The fight to retake the last stronghold of the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Iraq has entered its third day with a U.S.-led coalition force of about 30,000 that includes Iraqi security personnel, Kurdish fighters, Sunni Muslim Arab tribesmen and Shia Muslim paramilitaries. The Pentagon says U.S. special forces are on the ground in Iraq and taking part in the battle, despite President Obama’s pledge against having boots on the ground. They face an estimated 5,000 Islamic State fighters in and around Mosul. Meanwhile, humanitarian workers say some 200,000 people may need shelter during the offensive. We speak with Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for The Independent, where he writes that Mosul is bracing for its next bloody chapter after being ravaged by 13 years of war.
Democracy Now
4: The Canary and leftist media find sudden success in UK
England, United Kingdom – Journalist Kerry-Anne Mendoza’s idea for a news start-up began like many others: a vision of disrupting the status quo and challenging narratives others were not questioning.
Unlike other fledgling news outlets, however, Mendoza’s publication, The Canary, quickly established itself as one of the most successful new media outlets in the UK, attracting both a loyal readership and a considerable number of detractors.
Established with just £1,000 ($1,280) in seed money last September, by July this year the website garnered more than 7.5 million monthly page views and has generated a yearly revenue of $321,000. That same month it broke into the top 100 news sites in the United Kingdom in terms of visits, and in doing so, The Canary leapfrogged well-established online magazines such as the New Statesman and The Spectator.
Aljazeera
3: IS DISCLOSURE OF PODESTA’S EMAILS A STEP TOO FAR? A CONVERSATION WITH NAOMI KLEIN
SOME NEWS ORGANIZATIONS, including The Intercept, have devoted substantial resources to reporting on the newsworthy aspects of the archive of emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta that was published last week by WikiLeaks. Numerous documents from that archive have shed considerable light on the thought processes and previously secret behavior of top Clinton campaign aides and often the candidate herself. While the significance of particular stories has been debated, there is no denying that many of those disclosures offer a valuable glimpse into campaign operatives who currently exercise great political power and who, as of January of next year, are likely to be among the most powerful officials on the planet.
Despite her agreement with those propositions, the author and activist Naomi Klein believes there are serious threats to personal privacy and other critical political values posed by hacks of this sort, particularly when accompanied by the indiscriminate publication of someone’s personal emails.
The Intercept
2: US and Ecuador deny conspiring to take Julian Assange offline
The governments of the US and Ecuador have denied that they conspired to silence Julian Assange, after the WikiLeaks founder’s internet access was cut off at his London embassy home to stop him releasing damaging information about Hillary Clinton’s US election campaign.
Ecuador confirmed late on Tuesday that it had intervened at the weekend to temporarily restrict Assange’s internet access, pointing to a “wealth” of WikiLeaks publications “impacting on the US election campaign” as the reason. WikiLeaks has released successive dumps of damaging material over recent months from inside the Democratic party and the Clinton campaign, which the US government has blamed on Russian state hacking.
“The government of Ecuador respects the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states,” Ecuador’s foreign ministry said in a statement. “It does not interfere in external electoral processes, nor does it favour any particular candidate.”
The statement, in which Ecuador stressed that it “does not yield to pressure from other states”, followed claims by WikiLeaks that John Kerry, the US secretary of state, had requested a private meeting with Ecuador last month – during a visit to Colombia to show support for a peace deal with leftwing rebels – specifically to ask the country to block Assange.
The Guardian
1: Julian Assange has lost his web privileges, so who’s running Wikileaks?
Julian Assange has a new problem. Holed up at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012, the WikiLeaks founder has relied on the hospitality of the staff there as he continues to run his organization. But it now appears his hosts may have run out of patience with their guest after his site’s recent series of leaks related to the U.S. presidential election.
The Ecuadorian government confirmed Tuesday that it had intentionally cut Assange’s link to the outside world Sunday out of fears that WikiLeaks’ latest releases would interfere with the U.S. election.
“The government of Ecuador respects the principle of nonintervention in the affairs of other countries, and it does not interfere in the electoral processes in support of any candidate in particular,” it said in a statement.
WikiLeaks announced Monday that Assange’s internet access at the Ecuadorian embassy had been cut off on Sunday but said the group had set in motion “contingency plans” as a result.
Vice News
