It's only a small grave, a rectangle of cheap concrete marking it out, blessed by a flourish of wild yellow lilies. Inside are the powdered bones and skulls and bits of femur of up to 300 children, Armenian orphans of the great 1915 genocide who died of cholera and starvation as the Turkish authorities tried to "Turkify" them in a converted Catholic college high above Beirut. But for once, it is the almost unknown story of the surviving 1,200 children – between three and 15 years old – who lived in the crowded dormitory of this ironically beautiful cut-stone school that proves that the Turks did indeed commit genocide against the Armenians in 1915.

In 2005 the Iraqis walked in their tens of thousands through the thunder of suicide bombers, and voted – the Shias on the instructions of their clerics, the Sunnis sulking in a boycott – to prove Iraq was a "democracy". There followed the most blood-boltered period in Iraq's modern history. Yesterday, the Iraqis walked in their tens of thousands through the thunder of mortar fire – at least 24 dead before voting stations closed – to prove that Iraq was a "democracy".

Once more we have to forget the Armenian Holocaust – the first of the 20th century – in order to appease the Turks. Bill Clinton did it.

How come old soldiers don't write in clichés? We reporters fill our dispatches with clichés about "gathering war clouds" and guns "falling silent" – read any (and I repeat, any) newspaper, and you'll see what I mean. Is it their basic humanity – or savagery, or fear – that largely spares real soldiers from the clichés of journalism and the ungrammatical shorthand of the email?

What keeps old men in power in Egypt? And what keeps middle-aged men wanting power in a country whose crippled society, increasing sectarianism, brutal police force and endemic corruption is only compounded by an electoral system widely regarded as a fraud? Most Egyptians don't think that President Hosni Mubarak is immortal, even though he still reigns supreme at the age of 81. Even the pharaohs believed they would live on only in the next world.

It's back-of-the-book time again, those little funny, sad stories that don't quite make it from the reporter's notebook into a fully fledged dispatch but which shouldn't be thrown away.

I'm a great believer in Correspondent Tours, a company which perhaps The Independent should create. It involves travelling to the cities of our scribes and being taken by them on a guided tour of their city/country.

Collusion. That's what it's all about. The United Arab Emirates suspect – only suspect, mark you – that Europe's "security collaboration" with Israel has crossed a line into illegality, where British passports (and those of other other EU nations) can now be used to send Israeli agents into the Gulf to kill Israel's enemies. At 3.49pm yesterday afternoon (Beirut time, 1.49pm in London), my Lebanese phone rang. It was a source – impeccable, I know him, he spoke with the authority I know he has in Abu Dhabi – to say that "the British passports are real. They are hologram pictures with the biometric stamp. They are not forged or fake. The names were really there. If you can fake a hologram or biometric stamp, what does this mean?"

It's a propaganda war. Whoever killed the Hamas official in Dubai – let's speak frankly – it's part of an old, dirty war between the Israelis and the Palestinians in which they have been murdering their secret police antagonists for decades. Whose were the passports? Or should we say "passports". So here's a moment to reflect on realities.

Tel Aviv is a pleasant city, a relief after the clergy-led madness of Jerusalem, a place of laid-back street cafés and real shops and decent restaurants, although I am reminded of a rival British newspaper that once considered basing its correspondent in Tel Aviv in order to report Israel as a normal country.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told the White House on Sunday that there is only one way to close Guantánamo Bay: by abandoning civilian 9/11 trials. Graham said Sunday that if the White House agrees to try self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators in military tribunals, he will help the president get the votes needed to close the Guantánamo Bay prison facilities.

As John Yoo's visit to Mr. Jefferson's university here in Charlottesville approaches, one is tempted to ask the same question people around here ask about everything: WWJD? What would Jefferson do? Of course, it's almost taboo among the most serious peace and justice advocates to cite positive precedents from Jefferson, because he was a slave owner. But Jefferson's views on the structure of a government don't actually become less admirable (or more) when we remember the horrors he inflicted on the people at Monticello.

On March 4th, 2010, students from all education backgrounds converged on downtown Los Angeles, as well as nationwide, to rally with faculty to protest the slashing of education spending–as well as a 30 percent rate hike at state colleges. Dustin Slaughter is a documentary filmmaker and the the founder of Ramblin’ Man Films.

Since Paxil came on the market in 1992, there have been three separate types of failure to warn lawsuits filed against GlaxoSmithKline over Paxil; birth defects, suicide, and addiction. Roughly 150 suicide cases were settled for an average of about $2 million, and about 300 cases involving suicide attempts were settled for an average of $300,000.

