Forty Million Girls Murdered In One Country!

If a baby girl survives abortion or being buried alive in India,she is forced into prostitution.

It is a crime in India to use an ultrasound to determine the sex of a child and it is also illegal to perform an abortion based on gender,but the laws are rarely enforced.

The Indian government has the resources to spend on stopping this massive ill-treatment of women but it prefers to spend billions on weapons.

India is on a quest for superpower status and is spending its resources on the military. It has already spent $2 billion in Afghanistan to contain Pakistan,and billions more to counter China.

But can the Indian government really stop this mistreatment of Indian women?

It can. The Indian government had $264 billion in its savings account in 2009. This figure has jumped to $307 billion in the first week of December 2011.

So India basically has a rich government that refuses to share wealth with India’s poor,who happen to be largest single block of poverty anywhere in the world.

Read More Here: http://area148.com/cms/?p=9490

STREET BUZZ ON OBL

By Fatima Rizvi
According to the White House spokesman OBL was not armed but he resisted the armed men who shot their way into his room. Exactly how he resisted is not clear but this resistance was the reason that he was shot by a precision shot above his left eye while he was resisting. OBL’s body was buried according to Muslim rites at sea. No real explanation for the hurry. Photographic evidence is being studied because it is very gruesome and may be released later.

The street is asking questions. Was OBL really there? If he was then why was he shot and killed? Why bury him at sea in a hurry unless it was not OBL at all or because he is alive and in custody and being water boarded. Is the gruesome photographic evidence being manufactured?

Read more...

The plight of child housekeepers

On February 11, 2010, Yasmin, a 15-year-old girl was allegedly burnt by her employers in Okara and died five days later in a hospital in Lahore. Her father weeping at the memory of his young daughter revealed later that this was not the first instance of violence at the hands of Yasmin’s employers. “They used to occasionally beat her up over trivial issues and she would often complain about it. I think we should have just told the police before anything like this happened,” he moaned.

Continue reading The plight of child housekeepers

US 'blocks' aid over Raymond Davis issue

By: Ismail Dilawar | Published: March 15, 2011

KARACHI - The United States has finally resorted to punitive measures against Pakistan after Islamabad’s failure to comply with Washington’s covert and overt but pressing demand for the release of Raymond Davis, accused of killing two Pakistani youths in Lahore. The revelation came after the US House of Representatives recently nodded to a Republicans-backed resolution calling for the suspension of economic aid to Pakistan as it was not complying with Washington’s demand for the immediate release of Davis. The resolution is, reportedly, awaiting approval of the American Congress scheduled to reassemble by end of this month. 

Official sources in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs told Pakistan Today that the US disbursements of military and civilian aid to Pakistan under the Coalition Support Fund (CSF) and Kerry-Lugar aid package were “practically blocked” at present. “A high-level American delegation visited and pointed out to Pakistan that if it did not release Davis, the US will block the funding,” an official of the Economic Affairs Division (EAD) told Pakistan Today. If true, the suspension of US aid and assistance would fall heavily on the country’s economic managers who have repeatedly been calling upon their strategic partners in Washington to ensure a ‘timely’ reimbursement of war expenses to Pakistan under CSF.

Davis Arrest Throws US Undercover Campaign in Pakistan into Disarray

This Can’t Be Happening
Davis Arrest Throws US Undercover Campaign in Pakistan into Disarray
By Dave Lindorff | March 1, 2011
The ongoing case of Raymond Davis, the CIA contractor facing murder charges in Lahore for the execution-style slaying of two apparent agents of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, is apparently leading to a roll-back of America’s espionage and Special Operations activities in Pakistan.

A few days ago, Pakistan’s Interior Department, which is reportedly conducting a careful review of the hundreds of private contractors who flooded into Pakistan over the last two years, many with “diplomatic passports,” and many others, like Davis, linked to shady “security” firms, arrested an American security contractor named Aaron DeHaven, a Virginia native who claims to work for a company called Catalyst Services LLC.

The Catalyst Services LLC website describes the company, with offices in Afghanistan, Dubai, the US and Pakistan, as having experience in “logistics, operations, security and finance,” and as having a staff led by “individuals who have been involved in some of the most significant events of the last 20 years,” including “the break-up of the Soviet Union, the US effort in Somalia, and the Global War on Terror.”

