The BBC is facing criticism after it accidentally used a picture taken in Iraq in 2003 to illustrate the senseless massacre of children in Syria.

Photographer Marco di Lauro said he nearly "fell off his chair" when he saw the image being used, and said he was "astonished" at the failure of the corporation to check their sources.

The picture, which was actually taken on March 27, 2003, shows a young Iraqi child jumping over dozens of white body bags containing skeletons found in a desert south of Baghdad.

It was posted on the BBC news website today under the heading "Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows".

The caption states the photograph was provided by an activist and cannot be independently verified, but says it is "believed to show the bodies of children in Houla awaiting burial".

A BBC spokesman said the image has now been taken down.

The new Iranian Majlis (parliament) has strongly condemned the ruthless massacre of defenseless Syrians in Houla, saying the US is responsible for the attack.

"The barbaric massacre of the innocent people of Houla, in Homs, is reminiscent of the merciless terrorist atrocities in Sabra and Shatila and is a blatant symbol of terrorist acts and mass murder in this juncture of human history," the 9th Majlis lawmakers said in a statement Monday.

On May 25, deadly clashes broke out between Syrian forces and armed groups in Houla, located in the central province of Homs.

Head of the UN observer mission in Syria Major General Robert Mood said in a briefing via video from Damascus to an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Sunday that UN observers in Houla estimate 108 people were killed, including 49 children and 34 women.

A new kind of malware that is more sophisticated and damaging than the notorious Stuxnet and Duqu worms is likely being deployed by a nation state, say the cybersecurity firms that uncovered it.

"Duqu and Stuxnet raised the stakes in the cyberbattles being fought in the Middle East, but now we've found what might be the most sophisticated cyberweapon yet unleashed," wrote analyst Alexander Gostev in a blog post on the website of Kaspersky Lab Monday.

Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab, Budapest-based Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security (CrySysLab) and Iran's Maher Computer Emergency Response Team Co-ordination Centre (CERTCC) have all independently uncovered the Trojan while investigating widescale cyberattacks.

The worm, which has variously been dubbed Flame, Flamer or SkyWiper, is able to mine a vast array of data from infected machines by:

• Surveying network traffic.
• Taking screenshots, including in instant messaging programs.
• Recording audio conversations via a computer's internal microphone.
• Collecting passwords.
• Intercepting keyboard actions
• Gleaning information from devices connected to the infected machine by Bluetooth.
• Scanning hard drives for specific file extensions or content.
• Transmitting data to servers that control the malware

"Flame is one of the most complex threats ever discovered," Gostev wrote.

It far surpasses Stuxnet and Duqu, two worms behind cyberattacks against technology related to Iran's nuclear energy program, both in size - the program used to deploy it is 20 MB versus about 500 KB - and in its capability to steal information in so many different ways.

"It's a complete attack tool kit designed for general cyber-espionage purposes," writes Gostev.

This week has been full of illuminating disclosures concerning the American criminal-justice system. Last Monday, a Columbia Law School project showed convincingly that Carlos DeLuna, executed for homicide by the state of Texas in 1989, was innocent of the crime; the project also showed who actually committed the crime. The revelation was shocking in part because DeLuna's name had never figured among the dozen or more prisoners executed by Texas whose guilt has been vigorously and publicly contested; even his own lawyers seemed to have assumed his guilt.

Four days later, news broke in the case of Cameron Todd Willingham - executed by Texas in 2004 for murders, dubbed the "Texas witch trials," that involved bizarre allegations of occultism related to the defendant's love of heavy-metal music - when a state district-court judge reviewing the case concluded that Texas had wrongfully convicted and executed Willingham. The judge, who cited "overwhelming, credible and reliable evidence" presented at a hearing in October 2010, prepared an order of posthumous exoneration, but its issuance was effectively blocked by a state appellate court, which criticized the continued exploration of the Willingham case.

Now, a joint project by students and faculty at the University of Michigan and Northwestern University law schools has assembled the details (.pdf) of more than 2,000 exonerations since 1989.

This past October, at an Occupy encampment in Cleveland, Ohio, "suspicious males with walkie-talkies around their necks" and "scarves or towels around their heads" were heard grumbling at the protesters' unwillingness to act violently. At meetings a few months later, one of them, a 26-year-old with a black Mohawk known as "Cyco," explained to his anarchist colleagues how "you can make plastic explosives with bleach," and the group of five men fantasized about what they might blow up. Cyco suggested a small bridge. One of the others thought they'd have a better chance of not hurting people if they blew up a cargo ship. A third, however, argued for a big bridge - "Gotta slow the traffic that's going to make them money" - and won. He then led them to a connection who sold them C-4 explosives for $450. Then, the night before the May Day Occupy protests, they allegedly put the plan into motion - and just as the would-be terrorists fiddled with the detonator they hoped would blow to smithereens a scenic bridge in Ohio's Cuyahoga Valley National Park traversed by 13,610 vehicles every day, the FBI swooped in to arrest them.

Right in the nick of time, just like in the movies. The authorities couldn't have more effectively made the Occupy movement look like a danger to the republic if they had scripted it. Maybe that's because, more or less, they did.

On May 15, the anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, its Arab citizens observed a day of mourning for the victims of the Naqba ("catastrophe") - the mass exodus of half the Palestinian people from the territory which became Israel.

