Gilad Atzmon ■ We were informed this week that the four major female founders of the Ashkenazis show roots in Europe 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. So do most of the minor founders, the study found. Only 8% of the mitochondrial DNA shows signs of being from the Near East. Gil Atzmon, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, who led the research, argued that there had been some evidence of mass conversions, especially of women, to Judaism throughout the Mediterranean in the past. That resulted in about 6 million citizens, or a tenth of the Roman population, who were Jewish. The practical meaning of this information is simple and far from being new. Ashkenazi Jews are not Semitic and have no roots in Palestine.

New York Times: Genes Suggest European Women at Root of Ashkenazi Family Tree
AWIP: New Genome Study Destroys Zionist Claims to Palestine

US default fears prompts China's state-run media call for the world to "de-Americanise" as Christine Lagarde warns of "massive disruption the world over". ● The looming prospect of a US default on debt prompted China to call for the world to “de-Americanise”, amid warnings of a new global recession. In China, Xinhua, the official government news agency, said that as American politicians continued to flounder over a deal to break the impasse, “it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanised world”. The jibe came as Christine Lagarde, the International Monetary Fund chief, raised the spectre of a repeat of the 2008 financial crash as hopes dwindled for a resolution of the crisis over the debt ceiling and partial government shutdown. Harry Reid, the leader of the Democrat-controlled Senate and Mitch McConnell, who heads the Republican minority, met on Sunday for “preliminary” talks following the acrimonious collapse of negotiations between the White House and Republicans in the lower chamber. Jack Lew, the Treasury secretary, has said that the US will run out of money to pay its bills on Thursday if Congress does not authorise an increase in federal borrowing limits.

Multiple bomb blasts have rocked the Syrian capital of Damascus, a mortar attack on Syrian TV among them, reports RT’s correspondent at the scene. ● Suicide bombers blew up two booby-trapped cars near the General Organization of Radio and TV in Damascus, state TV reported. RT correspondent Paula Slier said that two security guards were confirmed dead in the blasts while two suicide bombers died in their cars. “Within the last 20 minutes there were two massive explosions in downtown Damascus. It seems that one was right in front of the Syrian TV and we are seeing some footage being circulated on line by the rebels saying that their target is the Syrian TV,” said Slier. But Syrian state news agency SANA said that there were no casualties while [correctly] blaming the blasts on "terrorists".

VoR: Chemical inspectors’ hotel and Syrian TV targeted in bomb blasts in Damascus
SANA: Six citizens wounded by terrorists' shells on Bab Sharqi, al-Qasa'a and al-Kadam neighborhoods in Damascus

The reactor building of Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Power
Plant is seen, just outside the port city of Bushehr 750
miles (1245 kilometers) south of the capital Tehran.

As crunch P5+1 talks begin on Tuesday in Geneva, Iran says it will not ship uranium stockpile overseas. ● Iran declared it would not bow to demands to ship its uranium stockpile abroad on Sunday, ahead of key talks over its nuclear programme. Officials involved in the process expect the long-running nuclear diplomacy surrounding Iran to be reinvigorated by a new Iranian negotiating team that has signalled its readiness to seek a breakthrough. Iranian representatives are expected to offer a plan at the latest talks in Geneva, which begin on Tuesday that could result in the mothballing of most of its nuclear facilities and put substantial parts of its uranium stockpile up for negotiation. In return Iran would demand significant easing of sanctions that have shrunk its economy, reduced oil revenues and driven up inflation. "We certainly expect the Iranians to come forward with a new set of measures that create a different environment and different atmosphere," a European official told The Daily Telegraph. "That is certainly the message they have given us. "We are not going to Geneva with anything new but we will be listening carefully and be willing to respond to progress things quickly."

PressTV: Iran will never withdraw from its nuclear right: Deputy FM

European stocks fell for the first time in three days as US lawmakers struggled to reach an accord on raising the federal debt limit and China’s exports unexpectedly dropped. Asian shares and US futures declined. ● Europe's main stock markets slid at the start of trading on Monday, with London's benchmark FTSE 100 index losing 0.31 percent to stand at 6,467.40 points. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slipped 0.3 percent to 310.75 at 8:08 am in London. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures dropped 0.8 percent today and the MSCI Asia Pacific excluding Japan Index retreated 0.3 percent. Frankfurt's DAX 30 dropped 0.42 percent to 8,688.45 points and in Paris the CAC 40 index shed 0.41 percent to 4,202.82 compared with Friday's closing levels.

