President Obama on Wednesday asserted executive privilege over Fast and Furious documents just as a House panel prepared to push ahead with a contempt vote against Attorney General Eric Holder.

Here's what the president's action means:

-- Executive privilege allows Obama to withhold from Congress documents revealing internal communications and decision-making of the executive branch of government that he believes should remain confidential.

-- A subpoena by Congress cannot override claims of executive privilege. However, the privilege is considered "qualified" and "not absolute," meaning it can be challenged and overturned in the courts, according to the Congressional Research Service.

US radio host Dennis Bernstein and investigative reporter Dave Lindorff illustrate just how much US tax money goes towards the country's war chest.

"People have to realize that 53 cents of every dollar that they are paying into taxes is going to the military to an astonishing figure. There is an enormous, enormous amount of money being blown on war an killing and destruction."

Foreign minister says Ankara will take incident to Nato and dismisses Syria's claim it did not know plane was Turkish

Ahmet Davutoglu says the Turkish jet entered Syrian airspace but quickly left, and was then shot down without warning by Syrian forces.

Nato is to meet on Tuesday at Turkey's request following the shooting down of one of its warplanes by Syria in what it says was international airspace.

Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said Ankara would formally present the incident to its Nato allies to prepare a response under article four of the organization's founding treaty.

The article provides for states to "consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened". It stops short of the explicit mention of possible armed responses cited in article five.

The Turkish foreign ministry said on Sunday it knew the coordinates of the plane's wreckage 1,300 meters deep in the Mediterranean sea, but had not found it or the pilots. Turkey has filed an official protest to Syria about the shooting down.

Davutoglu told the state broadcaster TRT on Sunday that the plane had entered Syrian airspace but quickly left when warned by Turkey and was shot down in international airspace several minutes later.

He said the plane was clearly marked as Turkish, dismissing Syria's earlier statement that it had not known the plane belonged to Turkey, and that it was shot down over Syrian airspace. He said it was on a training flight to test Turkey's radar capabilities and had no "covert mission related to Syria".

Turkey's president, Abdullah Gül, said on Saturday that it was "routine" for jets flying at high speeds to violate other countries' air spaces for short periods of time.

A statement by the Syrian military said the Turkish plane was flying low 1km off the Syrian coast when it was hit by anti-aircraft fire. The plane fell in Syrian waters seven miles west of the village of Um al-Touyour.

Turkey calls Nato meeting on warplane downed by Syria Syria said it engaged the aircraft in its airspace "according to the laws that govern such situations"

Turkey has called a meeting of Nato member states to discuss its response to the shooting down of one of its warplanes by Syrian forces on Friday.

Ankara has invoked Article 4 of Nato's charter, under which consultations can be requested when an ally feels their security is threatened, officials say.

Earlier, Turkey's foreign minister said the F-4 Phantom was in international airspace when it was shot down.

Syria has insisted the jet was engaged while it was inside its airspace.

It has also said no act of hostility was intended, noting that as soon as the military discovered the "unidentified" aircraft was Turkish its navy joined efforts to rescue the two crew members.

The Turkish foreign ministry said it knew the coordinates of the jet, which was in Syrian territorial waters at a depth of 1,300m (4,265ft), but has not yet found it.

The coast guard is still searching for the crew in the Mediterranean Sea, though hopes are fading of them being found alive.

US policy of using drone strikes to carry out targeted killings 'may encourage other states to flout international law'

The US policy of using aerial drones to carry out targeted killings presents a major challenge to the system of international law that has endured since the second world war, a United Nations investigator has said.

Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, summary or arbitrary executions, told a conference in Geneva that President Obama's attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere, carried out by the CIA, would encourage other states to flout long-established human rights standards.

In his strongest critique so far of drone strikes, Heyns suggested some may even constitute "war crimes". His comments come amid rising international unease over the surge in killings by remotely piloted unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Addressing the conference, which was organized by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a second UN rapporteur, Ben Emmerson QC, who monitors counter-terrorism, announced he would be prioritizing inquiries into drone strikes.

