Fast and furious hasn’t been discussed a lot in the mainstream media, which is why the facts can seem so preposterous when you read them for the first time. But the story is slowly unraveling and the public is catching up with the madness. On Wednesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt over his decision to withhold documents related to the “gun walking” operation – documents that President Obama tried to keep secret by invoking executive privilege. The question of why the Prez intervened in this way will surely hang over the investigation and the White House for many months to come. Be patient, conservatives. It took nearly eight months for the Watergate break in to become a national news story. But when it finally did, it toppled a President.

Lebanon's Hezbollah-owned Al-Manar television station said on Friday that Syrian air defences shot down a Turkish military aircraft, quoting Syrian security sources.

"Syrian security sources confirmed to a Manar correspondent in Damascus that Syrian defence forces shot down the Turkish fighter jet," a news flash on the Beirut-based station said.

BBC: Turkish military jet 'downed by Syria' near border - Turkey's government has called an emergency security meeting amid reports that one of its fighter jets was shot down by Syrian security forces. The Turkish military earlier said it had lost contact with an F-4 Phantom over the Mediterranean Sea on Friday morning, south-west of Hatay province. It did not confirm reports that Syrian air defence forces were responsible. But local media are quoting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as saying "the other side have expressed regret". Mr Erdogan also revealed that the two crew members were safe. Relations between Turkey and Syria, once close allies, have deteriorated sharply since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011.

The Telegraph: Syria 'shoots down Turkish fighter jet'
Hürriyet: Syria apologizes for taking down Turkish warplane: Turkish PM

Armed groups fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have killed 25 more civilians in the northern province of Aleppo. - According to Syria’s official news agency, SANA, the massacre took place in Daret Azzeh area in Aleppo countryside on Friday and the victims had been kidnapped by armed gangs earlier in the day. Some reports suggest that the victims are all government supporters.

PressTV: Armed gangs hampering rescue efforts in Homs

CIA officers are engaged in a supposed vetting process for which fighters get arms. - The CIA has officers secretly operating in southern Turkey, helping allies to funnel arms to Syrian opposition fighters across the border into Syria to aid in the fight against the regime of President Bashar al Assad. “The weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons, are being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar,” according to the New York Times. The Times reports the CIA officers have been in southern Turkey for several weeks aiming to help keep the weapons and ammunition flowing across the border out of the hands of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups within the rebel militias. This corresponds to reports in May that the Obama administration was preparing a plan that would attempt to vet rebel militias in Syria to determine whether they would be suitable recipients of munitions through US allies.

Stephen Lendman: CIA Arming Syrian Insurgents
Russia Today: Revealed: CIA secretly operates on Syrian border, supplies arms to rebels

Julian Assange fue arrestado al emitirse una Alerta Roja de Interpol y una Orden Europea de Extradición tan solo cuatro días después de iniciar la más grande filtración d e información secreta de los Estados Unidos de América por los diarios con mayor distribución del mundo, en Diciembre de 2010. La orden se emitió para interrogarlo solamente. Un año y medio después de su arresto aún no existe ningún cargo en su contra y no está siendo procesado en Suecia. El caso aún se encuentra en la fase de investigaciones por lo que no está sujeto a proceso judicial alguno, en ningún país del mundo. Julian Assange llegó a Suecia con el propósito de establecer sus operaciones en dicho país y buscar una residencia, atraído por la legislación que protege la libertad de expresión y la censura previa.

Julian Assange no tiene ningún cargo criminal por el cual esté siendo procesado, ni en Suecia ni en ningún otro país. La fiscalía sueca argumenta que quiere extraditarlo con el fin de interrogarle. Durante todo el proceso, Assange ha exigido que la fiscalía sueca le interrogue en el Reino Unido. Esto requeriría que las autoridades suecas recurrieran a mecanismos estándares para efectuar un interrogatorio por métodos de asistencia judicial mutua o comisiones rogatorias, videoconferencias o simple entrevista telefónica. Hasta la fecha Suecia ha negado dicha posibilidad a Julian Assange. Además Julian Assange no huyó de Suecia para evitar un interrogatorio: le dieron permiso para dejar el país el 15 de Septiembre de 2010, tras haber estado allí 5 semanas para contestar las alegaciones que se hicieron contra él.

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WL Central: Julian Assange's first interview from Ecuadorian Embassy
Reuters: Assange says ready for life in Ecuador

Citing Potential ‘War Crimes’ UN Official Questions Legality of Drone War. Christof Heyns, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, is demanding legal justification from the Obama administration. - A UN investigator has called on the Obama administration to explain under what legal framework its drone war is justified and suggested that “war crimes” may have already been committed. Christof Heyns, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, urged Washington to clarify the basis under international law of the policy, in a report issued to the United Nations Human Rights Council. “The (US) government should clarify the procedures in place to ensure that any targeted killing complies with international humanitarian law and human rights and indicate the measures or strategies applied to prevent casualties, as well as the measures in place to provide prompt, thorough, effective and independent public investigation of alleged violations,” he said. Citing reports that the US has conducted follow-up drone strikes aimed at people coming to the strike scene to rescue the injured, Heyns said, if it is true, “those further attacks are a war crime.” [...] Pakistani Ambassador Zamir Akram also spoke to say that his country consistently maintained that the use of drones was illegal and violated the sovereignty of Pakistan. “Thousands of innocent people, including women and children, have been murdered in these indiscriminate attacks,” Ambassador Akram said. Twenty-six members of Congress have also called on the President to provide a legal justification for so-called “signature” drone strikes, which allow individuals to be targeted even when their identities are not known. So far, the administration has been silent in the face of these legal challenges.

"We weren't told anything, we were just beaten - our hands, our legs, our bodies," the 42-year old father-of-two said. "I thought I would never make it out alive."

Abdulnasser Ruhuma was asleep in his bed when the militia fighters barged into his Tripoli home. The shouting woke the Libyan bank worker and he rushed downstairs to find around 40 men pointing their rifles at him. Moments later they started beating him. Ruhuma's wife and relatives begged the intruders to stop but they dragged him and his uncle away. Punched, hit with rifle butts and cut with knives, Ruhuma was taken to a makeshift detention centre in the middle of the night.

In a stark reminder of the lawlessness that prevails in Libya eight months after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, the gunmen never told Ruhuma why they abducted him. He says it stems from a family issue - a relative wanted revenge, so he called on the help of an armed brigade.

The campaign to get American citizens in Israel to vote in the upcoming U.S. presidential elections claims it is nonpartisan, despite its candid agenda of electing the most 'pro-Israel’ president, its refusal to divulge its donors and a campaign manager clearly identified with the right. A newly released video inciting against Arab-Americans makes it even more difficult to believe they are neutral. VIDEO

Dipomat is member of the Assad government. - A Syrian diplomat, still actively involved in Bashar Assad's regime, is passing information to Israel and the US through a Jewish agent, Channel 10 reported on Thursday. According to the report, the information was passed to a minister and an MK, each of whom formerly worked in Israel's security establishment. Channel 10 reported that the Syrian diplomat passed information on weapons smuggling from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon through Syria.