The Philippines says the foreign-backed militant groups in Syria have not released 21 Filipino UN peacekeepers that they have held hostage. - Raul Hernandez, the spokesman of the Philippine Foreign Ministry, said the militants were expected to free the peacekeepers early on Friday, but they have failed to free the hostages. On March 6, the militants in Syria detained 21 soldiers, who are part of a 300-strong Filipino peacekeeping unit stationed in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The US military's Special Operations commander is asking lawmakers to lift restrictions that keep American forces from training foreign units with records of human rights violations. He says the US needs to engage such forces "more than ever before." - The restrictions, written by Democratic Vermont Senator Jim Leahy, ban funding that would be used to train foreign military units if they are linked - through credible evidence - to serious human rights violations.

An American writer says he believes the United States murdered Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez by infecting him with cancer causing elements just as Israelis had poisoned Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to death.

The comment comes as on Tuesday, Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro announced that President Hugo Chavez passed away after a two-year battle with cancer. Hours later, Maduro announced the expulsion of two U.S. embassy officials while implicitly accusing Washington of having infected Chavez with the cancer virus. In a tacit reference to the U.S., Maduro said, “We have no doubt” that Chavez’s cancer was induced by “the historical enemies of our homeland.” Press TV has conducted an interview with American writer, radio host and columnist at Veterans Today, Stephen Lendman. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Stephen Lendman: Chávez: A Personal Tribute
MundoObrero.es: Madrid también lloró a Chavéz
Al-Manar News: 7 Days of Mourning in Venezuela, State Funeral Held Friday

A week after the start of the $1.2 trillion budget cut known as the “sequester,” the Obama administration and top Republicans are seeking a deal to sharply cut Medicare and Social Security. - President Barack Obama has initiated what commentators called a “charm offensive,” aimed at an entitlement-cutting “Grand Bargain” with the Republicans. On Wednesday, he invited twelve Republican Senators to dinner at the Jefferson Hotel in downtown Washington, picking up the tab from his personal funds. On Thursday, he had lunch with Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican House budget chief and former vice-presidential candidate, who is closely associated with the drive to dismantle Medicare.

Google Inc. has revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) spies on and monitors the private information of its clients. - The Internet giant released a report on Tuesday, highlighting the number of times since 2009 the FBI has used National Security Letters (NSL) to spy on and gather information on Google’s clients. During the second half of 2012, the FBI requested data from over 14,790 accounts, with more than 10,000 of those users targeted with subpoenas, and 3,000 accounts requested with a search warrant. Nearly 1,250 users had their information inundated by court orders issued under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The FBI requested the “name, address, length of service, and local and long distance toll billing records” of Google users, the company revealed. The FBI is not permitted to obtain user email content, search queries, YouTube videos or IP addresses.

The federal trial against alleged computer criminal Barrett Brown has been delayed by six months. Now the activist once called the “spokesperson” of the Anonymous hacker movement will wait in prison for one full year before being tried. Brown, 31, was scheduled to stand trial later this month for a slew of charges that have handed down in three separate indictments filed by the government since last September. Per the request of his attorneys, however, legal proceedings have been pushed back for six months, delaying the trial until September 2013.

The US Senate on Thursday approved President Obama's counterterrorism advisor John O. Brennan as head of the Central Intelligence Agency by a vote of 63 to 34.

Brennan is a 25-year CIA veteran and has been a main architectt of the Obama administration's drone strategy in pursuit of al Qaeda linked militants operating on foreign soils. In the confirmation process leading to the vote, the US lawmakers raised questions regarding the use of drones against American citizens considered as threat. The confirmation vote was delayed by a filibuster by Republican Senator Rand Paul, who spent nearly 13 hours on the floor, asking the Administration to make clear its domestic drone policy. The senator from Kentucky received a letter from Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. who [disingenuously] assured the lawmaker that the president does not have the authority to use a drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil. Reacting to Senate endorsement of his pick, President Obama said with the bipartisan confirmation of John Brennan as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency,

"the Senate has recognized in John the qualities I value so much his determination to keep America safe, his commitment to working with Congress, his ability to build relationships with foreign partners, and his fidelity to the values that define us as a nation."

PressTV: US Senate confirms Brennan as next CIA director
John Glaser: Brennan Confirmed After Rand Paul’s Anti-Drone Filibuster
Drones, Targeted Killing of Americans, Torture Dominate John Brennan Senate Confirmation Hearing

Tests of water samples from Antarctica's Lake Vostok have yielded a completely new class of bacteria, a Russian scientist has told reporters. - The frozen samples were brought up from under the Antarctic ice in May 2012. Sergei Bulat of St. Petersburg’s Nuclear Physics Institute said they collected a core sample of water frozen into the borehole. He said the probe contained bacteria that didn’t belong to any known phyla, which is the next ranking above a class in size. In May, the samples will be brought to the lab by the Akademik Feodorov icebreaker to confirm the discovery.

A son-in-law of Osama bin Laden who served as al Qaeda's spokesman was arrested in Jordan and then brought to New York in an operation led by Jordanian authorities and the FBI, U.S. government sources said on Thursday. - The sources said Suleiman Abu Ghaith, a militant who appeared in videos representing al Qaeda after the Sept. 11, attacks on New York and Washington in 2001, had initially been picked up in Turkey. The Turkish government deported him to Jordan, said the sources, where local authorities and the FBI took custody of him. He had been brought to the United States in the last few days, a law enforcement source said. Abu Ghaith is now being held in a detention facility in the New York City area and is expected to be charged and eventually brought to trial in federal court. The trial would most likely be in U.S. District Court in lower Manhattan, only blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the Sept. 11 attacks, a law enforcement source said. The Justice Department declined to comment and the FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Associated Press: US court charges "al-Qaida" spokesman on 9/11 crimes [Inside Job]

The Guardian: Osama bin Laden's son-in-law detained in US operation in Jordan - Peter King, a senior Republican member of the House intelligence committee and former chairman of the House committee on homeland security he commended our CIA and FBI, our allies in Jordan, and President Obama for their capture of al-Qaida spokesman Suleiman Abu Ghaith and [ominously] [added that] he trusted Abu Ghaith would receive a "vigorous interrogation" [torture], and [that he] would face "swift and certain justice" [death].

France [says] it will start withdrawing its troops from Mali by April, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Thursday. - "From April, we will start decreasing the number of troops engaged in Mali," Fabius stated. However, "This does not mean that we will go overnight," he added. The military campaign in the Ifoghas mountain range, the stronghold of extremist fighters in northern Mali will end "within weeks," the French top diplomat said. Asked if al-Qaeda main figures Abou Zeid and Mokhtar Belmokhtar were killed in fighting, the French minister said "many leaders were among the hundreds of terrorists who have been killed during the operation," without giving accurate details on their identities.

Stars and Stripes: Pentagon Deploying More Marines, Green Berets To Africa

North Korea responded to new UN sanctions on Friday with fresh threats of nuclear war, the scrapping of peace pacts with South Korea and the severing of a hotline with Seoul. - The latest measures announced by Pyongyang ramped up tensions on the Korean peninsula that have surged since the North staged a third nuclear test last month. On Thursday, the country had threatened a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States and South Korea.

BBC: North Korea ends peace pacts with South
New York Times: Two Koreas Engage in Hostile Exchanges After Sanctions Vote