Nobody should be surprised by the barbarism unleashed by the jihadist Islamic Army of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), now the Islamic State (IS). Unfortunately, history – barbarism – repeats itself. Something similar happened in the 2003-2005 biennium. And there stands the United States, with a Barack Obama who seems to have renounced world leadership in security and defence issues and only takes decisions – selective bombings or rearming of Kurdish militias – making a virtue of necessity. An America which, incidentally, exceedingly praised the so-called 'Arab Spring' and armed the opponents of Bashar al-Asad without due precautions. They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind. Not to mention a European Union without ideology, politics, army, or budget to guarantee the security...

The president of the Catalan National Assembly has stated that if 'we as a country should decide that the consultation is not to be held and that an alternative should be offered, it will not be decided just by Mas'. This is an important statement for several reasons. 

Within days of the decisive Brazilian presidential elections to be held on October 5, the result is still very unclear. There are only two certainties: they will require a second round on 26 October and that it will be between the current president, Dilma Rousseff (Workers Party, PT), and Marina Silva (Brazilian Socialist Party, PSB). Beyond this, successive polls move in the marshy ground of the margin of error when awarding the victory to one or the other, with slight daily fluctuations that prevent any solvent forecast to be made. 

The current situation of the French government continues to deteriorate every day. Last Tuesday, the cabinet headed by Manuel Valls saved a confidence vote by just 25 votes in the National Assembly, with 31 Socialist MPs locked in abstention and the Government saved by the votes of the Radical Party. The Valls II cabinet is thus very damaged to set forth the reforms it has presented upon its return from last August's holidays, and therefore, it seems difficult that they will survive in the medium term. In addition, surveys are stubborn when showing a terrible political panorama for the future of France, with the Socialist Party sinking and its voters fleeing to the populist and extremist ideas presented by the National Front and Marine Le Pen. President Hollande is already rejected by...

FAES Foundation is celebrating this week in Madrid the third edition of its Excellence Program which, this time, brings together twenty participants from 18 countries, mainly from Latin America, in addition to the United States and Portugal.

MARIO RAMOS VERA: El alma del mundo (Roger Scruton)VICENTE DE LA QUINTANA: La derrota de Azurmendi (Ensayo y error.Una autobiografía. Las memorias de un vasco proscrito, Mikel Azurmendi)PILAR MARCOS: Patria (Fernando Aramburu)EDUARDO INCLÁN: La voluntad del gudari. Génesis y metástasis de la violenciade ETA (Gaizka Fernández Soldevilla)ALFREDO CRESPO: El engaño populista. Por qué se arruinan nuestros paísesy cómo rescatarlos (Axel Kaiser y Gloria Álvarez)JUAN TOVAR RUIZ: National Insecurity: American Leadership In An Age of Fear(David Rothkopf)GERARDO DEL CAZ: Evitando la trampa de Tucídides (Easternisation. War andPeace in the Asian Century, Gideon Rachman)ANTONIO RUBIO PLO: A Rage for Order, The Middle East in Turmoil, fromTahrir Square to Isis (Robert F. Worth)

Europe is in the throes of two simultaneous crises: on the one hand, it is suffering from a political crisis, a crisis of leadership, one that has led to constitutional failure; on the other, it is suffering from a loss of identity, a phenomenon that results in cultural relativism. Marcello Pera, Speaker of the Italian Senate and Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Pisa, delivered a conference entitled “Strength of Identity” during the course of the FAES Campus 2005, a paper which the FAES Foundation is now publishing. Also known as the co-author of the book Senza Radici (“Without Roots”) alongside Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Professor Pera urges European culture to proudly recall and reaffirm its origins and its universal democratic principles: freedom, equality and tolerance. In this respect, Europe must recognise the intrinsic value of a civilisation, Western civilisation, that has given the world so many universal ideas. “Europe must be aware of the moral superiority of a series of values that have prevailed over centuries and that have produced beneficial results wherever they have become established”.