The stated goal of the US-led War in Afghanistan, according to the Obama Administration, is to defeat the Taliban and establish a stable democratic government over the entire country. Critical to that goal is establishing a professional Afghan army and police force that is not corrupt, and that has the respect of the Afghan people. But reports out of Canada suggest that far from creating such a military and police force, the so-called International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) is turning a blind eye to the thuggish criminality of those organizations, both to avoid growing opposition in ISAF member countries, and to avoid offending those organizations in Afghanistan.

David Cole of Georgetown University and formerly of the Center for Constitutional Rights has been doing some good writing, not only on our failure to enforce laws against powerful people, but also on our out-of-control epidemic of incarceration which has struck those too unimportant to gain immunity.

David DeGraw appeared on the Keiser Report to discuss his new book, “The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States of America.” His six-part series can be found here, here, here, here, here and here. David DeGraw: “The American public needs to understand that we have been attacked. We are in an economic ( click title for more )

"Yesterday Jay Bybee sat with the 9th Circuit as they modeled appellate court for 140 law students at the University of NV's law school in Las Vegas. I sent out a plea to PDA's Vegas list of edresses, and about 10 people responded. Of them, two showed up with signs and we handed out Impeach Bybee postcards and talked with the law students as they waited to get through security to go inside. I was appalled at their ignorance and/or lack of outrage. Two older students said he was a friend (he lives in Henderson, just outside Vegas), and a young one said his parents were friends of Bybee.

Today’s war in Afghanistan also has its My Lai massacres. It has them almost weekly, as US warplanes bomb wedding parties, or homes “suspected” of housing terrorists that turn out to house nothing but civilians. But these My Lais are all conveniently labeled accidents. They get filed away and forgotten as the inevitable “collateral damage” of war. There was, however, a massacre recently that was not a mistake--a massacre which, while it only involved fewer than a dozen innocent people, bears the same stench as My Lai.

By Greg Palast Special Report for BBC World News America Broadcast March, 2, 2010 Some vultures have feathers, but some have fancy offices and huge homes. Tonight, BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast follows the trail of one "vulture fund" chief, from a locked office door in New York to mud-brick houses in Africa. Reporter Greg Palast outside the ( click title for more )

Listen to Greg Palast on the BBC World Service

An investigation for BBC's Newsnight has uncovered allegations that speculators subverted the international debt relief process. By Greg Palast and Heather Stewart for The Guardian Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the president of Liberia, is urging MPs to back a bill banning vulture funds from using British courts to prey on poor countries when it comes to a vote on ( click title for more )

by Greg Palast for Op-Ed News In the sixth grade, the Boys' Vice-Principal threatened to suspend me from school unless I stopped carrying around The Catcher in the Rye I think because it had the word "fuck" in it. Since the Boys' Vice-Principal hadn't read the book - and I don't think he'd ever read ( click title for more )

By Greg Palast | Updated from the original report for AlterNet In today's Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court ruled that corporations should be treated the same as "natural persons", i.e. humans. Well, in that case, expect the Supreme Court to next rule that Wal-Mart can run for President. The ruling, which junks ( click title for more )

Blackwater before drinking water by Greg Palast for The Huffington Post Just in! Our plea to send medicine to a friend's father in Haiti was answered by Democracy Now! producer Sharif Abdel-Kouddous who will make the delivery in Port-au-Prince. Apparently DN, unlike the US government, doesn't require armed "Security" to save lives. Click on image to enlarge 1. Bless ( click title for more )

A grateful America welcomes home the troops! Vincent, 102d Rescue Squadron (Iraq). America hasn't forgotten you, Vincent ... help's on the way! Photos by GP (c) PI Fund with Vincent's permission.

Confronting the Globalcrat By Greg Palast This article appears in the December 21, 2009 edition of The Nation. You could call him the Generalissimo of Globalization. The World Trade Organization's director general, Pascal Lamy, was a bit defensive, wanting to assure us that the WTO "wasn't created as a dark club of multinationals secretly cooking plots against the ( click title for more )

by Greg Palast I was in deep, deep, hot, hot water with my editors at The Guardian in London. The paper was facing a ruinous suit by George Bush Sr.'s business buddies because of one of my stories. Then a tall Aussie of dramatic demeanor walked uninvited in my boss' offices and said, ( click title for more )

on 10th Anniversary of the Battle in Seattle Bankers' scheme to re-open finance casino worldwide by Greg Palast for Ring of Fire GENEVA — Apparently, one meltdown isn't enough for the World Trade Organization. They meet today in Geneva on the tenth anniversary of the "Battle in Seattle," when tens of thousands of people from around the world ( click title for more )

I have already written about Svetlana Zakharova, the Kirov ballerina with the astonishing leg extensions. Today I wanted to introduce you to a ballerina that for me is the ONLY "Swan" -Uliana...

