Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government's become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree. The survey indicates a partisan divide on the question: only 37 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans say the federal government poses a threat to the rights of Americans. According to CNN poll numbers released Sunday, Americans overwhelmingly think that the U.S. government is broken - though the public overwhelmingly holds out hope that what's broken can be fixed. (The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted February 12-15, with 1,023 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the overall survey.)

Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak has urged the US administration to impose crippling sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. "At this stage it's important to impose serious and crippling sanctions in order to prevent it from achieving nuclear ability," Barak said referring to Iran during a meeting with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates in Washington on Thursday.

The captured ringleader of the Jundallah terrorist group, Abdolmalek Rigi, has confessed that the US administration had assured him of unlimited military aid and funding for waging an insurgency against the Islamic Republic of Iran. The following is the detailed transcript of Rigi's confession, stated in Farsi, as broadcasted on Press TV. AWIP: Iran to reveal evidence of Jundallah ties with US.

Call them what you will: bottom feeders, corporate con-men, flim-flam artists, peddlers of crisis, you name it. You can't help but marvel how enterprising security firms have the uncanny ability to sniff-out new opportunities wherever they can find, or manufacture, them. After all, nothing sells like fear and in "new normal" America fear is an industry with a limitless growth potential.

Scientists have discovered an area of the North Atlantic Ocean where plastic debris accumulates. The region is said to compare with the well-documented "great Pacific garbage patch". Kara Lavender Law of the Sea Education Association told the BBC that the issue of plastics had been "largely ignored" in the Atlantic. She announced the findings of a two-decade-long study at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Portland, US.

A commercial ­dispute breaks out in the South Atlantic. ­Argentina asserts a hoary claim to the Falklands and takes it to the UN. Britain says push off, you must be joking. Nobody takes it ­seriously as war is inconceivable. ­Downing Street is more concerned with domestic unpopularity. That was in March 1982. It was also last week. Then the tabloids greeted Argentina's claim with Stick It Up Your Junta. Now they are equally nuanced, calling the Argentine president, Cristina Kirchner, Queen Argie Bargy and Old Plastic Face. Then it took nine weeks of counter-invasion, with 1,000 deaths and £3bn spent, for Britain to restore the status quo ante. The Falklands war was a catastrophic failure of diplomacy and deterrence. Now, at least, war is unlikely. AWIP: Escalating Falklands oil dispute goes to UN.

A British court on Friday made public a ruling criticizing domestic intelligence agency MI5's handling of alleged victim of torture overseas, rejecting a government attempt to keep it secret. A three-judge panel at Britain's Court of Appeal published a paragraph of a judge's draft ruling that was previously withheld after government lawyer Jonathan Sumption complained it contained unsubstantiated criticism. That ruling published details of the mistreatment of ex-Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed, who alleges he was tortured in Pakistan in 2002.

The European Court of Justice has ruled that Israeli goods made in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank cannot be considered Israeli. This means goods made by Israelis or Jews in the West Bank cannot benefit from a trade deal giving Israel preferential access to EU markets. EU import duties on Israeli goods from the settlements may now be imposed, making them less competitive.

The Islamic bloc at the UN calls for international action against Israel's decision to designate two shrines in the occupied West Bank as "national heritage sites." Speaking on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) UN ambassadors, Syria's United Nations Ambassador Bashar Jaafari condemned the "illegality and illegitimacy" of the Israeli decision which they view as "null and void." They called on all relevant UN bodies to take urgent, required measures to force Israel to rescind this decision and urged the Security Council, the General Assembly and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to shoulder their responsibility. AWIP/Khalid Amayreh: Fabricating history.

The rumors of a possible partnership by John Paulson and Goldman Sachs in the speculative attacks on Greece, which I first reported on last week, are now heating up in Europe to the point where one French journalist has multiple sources corroborating them. No one can point to hard evidence, just yet, because these are opaque, unregulated markets. But the news is quickly rising above the status of rumor. NYT: In Greece’s Crisis, Fed Studies Wall St.’s Activities. + Banks Helped Create Greece's Financial Crisis -- Now They're Betting It Will Get Worse.