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama met in the Oval Office Friday with Malala Yousafzai, the Pakastani girl who was shot in the head on her school bus by Taliban gunmen for criticizing their rule, including banning education for girls. The White House says the first couple invited Malala -- the youngest ever nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize -- to the White House "to thank her for her inspiring and passionate work on behalf of girls education in Pakistan." In a statement, the White House says the United States "joins with the Pakistani people and so many around the world to celebrate Malala’s courage and her determination to promote the right of all girls to attend school and realize their dreams." :: In a statement released after the meeting, Malala said she was honored to meet with Obama, but that she told him she's worried about the effect of U.S. drone strikes. (The White House statement didn't mention that part.)

■ The Prime Minister of Zionist Regime of Israel has been lecturing the UK government not to restore diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, telling Britain make any possible rapprochement conditional. Benjamin Netanyahu, who believes his years of Iranophobia attempts are reaching a dead end with the recent diplomatic outreach launched by the government of new Iranian President Rouhani, is conspiring yet another deceit campaign in and around Europe to prevent a possible thaw in the Islamic Republic’s relations with the west. Worse than the deceit campaign, the Zionist regime’s premier is explicitly telling Europe, Britain in particular, to introduce conditions to Iran if they want to restore bilateral relations. The premier of the occupying regime has called on the UK government to condition its restoration of full diplomatic ties with Iran on the Islamic Republic ending its calls for the destruction of Israel. “Iran is calling for the annihilation of the Jewish state and of a member state of the UN,” Netanyahu told the Financial Times. “It seems sensible that Britain would say, ‘Before we reestablish diplomatic relations, abandon this.’”

■ As far as illegal, illegitimate anti-Iran sanctions are concerned, Netanyahu moaned “if the sanctions are relieved, the whole sanctions regime will collapse. “So they’ll get everything, and we - the collective we - will get nothing. If it falls on me to say something that everybody understands, I’ll say it. And don’t say I didn’t warn you”, boasted the premier of racist regime of Israel. “At this juncture, we have to say things clearly, and the clear thing is this: Iran should not have centrifuges; it should not have plutonium plants. These things should be completely dismantled”.

■ Isn’t it ridiculous? The premier of a racist regime, which has been established by force and through occupying the lands of a historic nation, a regime which does not even comply with the smallest rules and regulations adopted by the United Nations, a regime that has been massacring defenseless, innocent women and children in Gaza through its inhumane siege of the Strip, a regime whose armed-to-teeth gangs of troops kill Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on a daily basis, a regime whose jails are full of Palestinian teens who are tortured and abused by wild prison guards, and more importantly, a regime which has stockpiled hundreds of nukes and various weapons of mass destructions in total defiance of the international community, this regime is saying that “Iran should not have centrifuges”, while Iran as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a committed member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has each and every right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

The National Security Agency whistleblower, Edward Snowden, has said that the mass surveillance programmes used by the US to tap into phone and internet connections around the world is making people less safe. ● In short video clips posted by the WikiLeaks website on Friday, Snowden said that the NSA's mass surveillance, which he disclosed before fleeing to Russia, "puts us at risk of coming into conflict with our own government". A US court has charged Snowden with violating the Espionage Act, for disclosing the programmes which he described as a "dragnet mass surveillance that puts entire populations under sort of an eye that sees everything even when it's not needed". "They hurt our economy. They hurt our country. They limit our ability to speak and think and live and be creative, to have relationships and to associate freely," Snowden said.

PressTV: US spying defies our humanity: Snowden (Video) ● US surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden says Washington’s spy programs are limiting people’s ability to speak and think freely, diminishing their creativity, and making their lives insecure. Snowden, a former US National Security Agency (NSA) employee, made the remarks in one of the short video clips posted on the WikiLeaks website on Friday night that the whistle-blowing organization said were filmed on Wednesday. "People all over the world are realizing that these programs don't make us more safe, they hurt our economy, they hurt our country, they limit our ability to speak and think and live and be creative, to have relationships, to associate freely," said Snowden, who was granted asylum in Russia on August 1. Snowden said the US government was "unwilling to prosecute high officials who lied to Congress and the country on camera, but they'll stop at nothing to persecute someone who told them the truth."