Syria shot down a Turkish warplane over the Mediterranean on Friday, risking a new crisis between Middle Eastern neighbors already at bitter odds over a 16-month-old revolt against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Syria had admitted it had shot down the plane and apologized, BBC Monitoring reported, citing Turkey's state news agency Anatolia.

Turkey said earlier it had lost contact with one of its military aircraft off its southeastern coast after it took off from Erhac airport in the eastern province of Malatya.

Turkish officials said Erdogan, who was returning to Ankara from Brazil on Friday evening, would convene a security meeting with the interior and foreign ministers and the chief of general staff. They did not say what would be discussed.

Turkey's military said a search and rescue operation was under way. Two crew were aboard the F-4 jet, Anatolia said.

© Reuters/Raheb HomavandiIran's Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi

Iran has detected a planned "massive cyber attack" against its nuclear facilities, state television said on Thursday, after talks with major powers this week failed to resolve a row over Tehran's disputed nuclear activities.

Iran's Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi said the country's arch enemies the United States and Israel, along with Britain, had planned the attack.

"Based on obtained information, America and the Zionist regime (Israel) along with the MI6 planned an operation to launch a massive cyber attack against Iran's facilities following the meeting between Iran and the P5+1 in Moscow," Iran's English-language Press TV quoted him as saying.

"They still seek to carry out the plan, but we have taken necessary measures," he added, without elaborating.

Despite a pledged ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel, attacks escalated on both sides of the Gaza border June 23, killing at least three Palestinian men and a 6-year-old boy in Gaza, and wounding an Israeli man in Sderot, officials said.

Ayman Taha, spokesman for the Hamas government, which rules Gaza, said Saturday night that the Egyptian-brokered agreement, reached June 21, did not specify "a certain hour for the ceasefire to take effect."

"We will be committed to the ceasefire as long as Israel does," he said by telephone.

Spokesmen for the Israel Defense Forces and for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not discuss the ceasefire. But as two dozen rockets rained down on the weary neighbourhoods near Gaza City, the Israeli military chief, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, called a rare Sabbath meeting of top aides to "determine the next course of action," according to a military spokeswoman.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, was briefed by Gantz and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and told them "to do what needs to be done to protect Israel's population," a senior aide said.

While insurgents try to recapture at least some of the areas lost in the last week and make it to the outskirts of towns in western Syria, more details on foreign detainees come to light, which may start political discussions back home.

­Consultant and peace activist Christoph R. Hörstel told RT that his information "is directly obtained from Syrian security personnel of various origins personally taking part in battles and other operations, and/or close relatives of such personnel - some are even well-known people".

"The information reaches me through a partner in Turkey. I counter-check all information obtained this way as best as possible under the circumstances," Hörstel said.

Insurgents and terrorists are trying to infiltrate back to the lost strongholds in Hafeh and Idlib. They try to return from the rural areas, but face strong army resistance in these areas, plus in Homs and Hama. As the rebels lost most of their weapon stockpiles, they intend now to carry out terror attacks in civilian areas, using improvised bombs.

Lyndon Johnson wanted war on Vietnam and got it.

The August 1964 false flag Gulf of Tonkin incident initiated full-scale conflict after Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

War was authorized without declaring it.

It's an American tradition. Big lies launch wars. Manufactured pretexts initiate them. Mass killing and destruction follow.

One nation after another is ravaged. Syria's next, then Iran, followed by other states on Washington's hit list.

On June 22, Turkey provocatively flew two warplanes at low altitude over Syrian airspace. It wanted a response and got it.

On June 23, Syria's SANA state media headlined "Military Spokesman: Anti-Air Defenses Intercepted a Target That Violated Syrian Airspace Over Territorial Waters, Shot It Down West of Lattakia," saying:

"At 11:40 AM on 22/6/2012, an unidentified aerial target violated Syrian airspace, coming from the west at a very low altitude and at high speed over territorial waters, so the Syrian anti-air defenses counteracted with anti-aircraft artillery, hitting it directly as it was 1 kilometer away from land, causing it to crash into Syrian territorial waters west of Om al-Tuyour village in Lattakia province, 10 kilometers from the beach."

Syria's military spokesman also said naval forces from both countries were "searching for the two missing pilots."

Some media sources said both crew members were rescued. Others said they're still missing.