DeHaven is being held on a 14-day remand, charged with overstaying his visa and with living in an unauthorized area.

Meanwhile, the English-language Express Tribune in Pakistan reports that according to ISI sources, 30 “suspected US operatives” in Pakistan have “suspended” their operations in the country, while 12 have fled the country.

The paper quotes the Pakistan Foreign Office as saying that 851 Americans claiming diplomatic immunity are currently in Pakistan, 297 of whom are “not working in any diplomatic capacity.” The paper says that the country’s Interior Department claims that 414 of the total are “non-diplomats.” The majority of these American operatives, the paper says, are located in Islamabad (where the US is building a huge fortress-like embassy reminiscent of the one in Baghdad), with the others in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. Most are suspected of being involved in covert missions that report to the US Joint Special Operations Command, with many suspected of being active-duty Special Forces personnel from the Army’s Delta Force. (The website of the JSOC says its responsibility is “synchronizing Department of Defense plans against global terrorist networks and, as directed, conducting global operations.”)

As I reported earlier, both Pakistani and Indian news organizations are claiming, based upon intelligence sources, that Davis was involved in not just intelligence work, but in orchestrating terrorist activity by both the Pakistani Taliban and the terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has been linked to both the assassination of Benezir Bhutto and the capture and beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Multiple calls to members of both groups were found by police on some of the cell phones found on Davis and in his car when he was arrested in Lahore.

It is unclear how far the blow-up in Pakistan over the exposure of America’s role in stirring up unrest in that country will go. Clearly, the ISI and the Pakistani military have long had their own complicated relationship with the Pakistani Taliban, and much of the current anger in both the ISI and the military has to do with the US being found to be working behind their backs, including in its contact with those groups.

But things have been complicated too by mounting public outrage over Davis’s brazen slaughter of the two Pakistanis, who reportedly were tailing him because of concerns about the nature of his activities, and who reportedly were both shot in the back. This public outrage has been further stoked by both a subsequent suicide by the 18-year-old bride of one of the victims, and by the death of an innocent bystander mowed down by a second vehicle carrying several more US contractors which sped to Davis in response to his call for assistance following the shooting. That vehicle, after running down the bystander, raced to sanctuary at the US Consulate. The men in the car, never identified by the consulate, were spirited out of the country by the US so they could avoid arrest.

Further complicating matters for the US, the province of Punjab, of which Lahore is the capital, is run by the opposition party, headed by former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Sharif, who still has presidential aspirations, has no incentive at all to make things easy for the country’s ruling party by letting Davis go. Indeed, with public opinion running almost 100% in favor of trying Davis for murder, Sharif can only gain by insisting that the court system have the final say.

Pakistan’s central government, led by President Asif Ali Zardari, clearly wants to put the Davis incident behind it by having him declared to have diplomatic immunity. Foreign Officials allege that Zardari pressured the Foreign Office in early February to backdate a letter identifying Davis as being a “member of staff” of the US Embassy in Islamabad, which would have afforded him such immunity from prosecution. But the country’s foreign minister at that time, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, reportedly refused, saying, “On the basis of the official record and the advice given to me by the technocrats and experts of the Foreign Office, I could not certify him (Raymond Davis) as a diplomat. The kind of by blanket immunity Washington is pressing for Davis, is not endorsed by the official record of the Foreign Ministry.”

He has subsequently been ousted and replaced by Zardari.

The reality is that the US, which as required, on Jan. 25 submitted to the Foreign Office its annual list of those employees of the US Embassy whom it classified as “diplomats” warranting diplomatic immunity. The list had 48 names on it, and did not include Davis. Only after Davis’s Jan. 27 shooting of the two Pakistani motorcyclists, on Jan. 28, did the US submit a “revised” list, to which Davis’s name had been appended.

The US initially said Davis was an employee of the Lahore Consulate, and Davis himself told arresting police officers that he was a contractor working out of the Lahore Consulate, a role that would not afford him any diplomatic immunity, as consular workers, under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations only receive immunity for their “official duties,” and in any case lose even that limited immunity in the case of “grave crimes.”

