WikiLeak founder Assange promises to leak `significant` material on US election, Google

AP, BERLIN :
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange promised “significant” disclosures on subjects including the U.S. election and Google in the coming weeks as the secret-spilling group marked its 10th anniversary on Tuesday.
Assange said WikiLeaks plans to start publishing new material starting this week, but wouldn’t specify the timing and subject. Speaking by video link to an anniversary news conference in Berlin, he said the leaks include “significant material” on war, arms, oil, internet giant Google, the U.S. election and mass surveillance.
WikiLeaks hopes “to be publishing every week for the next 10 weeks,” Assange said.
WikiLeaks, which released Democratic National Committee emails days before the party’s national convention earlier this year, wouldn’t say who or what campaign would be affected by the upcoming U.S. election leaks. Assange said speculation that he or WikiLeaks intend to harm Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is “false.”
Asked whether he feels any personal affinity with Clinton’s Republican rival, Donald Trump, Assange replied: “I feel personal affinity really, I think, with all human beings.”
“I certainly feel sorry for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump,” he added. “These are two people that are tormented by their ambitions in different ways.”
Sweden is seeking Assange’s extradition in a rape investigation. He hasn’t left the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012. Assange denies the rape allegation and says he fears being extradited to the U.S. to face espionage charges if he leaves.
An anniversary party in Berlin will commemorate the 2006 registration of the domain name wikileaks.org, and founder Julian Assange will address a press conference of his German supporters by video link at 10:00 am (0800 GMT).
But Assange has at the last minute cancelled what would have been a rare public appearance on the balcony of his 18-square-metre room in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, citing security concerns.
But he remains dauntless. “Adversity has hardened us,” Assange told German news weekly Der Spiegel in a weekend interview. “We believe in what we are doing .. If you are pushed you push back.”
Ten years after it was founded, the site has faced growing charges that it is manipulated by politicians-either by recycling documents provided by Moscow, or by allegedly serving the interests of Donald Trump in the US presidential election race.