As I have noted, the far-right in anti-Obama hunt for Red October had reached new lows when Dick Cheney's daughter Liz launched a slanderous campaign against government lawyers who had in the past...

A brilliant, dedicated, courageous man such as Bill Moyers gets a wonderful shout-out from The Nation: Even in an age of old-media uncertainty, much is still made of the transfer of network...

I am speechless that Reuters ran this ridiculous attack on people with Autism: "Did the financial system blow up because it was built and largely operated by people with many of the...

Breaking: Two police officers were injured by a suspect who opened fire outside the Pentagon tonight after the officers asked him for an access pass, police said. "He was pretty calm,"...

TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport Now available via Stitcher Radio's way cool mobile phone app! Listen on your iPhone, Android, Palm Pre and BlackBerry! IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The Arctic is venting; Food poisoning is expensive; Texas is breaking wind (records, that is); Limbaugh and cow farts ... PLUS: The 'greenest' Oscars yet ... All that and more ( click title for more )

[UPDATED TWICE: Good news! Morrissey quickly corrected his report after we notified him of the incorrect coverage. Bad news! His correction was also incorrect. SECOND UPDATE: Morrissey has copped to his second error as well, and has finally corrected appropriately. Details on all, at bottom of this article. -BF] Once again, the accurate reporting of facts, ( click title for more )

The Department of Justice's Anti-trust division has determined that the purchase of Premier Election Solutions, Diebold Inc.'s recently renamed e-voting division, by Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S), has resulted in a voting machine monopoly. The DoJ and nine states that have joined in a lawsuit are suing to require ES&S to divest of the ( click title for more )

Much more soon on Rightwing propagandist Andrew Breitbart and James O'Keefe's quickly unraveling ACORN "Pimp" Hoax, just how much of a hoax it really was, how the media and Democrats shamefully failed their due diligence in reporting and/or acting on it, and coverage of a lot of new commentary on it all that has been ( click title for more )

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning The March 3, 2010 segment of Democracy Now is so shocking that it is best seen. In Utah, lawmakers have approved a measure that could potentially expose a pregnant woman to murder charges if she is stuck in an abusive relationship, is beaten and miscarries. When one of ( click title for more )

“Blackwater’s Youngest Victim” is a short film we made about the death of 9-year-old Ali Kinani at the hands of Blackwater forces. He was shot in his head during the 2007 Nisour Square massacre and is the youngest victim of that shooting. The film is based on my article by the same title in The Nation magazine. This video was produced with Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films and aired on Democracy Now!

Watch the video, read the article and check out the slide show.

UPDATE on Blackwater, Robert Gates and Pakistan:

Read the full story at The Nation

Downtown Sunnyvale's half-demolished Town and Country shopping center may soon have a new owner. A buyer is slated by next week to take over the 4.6-acre property that lender East West Bank foreclosed on last month.

Completion date tentatively set for May 1

It would be, pure and simple, a flagrant violation of a supreme law of the land, the Senate-ratified United Nations Charter, for the United States to join in an unprovoked assault on Iran without the approval of the UN Security Council, which surely would not go along, notes Ray McGovern .

The idea the United States has some sort of ties to Jundallah and other groups considered 'terrorists' by most Iranians seems to be widely accepted in Tehran as a 'social fact', at least.

It's only a small grave, a rectangle of cheap concrete marking it out, blessed by a flourish of wild yellow lilies. Inside are the powdered bones and skulls and bits of femur of up to 300 children, Armenian orphans of the great 1915 genocide who died of cholera and starvation as the Turkish authorities tried to "Turkify" them in a converted Catholic college high above Beirut. But for once, it is ...

The US wants to deny that Turkey's slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 was genocide. But the evidence is there, in a hilltop orphanage near Beirut, reports Robert Fisk Related Stories Turkey earthquake: Dozens killed while they slept Interpol seeks 16 over Dubai assassination Israelis and Palestinians agree to US-led talks Pope's brother linked to child abuse claims Pope's brother Georg ...

In 2005 the Iraqis walked in their tens of thousands through the thunder of suicide bombers, and voted – the Shias on the instructions of their clerics, the Sunnis sulking in a boycott – to prove Iraq was a "democracy".

In reply to Someone Will Get Robbed At The Oscars : David versus Goliath doesn’t always work. The establishment takes care of that. Look at Ireland against France in the World Cup play-offs.. It was a surprise, maybe a nice surprise, to see Hurt Locker do so well in the Oscars. I’ve never been one for hype. That’s why I was glad to see countries such as New Zealand and Honduras qualify for the ...