His current legal problems, and the public demand that he be tried (and then hanged) for the killings, has definitely led to a reduction in US undercover operations in Pakistan, and to a pullback of at least some of the Special Forces personnel operating there. It will take considerable finesse for the US and the Zardari government to put the the relationship back together–if the Pakistani military and the ISI even want to restore it–finesse that the US has not been very good at displaying.

So far, in fact, the US response to Davis’s arrest has been to bluntly and publicly threaten Pakistan with a loss of foreign and military aid–a threat that seems empty given the American need for Pakistani assistance in supplying its military in Afghanistan, and its need for at lease covert permission to continue sending Predator and Reaper drones across the border to attack Taliban suspects in the tribal border areas. US bluster, and some clumsy efforts to forge records that would purport to show Davis had diplomatic immunity–all widely exposed in the Pakistani media–have only served to further stoke public outrage.

Meanwhile, local authorities in Lahore at the prison where Davis is being held, are so worried that the US may try to have him killed to prevent him from spilling the beans about his activities–for example explaining why the camera he was carrying held photographs of Pakistani military installations as well as of mosques, madrassas and other schools–that they have reportedly posted special guards (unarmed as an added precaution) around his cell, and have been monitoring his food. Davis was reportedly even denied a box of chocolates sent by the US Consulate in Lahore, for fear it might have been laced with poison.

CIA agent Raymond Davis worked for private security firm Xe, formerly known as Blackwater

US reveals that CIA agent Raymond Davis worked for private security firm Xe, formerly known as Blackwater

US official Raymond Davis, arrested for double murder, had “close links” with Taliban and was “instrumental” in recruiting youths for it, a media report claimed on Tuesday, close on the heels of reports in the US that he was a CIA agent.

The “close ties” of Davis, arrested in Lahore on January 27 for killing two men he claimed were trying to rob him, with Tehrik-e-Taliban came out during a probe, The Express Tribune reported quoting an unnamed official of Punjab Police.

“Davis was instrumental in recruiting young people from Punjab for the Taliban,” the official said. The report came a day after The New York Times said that Davis “was part of a covert, CIA-led team of operatives.”

The Express Tribune said that call records retrieved from mobile phones found on Davis had established his links with 33 Pakistanis, including 27 militants from Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. The report claimed Davis was “said to be working on a plan to give credence to the US notion that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are not safe.”

The report came a day after The NYT, citing US government officials , said that Davis "was part of a covert, CIA-led team of operatives conducting surveillance on militant groups deep inside the country." 

Among the groups that Davis was keeping an eye on was the banned LeT, which carried out the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, the NYT said. 

Meanwhile, a Pakistani court accepted the government's request to hold the trial of Davis in the heavilyguarded Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore , where he is currently lodged, for security reasons. 

The Obama administration on Monday insisted that he still has diplomatic immunity under international law and Pakistan should release him forthwith . Soon after, the US state department wheeled out one of its "foremost experts in international law" to make the case that regardless of Davis' reported affiliation, he was entitled to diplomatic immunity because the US had clearly intimated to Pakistani government that he is a member of the administrative and technical staff under Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. 

Sources also said that Pakistan had been told he is an intelligence operative working undercover. 

THE CURIOUS CASE OF RAYMOND DAVIS
Pakistan & US are at loggerheads over the arrest of Davis, who is facing trial for gunning down two men in Lahore. The two sides differ on diplomatic immunity for Davis. Other disputed points in the case: 

THE SHOOTING 
Cops say Davis fired at the two motorcycle-borne men when they tried to stop his car; the duo were ostensibly chasing him after his vehicle bumped a rickshaw US says Davis believed his life was in danger after one of the men 'cocked his pistol and pointed towards' him 

SELF-DEFENCE 
Davis and US say he acted in self-defence after the two men tried to rob him at gunpoint 
Punjab law minister says the weapon carried by one of the victims wasn't loaded and thus Davis can't claim selfdefence ; Lahore top cops says Davis fired at one of the men as they were fleeing 

THE VICTIMS 
Davis and US say the two men were robbers Pak media & politicians dismiss suggestions that the duo were ISI operatives and term them 'innocent youths' with no criminal record

Obama Calls Raymond Davis "Our man in Pakistan"

"With respect to Mr. Davis, our diplomat in Pakistan, we've got a very simple principle here that every country in the world that is party to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations has upheld in the past and should uphold in the future, and that is if our diplomats are in another country, then they are not subject to that country's local prosecution."
--President Obama, Feb. 15, 2011

Raymond Davis is a former Special Forces soldier who, according to the State Department, works for the U.S. embassy in Pakistan. Last month, he shot and killed two Pakistani men in Lahore under mysterious circumstances.

