, Professor of European Integration and Director of the European Union Centre at the University of Miami, argues that although the United States and Europe are in crisis, they are still a magnet for the rest of the world, as shown by the ceaseless waves of migrants they attract.

BARCELONA, Jul 14 2014 (IPS) - A few decades ago, even before the end of the Cold War and before and after Ronald Reagan's election to the White House, analyses regularly referred to U.S. decadence. At other times, it was Europe's turn for pessimistic descriptions, especially when it could not overcome its ambivalence over deepening integration, and above all because of the failure of its constitutional project. 

The West was in crisis. And now the pair are apparently going through a similar phase, with each one trying to outdo the other in inferiority.

Israel has kept up its air and naval bombardments of the Gaza Strip for a seventh day, despite growing international pressure for a ceasefire.

At least 176 people, including 29 children, have been killed as of Monday and more than 1,200 people have been wounded.

The European Union said it was in touch with "all parties in the region" to press for an immediate halt to the hostilities, a day after US Secretary of State John Kerry offered to help secure a Gaza truce.

Egypt and Qatar are seen as potential mediators but peace efforts were complicated by Hamas' rejection of a mere "calm for calm" in which both sides hold their fire in favour of wider conditions including prisoner release and an end to Israel's Gaza blockade.

Israeli Radio, quoting Egypt's state-news agency, said on Monday that Kerry will arrive in Cairo on Tuesday to discuss a ceasefire.

(Reuters) - Residents of a town north of Baghdad found 12 corpses with execution-style bullet wounds on Monday, after fighting between rival Sunni insurgent groups that could eventually unravel the coalition that seized much of the north and west of the country.

The incident points to an intensification of infighting between the Islamic State and other Sunni groups, such as supporters of former dictator Saddam Hussein, which rallied behind the al Qaeda offshoot last month because of shared hatred for the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad.

Police in Muqdadiya, a town 80 km (50 miles) northeast of the capital, said residents from the nearby town of Saadiya found the 12 corpses on Monday after intense fighting overnight between Islamic State fighters and the Naqshbandi Army, a group led by Saddam allies.

Since the Islamic State swept through Iraqi cities and proclaimed its leader caliph of all Muslims last month, there have been increasing signs of conflict with other Sunni groups who do not necessarily share the al Qaeda offshoot's rejection of Iraq's borders or its severe interpretation of Islam.

WASHINGTON, Jul 12 2014 (IPS) - Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei's comments on the nuclear talks Monday provided an unusual glimpse of diplomatic maneuvering by the U.S.-led coalition of five nuclear powers and Germany on the issue of enrichment capability to be allowed in a comprehensive agreement.

But his remarks also suggested that Iran was responding with its own diplomatic maneuvre on the issue. Both sides appear to have put forward demands that they knew were non-starters with the intention of moderating their demands substantially in return for major concessions from the other side.

Khamenei described the United States and the P5+1 as demanding initially that Iran's annual enrichment capability be cut to the equivalent of as few as 500 to 1,000 centrifuges - as little as 2.6 percent percent of its present level of 19,000 centrifuges.

But he also suggested they were now aiming at getting Iran to accept a capability equivalent to the annual production of 10,000 centrifuges on the condition that it would be the final level for the duration of the agreement.

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