MEP and UKIP leader Nigel Farage on Wednesday delivered another major tirade brilliant verbal attack on EU President Herman van Rompuy and, along the way, severely insulted Belgium and Greece during a plenary debate.

[Editor's Comment:] Strong words alright, but then democracy in Europe may soon be history. The situation is very, very serious. Mr. Farage obviously understands what is at stake and has what it takes, and more. (The Mexicans would refer to it as "cojones". In case you're still in doubt, think of an American politician -but just the opposite of such a spineless creature. -See?)

Ban Ki-moon urges environment ministers to reject attempts by sceptics to undermine negotiations by "exaggerating" shortcomings in Himalayan glaciers report. The UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, today urged environment ministers to reject attempts by sceptics to undermine efforts to forge a climate change deal, stressing that global warming poses "a clear and present danger."

[Editor's Comment:] Geez, where does this guy Ban Ki-moon get his ideas from? "A clear and present danger" is an American political phrase used to justify the unjustifiable. -Ever since a Hollywood production named A clear and Present Danger (1994) (actually since even before 1994) where CIA Analyst Jack Ryan is drawn into an illegal war fought by the US government against a Colombian drug cartel, through the US government's scare tactics like "Bioterrorism: a clear and present danger" and "Cyber terrorism: a clear and present danger, the sum of all fears, breaking point or patriot games?" to the American think tanks' warmongering & lies, their "Two-War Construct" to justify the illegal & unwarranted attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan, it is now universally recognized that only American war hawks talk like that. -And now apparently this US/NWO stooge from the US client state of Korea does so too...Well, the science is not "settled" and never will be, and the so-called "errors" & "inaccuracies" in the IPCC's reports are nothing of the sort. -We're talking about consciously manipulated data here and they did it for a purpose! This is the science scam of our generation, involving a clear and present conspiracy to deceive, exploit and enslave us all. -This is what the movers & shakers want: a global government and the end of national sovereignty. Or, in the words of Ban Ki-moon himself: “We will establish a global governance structure to monitor and manage the implementation of this.”

AWIP: Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 6 + UN Chief: We Will Impose Global Governance. + Obama urges action at Copenhagen. + Draft text 'threatens' UN climate deal. Daily Telegraph: Climategate: the official cover-up continues: If there’s one thing that stinks even more than Climategate, it’s the attempts we’re seeing everywhere from the IPCC and Penn State University to the BBC to pretend that nothing seriously bad has happened, that “the science” is still “settled”, and that it’s perfectly OK for the authorities go on throwing loads more of our money at a problem that doesn’t exist. Examiner: U.N. announces independent review of IPCC climate agency as skepticism grows.

Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has called for a jihad or armed struggle against Switzerland branding it an "infidel state". Libya's relations with Switzerland broke down in 2008 when one of Colonel Gaddafi's sons, Hannibal, was arrested in a Geneva hotel and charged with assaulting a member of his staff. He was detained for two days before being released, but in protest Libya cut oil supplies to Switzerland, withdrew billions of dollars from Swiss bank accounts and arrested two Swiss businessmen working in the North African country.

American troops will remain in Haiti for the foreseeable future to help the quake-ravaged country get back on its feet, the US ambassador to the Caribbean nation told AFP Thursday. "There are about 6,500 soldiers in Haiti at the moment. There were some 20,000 for the emergency effort launched in the wake of January 12," ambassador Kenneth Merten said. AWIP/Stephen Lendman: Focus on Haiti: Washington's Militarized Takeover. AWIP/Michel Chossudovsky: The Militarization of Emergency Aid to Haiti: Is it a Humanitarian Operation or an Invasion? AWIP/Marguerite Laurent: Oil in Haiti – Economic Reasons for the UN/US Occupation. AWIP/William Bowles: Disasters are Big Business.

An 18-year-old Tampa man was jailed Tuesday afternoon, charged with wearing a clown mask on a public road. Deputies say Matthew David Lopez, of 7003 Ponderosa Drive, was seen with two other people walking south on N 58th Street, just north of E Fowler Avenue. What caught a deputy's attention was Lopez's masked face with a bright red-and-orange wig, according to an arrest affidavit.