Like every year, this aroused much fury. Tel Aviv University allowed Arab students to hold a meeting, which was attacked by ultra-right Jewish students. Haifa University forbade the meeting altogether. Some years ago the Knesset debated a "Naqba Law" that would have sent commemorators to prison for three years. This was later moderated to the withdrawal of government funds from institutions that mention the Naqba.

The Only Democracy in the Middle East may well be the only democracy in the world that forbids its citizens to remember a historical event. Forgetting is a national duty.

"We believe that there have been fewer suicide bombers coming through Syria, and we are cautious about this assessment, but we do think that the Syrians may have been taking more active steps against al Qaeda, which is understandable. I mean, if al Qaeda were ever to succeed in Iraq, the next thing they'd do is turn ... [to] Damascus. I can assure you." - General Petraeus, American Chief of Al-Qaeda. Source: ABC, "Time to Head to Congress," September 4, 2007.

"Take notes. Because this is how it's done, time and time again - another clear example how large media outlets can effectively drive reality in the direction of their choosing, and this is why so many millions of public media consumers are left misinformed and dis informed, eventually leading to a marginal public endorsement of Washington, London and Tel Aviv's interventionist foreign policy objectives." - Patrick Henningsen, "Phony 'Houla Massacre': How Media Manipulates Public Opinion For Regime Change in Syria," May 28, 2012.

"What on earth could the Syrian regime have stood to benefit from this macabre massacre of Sunnis? What could its "logic" or motives possibly have been? How could the regime have ensured or at least contributed to its longevity by this act? What interests could this heinous act have served other than militarizing the existing UN presence; inviting foreign military intervention into Syria; increasing calls among NATO countries for establishing "humanitarian corridors"; turning Sunnis (given the identity of those massacred) against Alawites; and further tarnishing the regime's already badly beaten public image?" - Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, "Why it is highly unlikely the Syrian regime was behind the Houla massacre," May 28, 2012.

Well, well, well, what do we have here? Another case of the media using the trail of blood and guts left in the streets by foreign-backed terrorists and savage Salafist mercenaries to discredit Syria's honourable resistance against Imperialism and the expansionist policies of Israel? I'm shocked, absolutely shocked.

The US government supports democracy and human rights protests everywhere, except in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Palestine -- and America.

The US government is the second worst human rights abuser on the planet and the sole enabler of the worst--Israel.

But this doesn't hamper Washington from pointing the finger elsewhere.

The US State Department's "human rights report" focuses its ire on Iran and Syria, two countries whose real sin is their independence from Washington, and on the bogyman- in-the-making--China, the country selected for the role of Washington's new Cold War enemy.

Hillary Clinton, another in a long line of unqualified Secretaries of State, informed "governments around the world: we are watching, and we are holding you accountable," only we are not holding ourselves accountable or Washington's allies like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the NATO puppets.

A U.S. drone strike Monday aiming for an al-Qaida leader has killed five [alleged] militants in the country's south as part of a Yemeni offensive against the Islamist group, Yemeni officials said.

They said the airstrike targeted Qaid al-Dahab, a[n alleged] local leader of al-Qaida, in a convoy of three cars near the town of Radda, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of the capital, Sanaa. Four militants were wounded. The officials said al-Dahab's fate was not yet known.

Al-Dahab's sister was the wife of Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born radical militant cleric killed by a U.S. drone strike last fall.

There was no immediate word from Washington on the strike that targeted al-Dahab.

On Sunday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta defended drone strikes in Yemen as a measure "to defend and protect the United States of America." He was interviewed by the American ABC TV network.

The Munafiqeen [Hypocrites] will be in the lowest depths of the Fire: no helper wilt thou find for them.

~ Sura 4 (An-Nisa), ayah 145, Qur'an

A couple of months ago, one of those dubious leaks made by "unnamed US officials" caught my eye. US media did something it doesn't often do; it publicised 'secret' Israeli government policy. Giving five minutes of prime time TV to Iranian scientist Mohammad Javad Larijani, brother of Ali Larijani, philosopher and chairman of the Parliament of Iran, two "senior U.S. officials" confirmed for NBC News what Mohammad Larijani was telling them: that Israel was behind the assassinations of Iranian scientists.

Specifically, the US officials stated that Israel's Mossad was financing, training and arming an Iranian dissident group that goes by many names, but which we'll call the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) for now. In return, the MEK is "providing Israel with information." Speaking through NBC, these unknown officials confirmed what Larijani and the Iranian government have been saying for years: that Israel, through the MEK, carried out the attacks in which motorcycle-borne assailants attached sophisticated magnetic bombs to the exterior of the victims' cars. The US officials further stated that the Obama administration is aware of the assassination campaign but has no direct involvement.

No sooner had the story been leaked than a series of car bombings took place outside Israeli embassies in India, Georgia and Singapore. The same types of bombs used in the assassinations of Iranian scientists were used to blow up vehicles near Israeli diplomats. The Israelis never actually intended to kill any of their own, because the Mossad warned the embassies ahead of time. Israel of course blamed Iran for the bombings. But these stunts were clearly intended to deflect attention from the US government's confirmation that Israel is murdering Iranian scientists through its surrogate, the MEK, and, once again, portray Israel as the eternal victim.