Taliban militants fighting US troops in Afghanistan taunted Washington over the government shutdown on Wednesday, accusing US politicians of "sucking the blood of their own people". ● The Islamist militants issued a statement describing how US institutions were "paralysed", the Statue of Liberty was closed and a fall in tourist numbers had hit shops, restaurants and hotels in the capital. "The American people should realise that their politicians play with their destinies as well as the destinies of other oppressed nations for the sake of their personal vested interests," the Taliban said.

Edward Snowden’s revelations of NSA surveillance programs prove that the US has abandoned the rule of law, betraying its own constitution, whistleblower Thomas Andrews Drake, told RT. ● A group of US whistleblowers and activists has present Snowden with a Sam Adams Award for ‘Integrity in Intelligence’ in Moscow on Wednesday. “The irony is that the US has abandoned the rule of law,” Drake, who also revealed NSA secrets in the past, said of Snowden’s leaks. “They’ve unchained itself from their own constitution – the mechanism by which we govern ourselves. And when you ban the real law and use a secret law and secret interpretations of law, we’re in a whole new ball game. It’s a Pandora’s Box.” Snowden “had to escape the US to ensure any chance of freedom,” Drake said. “And it wasn’t his plan to end up here. It was the US, who made him stateless by revoking his passport. And Russia – to its credit – actually recognized the international law and granted him political asylum.” ● The NSA whistleblower is currently staying at an undisclosed location In Russia, reportedly under heavy security. The whistleblowers, who had the chance to meet with him, say that Snowden has no regrets about the path he has chosen. ● Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern has called Snowden “an extraordinary person,” who has “made his peace” with what he did. “He’s convinced that what he did was right. He has no regrets. And he’s willing to face whatever the future holds for him,” McGovern said.

Brazilian lawmakers indicated that, in lieu of direct teleconferences with Edward Snowden to gain further insight into allegations of NSA spying in their country, they may seek to seize documents now held by American journalist Glenn Greenwald. ● On Wednesday Greenwald spoke to Brazilian senators currently investigating evidence of US as well as British and Canadian espionage in the Latin American country. The legislators are part of a probe into potential foreign surveillance -- the Comissão Parlamentar de Inquérito, or CPI -- called into action by President Dilma Rousseff in the wake of initial news reports alleging that even the president’s online communication had been intercepted. Greenwald, who appeared along with his partner David Miranda, a Brazilian national, broached several topics during the hearing, including the possibility of granting asylum to NSA contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Over the last 15 years geneticists have identified links between the world’s Jewish communities that point to a common ancestry as well as a common religion. Still, the origin of one of the most important Jewish populations, the Ashkenazim of Central and Eastern Europe, has remained a mystery. A new genetic analysis has now filled in another piece of the origins puzzle, pointing to European women as the principal female founders, and to the Jewish community of the early Roman empire as the possible source of the Ashkenazi ancestors. The finding establishes that the women who founded the Ashkenazi Jewish community of Europe were not from the Near East, as previously supposed, and reinforces the idea that many Jewish communities outside Israel were founded by single men who married and converted local women. The study, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, is based on a genetic analysis of maternal lineages. A team led by Martin B. Richards of the University of Huddersfield in England took a fresh look at Ashkenazi lineages by decoding the entire mitochondrial genomes of people from Europe and the Near East.

AWIP: New Genome Study Destroys Zionist Claims to Palestine

"William Binney is a man on a mission. He spent nearly 30 years as a top executive in America's super-secret National Security Agency (NSA), now he wants you to know that same spy agency is pushing western democracies -- including Canada -- toward fascism." ● Here's a clue about how he feels about his former employer's ability to carry out mass surveillance of citizens: "It's better than anything the KGB, the Stasi, or the Gestapo and SS ever had." These words aren't meant as praise. Last Saturday Binney and I have lunch at a conference in Toronto. He's likely in his 60s, a thin, balding, passionate man in a wheelchair who you know without being told, lives and breathes his anti-NSA cause 24 hours a day. He's le Carré's Smiley not Fleming's Bond. The late Alec Guinness would play him. Not Daniel Craig. William Binney is the world's most famous critic of the NSA spy agency and the damage it's done and is doing to freedom in the world's democracies.

The United States is a great place. From New York to Los Angeles and covering everything in between, the U.S. boasts unprecedented diversity, natural wonder and opportunity. Americans love freedom so much, they have hot dog-eating contests on Independence Day to prove it. And good luck finding something better than a cronut. Despite that general awesomeness, though, the U.S. isn't the best at everything. That's not dinging the land of the free and the home of the brave for no reason, but rather, to say that Europe just does some things better. Here are a few arenas where the U.S. could learn a thing or two from the old country.

The Local: A farmer commits suicide every two days in France, almost 500 in three years