Davis has claimed the men were trying to rob him. The incident took place about eight miles from the U.S. consulate, and Davis was carrying loaded weapons and had a GPS satellite device in his possession. U.S. officials say the men pointed weapons at Davis and he thought his life was in danger. Police say Davis shot each victim five times, including in their backs, and lied to police about how he arrived at the scene.

In a video of his questioning released by Pakistani police, Davis identifies himself as an employee at the consulate in Lahore, saying, "I just work as a consultant there."

Another consulate vehicle, a Toyota Land Cruiser with tinted windows -- which, according to a police report, arrived after the incident in an apparent effort to rescue Davis -- struck and killed a motorcyclist in the aftermath of the shooting. The widow of one of the men killed by Davis then committed suicide.

Four dead people and an imprisoned American are a recipe for a diplomatic disaster. The United States has insisted that Davis, as an embassy employee, has diplomatic immunity and must be released. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), a major backer of $3 billion in aid to Pakistan, flew to the country this week to press for Davis's release and predicted the case would be completed "in the next few days." But a Pakistani court on Thursday gave the Pakistani government three more weeks to determine whether Davis qualifies for diplomatic immunity.

President Obama raised the stakes in the dispute at his news conference this week, when he referred to Davis as "our diplomat in Pakistan." The president's phrasing went beyond the State Department's assertion that Davis was a member of the "administrative and technical staff" at the embassy.

Senior State Department officials have said that Davis was not supposed to carry a weapon in Pakistan, while other U.S. officials said that he was a security contractor and did have permission to carry the weapon.

Pakistani news reports have said Davis worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, but the United States has steadfastly declined to say anything beyond the fact that he works for the U.S. government.

Clearly the pin-striped set has evolved over the years, but many Pakistanis have alleged that Davis is a spy who must face justice for the killings. So does he have diplomatic immunity?

The Facts

The key document governing diplomatic immunity is, as the president stated, the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, specifically articles 29, 31, 37, and 39. The articles must be read together to get a full understanding of their meaning. Here are the key points:

A diplomatic agent "shall not be liable to any form of arrest or detention." (article 29)
"A diplomatic agent shall enjoy immunity from the criminal jurisdiction of the receiving State," with certain exceptions involving property and commercial activity. (article 31)
"Members of the administrative and technical staff of the mission, together with members of their families" will have the same privileges and immunities in articles 29 and 31 as long as they are not nationals or permanent residents of the country. The one exception is that they are not immune from civil suits for acts performed outside the course of their official duties. (In other words, they can be sued if they run someone over when they are off on vacation.) (article 37)
"Every person entitled to privileges and immunities shall enjoy them from the moment he enters the territory of the receiving State on proceeding to take up his post or, if already in its territory, from the moment when his appointment is notified to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs or such other ministry as may be agreed." (article 39)

The U.S. embassy appears to have complicated matters by first sending a diplomatic note to the Pakistani Foreign Ministry on Jan. 27 describing Davis as "an employee of U.S. Consulate General Lahore and holder of a diplomatic passport." A second note, on Feb. 3, described him as "a member of the administrative and technical staff of the U.S. embassy."

The difference in the phrasing of Davis's employment has allowed Pakistani officials to argue that Davis is actually covered by 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, and thus has a lesser form of immunity.

However, Article 43 of that Convention states that "consular officers and consular employees shall not be amenable to the jurisdiction of the judicial or administrative authorities of the receiving State in respect of acts performed in the exercise of consular functions." There are exceptions for some civil disputes, such as "damage arising from an accident in the receiving State caused by a vehicle, vessel or aircraft."