On a dreary night, Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010, the University of South Alabama department of foreign languages and literatures and the department of philosophy presented the Hellenic Endowment Distinguished Lecture with Dr. Victor Davis Hanson on “Society and Warfare in Ancient Greece”.

World-renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh is to speak at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference 2010. It is the first time that Hersh will have spoken at GIJC and he will open the morning session in Geneva on Friday 23 April, it has been announced.

Iranian protesters gathered outside the Belgian embassy in Tehran on Monday to demand the extradition of the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) terrorist group members from Europe.

James Cameron, director of Avatar , pretends to strangle his ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow, director of Hurt Locker . Both were up for the best director and best picture awards. She pipped him to the post in both.

Obama pleaded not to tell the truth about the savage rape and murder of 1.5 million Armenian civilians by the Turks in 1915, Robert Fisk wrote in the British Independent.

The ten must-read pieces from this morning's papers. Robert Fisk discusses the Iraqi election, saying that democracy doesn't seem to work when countries are occupied by Western troops -- this election is likely to enshrine the very sectarianism which flourished under Saddam.

Editor’s Note: The neoconservatives who still dominate Washington’s foreign policy circles are setting the stage for a major confrontation with Iran, much as they did with Iraq, and again mainstream U.S. news outlets are serving as supporting actors.

In 2005 the Iraqis walked in their tens of thousands through the thunder of suicide bombers, and voted – the Shias on the instructions of their clerics, the Sunnis sulking in a boycott – to prove Iraq was a "democracy". There followed the most blood-boltered period in Iraq's modern history. Yesterday, the Iraqis walked in their tens of thousands through the thunder of mortar fire – at least 24 ...

Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came home with sweaty palms from his mid-February visit to Israel. Ever since, he has been worrying aloud that Israel might mousetrap the U.S. into war with Iran.

Once more we have to forget the Armenian Holocaust – the first of the 20th century – in order to appease the Turks. Bill Clinton did it.

How come old soldiers don't write in clichés? We reporters fill our dispatches with clichés about "gathering war clouds" and guns "falling silent" – read any (and I repeat, any) newspaper, and you'll see what I mean. Is it their basic humanity – or savagery, or fear – that largely spares real soldiers from the clichés of journalism and the ungrammatical shorthand of the email?

The decision to allow the extradition of Basque ex-prisoner Iñaki de Juana to Spain is “grossly inhumane” and ignores evidence that the Spanish authorities are knowingly abusing the extradition process, spokesperson for the Don’t Extradite the Basques Campaign Kevin Morrison said on Monday 1 March.

What keeps old men in power in Egypt? And what keeps middle-aged men wanting power in a country whose crippled society, increasing sectarianism, brutal police force and endemic corruption is only compounded by an electoral system widely regarded as a fraud? Most Egyptians don't think that President Hosni Mubarak is immortal, even though he still reigns supreme at the age of 81. Even the pharaohs ...

DENVER----The Denver Press Club Board of Directors has named prolific author and political satirist P.J. O’Rourke as recipient of the 16th Annual Damon Runyon Award.

Iran is no match for Israel, whose security and military needs are all but guaranteed by US taxpayers, most of whom are not even aware of this fact. Iran is surrounded on all sides by the US Navy and American bases.

Troubled waters tinge UK's marine protection plan

Muttiah Muralitharan said on Wednesday that John Howard faces difficulty winning over South Asian cricket nations as the new head of the ICC. Former Australian prime minister John Howard was on Tuesday named as a candidate to lead the sport internationally from 2012.

English writer and journalist, Middle East correspondent of The Independent Robert Fisk shared the impression of Missak Keleshians film about the Armenian Genocide.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist who broke the 2004 Abu Ghraib prison scandal will speak at Iowa State University about "The Crisis in American Foreign Policy." Seymour Hersh will speak at 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 9, in the Memorial Union Sun Room. The talk, part of the university's World Affairs Series, is free and open to the public.

Those who believe in climate change are losing the battle for public opinion. According to an Ipsos poll carried out in February on behalf of the advertising agency Euro RSCG, just 31 per cent of people believe that climate change is "definitely a reality", down from 44 per cent a year ago.

Kevin Rudd finally offered a mea culpa on insulation last night. Will it be enough for a press gallery that has been sweating on the chance to get him? An open letter to the media.

10 people Cameron should fear | John Pilger: Israel’s true heroes | Boris Johnson interview.