Globe Trot: Church bells ring in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains

IRAQ: In Nineveh Plains, the sound of church bells ringing is heard once again, as Iraqi forces recaptured the historically Christian town of Bartella last week and continue on their march to liberate ISIS-occupied Mosul.

VENEZUELA: In a special session Sunday, lawmakers announced they will push to impeach President Nicolas Maduro, and his supporters responded by storming the National Assembly building.

WIKILEAKS plans to make a statement today about the status of founder Julian Assange after the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he’d been granted asylum, cut off his internet access last week. It could be argued that the showdown of 2016 is between Hillary Clinton and Assange.

In a rare investigative piece on Hillary Clinton’s email trouble, The New York Times looks at Teneo and the web of influence peddling it constructed at the State Department under the Democratic presidential candidate.

The $12 million donation Hillary Clinton sought from the king of Morocco for the Clinton Foundation is among the most jolting discovery yet. Said veteran journalist Bob Woodward: “The mixing of speech fees, the Clinton Foundation and actions by the State Department which she ran are all intertwined. … And it’s corrupt. You can’t just say it’s unsavory.”

TURKEY: Late last week authorities released American Norine Brunson but continue to hold her husband, American pastor Andrew Brunson, denying him visitors and moving him to another detention facility in Izmir.

RUSSIA: The decision to send Russian warships through the English Channel last week could have been a distraction from Moscow’s military maneuvers elsewhere.

BRITAIN: Animal Farm is 70 years old this year, and the dramatic effect of George Orwell’s “little squib” was to turn the tide of the Cold War, particularly once the Aesopian essay crossed the Atlantic, firmly against communism and its fellow travelers in the West.