The State Department insists that Davis was identified to the Pakistani government as a member of the technical and administrative staff of the embassy when he arrived in the country, and as such enjoys full immunity. John B. Bellinger III, a partner at Arnold & Porter who was the chief State Department legal adviser in the Bush administration, said in any case he would be fully covered as a consular employee as well.

"It's my understanding that State notified him as a member of the Embassy A&T staff, not consular staff," Bellinger said. "But consular staff also enjoy immunity from the jurisdiction of the receiving state with respect to their consular functions."

Bellinger added: "People are overblowing the 'administrative and technical' staff distinction and making it sound like it's something nefarious, which it is not. It is not a made-up term. A&T staff are an accepted category of staff assigned to an Embassy or Consulate, and are described in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations."

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said that U.S. diplomats do not carry cards attesting to their diplomatic immunity. "Once we provide a diplomatic note that an individual has arrived in country, from that point forward, he or she has diplomatic immunity," he said.

Complicating matters even further is that the language of the 1972 Pakistani law implementing the 1961 Vienna Convention puts the onus on the country's weak government to certify that the person in question has diplomatic immunity if a dispute arises. "The federal government is scratching its head, struggling [with] what stand to take, how to bridge this gap between the Vienna Convention and the deficient implementing law," Pakistani international law expert Ahmer Bilal Soofi told National Public Radio.

In the United States, there have been several high-profile cases in which foreigners have escaped prosecution because of diplomatic immunity, at one point leading to an unsuccessful push in Congress to strip relatives and dependents of diplomats of the privilege.

In 1982, the son of the Brazilian ambassador to the United States shot and seriously wounded a D.C. nightclub bouncer and escaped prosecution because of diplomatic immunity. The State Department even allowed him to stay in Washington.

In 1981, the son of a low-ranking attaché at the Ghanian U.N. mission was arrested in New York after a series of violent rapes at knifepoint. Although two of the victims positively identified their alleged assailant, he was released 45 minutes after he was taken to a police station for questioning and later returned to Ghana. "He looked at me when he left the precinct house and snickered and said, 'I told you I had diplomatic immunity,' " the police detective later told Congress. "He was looking at the women, too, and laughing. They were crying hysterically."

In 1997, Gueorgui Makharadze, the number-two official in the Georgian embassy and a rising diplomatic star, killed a teenage girl in a drunk-driving incident in Washington. In that case, the Georgian government waived his immunity after a request from the State Department; he went on trial and was convicted of manslaughter. The Georgian president at the time, Eduard Shevardnadze, called for new rules on diplomatic immunity, saying, "I cannot imagine diplomacy and politics devoid of moral principle."

The Pinocchio Test

If the State Department is correct and Davis was identified as a member of the embassy's administrative and technical staff when he arrived in Pakistan -- and he was accepted by Pakistan on that basis -- then he should be covered by the Vienna Convention and receive diplomatic immunity, no matter what his job was or how heinous his crimes. The United States has upheld that standard in the past, letting alleged criminals go free. It also does not matter what agency Davis works for back in the United States; U.S. embassies are often staffed with personnel from the Defense Department, Agriculture Department and the like, and they all have diplomatic immunity.

(Many governments place spies on their diplomatic employment list, and if caught by the host country, they are often ejected or exchanged for another spy or prisioner. Some Pakistani officials have suggested that Davis could be exchanged for Aafia Siddiqui, an American-educated Pakistani who was sentenced to 86 years in prison for trying to kill her American interrogators in Afghanistan.)

President Obama, however, may have pushed the envelope when he referred to Davis as "our diplomat." Davis may have had diplomatic cover, but not many diplomats carry a Glock pistol -- and then use it with lethal results. The circumstances of his employment -- and the incident in Lahore -- remain too murky to make a definitive judgment on the president's statement at this point.

By Glenn Kessler

Withholding Judgment

‘Davis was after me’

Pakistani doctor believes Davis wanted to assassinate him. PHOTO: FILE

LAHORE: A Pakistani-American doctor believes Raymond Davis came to Pakistan to assassinate him because he had sued the former US president George W Bush for $165 trillion for twice detaining him illegally.

Dr Muhammd Adnan Bhutta, an orthopaedic surgeon currently working at the Lahore General Hospital, was holding a press conference at the Lahore Press Club on Sunday.

He feared that his life was at risk and said he would file an application to the DIG (Operations) on Monday (today) in this regard.

He said that he was detained in the US once on November 11, 2001 for two months and then on January 15, 2002 for a month, because he was mistaken as a suspect in the World Trade Centre bombing on September 11, 2001.

He said that in the detention he was subjected to the worst possible torture. The charges, he said, were later dropped and he was released. He filed a law suit against the then US president, George W Bush, and the FBI for keeping him in illegal detention on false charges of terrorism. In the case, he said, he had demanded $165 trillion as compensation.

Even after his release, he said, he was followed on various occasions both in the US, which made him feel insecure and so he moved back to Pakistan in 2006. The US agencies also stopped him at the airport in the US for interrogation, he claimed.

He said that there were chances Davis had come to kill him or keep him away from further proceeding the case.

He said that on January 27, when he was headed to his car mechanic near Qurtaba Chowk, he felt he was being followed by a white Land Cruiser with tinted windows. He said just before he reached the mechanic’s shop, while he was in front of the Khalid Book Depo on Ferozepur Road, he saw the white civic of Raymond Davis escaping after the shooting.

Dr Bhutta said that it was not a coincidence that the killing happened right in frontof the mechanic’s shop.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 21^st, 2011.

Victim's Brother Demands US Killer Be Hanged!

Victim's Brother Demands Detained U.S. Official Be Hanged

Raymond Davis, Accused of Killing Two Pakistanis, to Be Held at Least Three More Weeks as Government Decides Immunity

By LEE FERRAN, MATTHEW COLE, KIRIT RADIA and NICK SCHIFRIN
Feb. 17, 2011

Watch: American Accused of Multiple Murders in Pakistan

Watch: U.S. Official Held in Pakistan for Murder

Moments after a Pakistani court once again rejected U.S. demands to release an American "technical advisor" accused in a deadly shooting, the brother of one of the shooting victims told reporters today he and his family demand Raymond Davis be executed.

"Our demand from the first day is that we want him hanged, nothing other than this," the man said after a court decided Davis would be detained for at least another three weeks while the Pakistani central government determines Davis' eligibility for immunity.

"We curse their money, visa and country," the man said, possibly referring to Pakistani news reports that the families have been offered financial compensation for their loss.

The wife of the same man who was shot committed suicide earlier this month, but not before telling local media she wanted Davis' "blood."

After the hearing, Cameron Munter, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, said today he was "disappointed" the Pakistani central government did not certify Davis as a diplomat and release him under diplomatic immunity.

Davis, 36, is accused of shooting and killing two men who the U.S. State Department said were trying to rob him. Ever since his arrest, mystery has surrounded the man President Barack Obama called "our diplomat."

In the days after the shooting, the U.S. State Department denied that the man in Pakistani custody was Raymond Davis, despite Pakistani officials, court documents and one source close to Davis saying otherwise. Eventually Davis was revealed to be a member of the embassy's "technical and administrative staff," but the State Department has refused to answer questions about his specific job in Pakistan. When Davis was arrested, he reportedly possessed a loaded gun, GPS equipment, pictures of what Pakistani police called "sensitive areas" of Pakistan, as well as a diplomatic passport.

Public records show Davis has experience with the U.S. Special Forces and runs a small security company that provides "loss prevention specialists," according to the company website which is no longer active.

Complicating matters, several Pakistani officials told ABC News that the men Davis allegedly shot were not small time criminals, but agents of the country's premier intelligence service, the ISI, who had been tracking Davis -- a claim the U.S. government vehemently denies.

Davis is being held in a "high security" prison where he is being treated like any other inmate, Carmela Conroy, the U.S. Consul General in Lahore, said Tuesday -- a claim disputed by a Pakistani lawyer today. That lawyer claimed in court today that Davis had access to alcohol, cell phones, television and "other things of pleasure."

"Ray is being treated like a regular prisoner," Conroy said earlier this week. "He has no access to a television, telephone, internet or any other electronic devices, and cannot communicate directly with his family." 

Obama: Pakistan Recognizes Davis as a Diplomat

While the Pakistani central government may be taking three weeks to determine whether Davis should enjoy diplomatic immunity, U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday the matter is clear.

"We've got a very simple principle here that every country in the world that is party to the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations has upheld in the past and should uphold in the future, and that is, if our diplomats are in another country, then they are not subject to that country's local prosecution," Obama said in a press conference today. "We expect Pakistan, that's a signatory and recognizes Mr. Davis as a diplomat, to abide by the same convention... I'm not going to discuss the specific exchanges that we've had [with the Pakistani government], but we've been very firm about this being a priority."

Kerry: U.S. Will Open Criminal Investigation Into Shooting

Earlier Wednesday, Sen. John Kerry, chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, left Pakistan without Davis after a short trip meant to help smooth over relations between Pakistan and the U.S.

"President Obama and Secretary Clinton have personally asked me to convey to the people of Pakistan our deepest sorrow for the loss of life that occurred there in that tragic incident," Kerry said before leaving the country. "And there is nothing that the United States wants more than to see those kinds of incidents disappear forever in the lives of Pakistanis and in our relationship. I was encouraged today in the meetings that I had in all levels of your government."

Upon landing in the country, Kerry told local media the U.S. Department of Justice would open a criminal investigation into the shooting should Raymond Davis be released.

"I think during the course of Senator Kerry's stay there, we made clear that with such incidents it is practice of the United States government to conduct its own criminal investigation," Crowley told reporters Wednesday. "And we intend to follow that practice here."

Taliban: Release Davis, Prepare to Die

On Sunday a spokesman for the Taliban said should Davis be released for any reason, the terrorist group would kill anyone involved.

"Whether he is a judge, police, lawyer, army, policy maker or a politician, we will target him. We will kill him," the spokesman told The Associated Press Sunday.

Pakistanis Keep American In Custody Despite U.S. Pressure

If there was any question that Pakistan intended to bow to U.S. demands and quickly release a U.S. official who killed two Pakistanis last month, the public answer came back today as an emphatic no. 

The U.S. wanted Davis released before his court appearance this morning, but the court said he would remain detained for two more weeks. The U.S. has requested Davis be treated well, but the court sent him from a relatively comfortable police station into a crowded jail. And the U.S. continues to argue Davis acted in self defense, but the Lahore police chief today accused Davis of "intentional and cold-blooded murder." 

Davis' continuing detention, his move to a prison, and the apparent impending murder charge could infuriate the United States. A senior U.S. official said that so long as Davis is detained, any major U.S.-Pakistan meeting would be dominated by a discussion about Davis -- making normal bilateral discussions right now difficult to impossible.

But the embassy in Islamabad rejected the claim made by Pakistani officials in an ABC news report that pressure to release Davis included a meeting between National Security Advisor Tom Donilon and Pakistan Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani in which Donilon threatened Haqqani with expulsion and the closure of U.S. consulates in Pakistan if Davis wasn't released by today.

"ABC News carried a story regarding a conversation in Washington between senior U.S. and Pakistani officials," said the statement, released by embassy spokeswoman Courtney Beale. "Although we are unable to discuss the substance of a private diplomatic meeting, U.S. Embassy Islamabad can state categorically that the description of the conversation in this report is simply inaccurate."

U.S. officials declined to specify which details in the story were inaccurate.

Haqqani also denied that he had been threatened.

"The characterization of my conversation with White House officials by ABC News borders fabrication," he said in a statement to ABC News today. "It is not our policy to reveal details of diplomatic conversations. I can say, however, that National Security Adviser Tom Donilon did, indeed, convey the US government's views about the case of Mr Raymond Davis during a meeting on Monday evening but no ultimatum or threat was given. I conveyed the government of Pakistan's commitment to resolve the matter in accordance with Pakistani and international law. Both sides are working together to resolve the case expeditiously and to continue our multi-faceted strategic partnership."

U.S. Declines To Provide Details About Ray Davis

Davis has become a political and intelligence football: he is caught between a federal government ruled by the Pakistan People's party and a Punjab government led by the opposition, which is more skeptical of U.S. policies; and he is caught in an intelligence game because he killed two men working for Pakistan's premiere intelligence agency, according to four Pakistani officials.

The U.S. continues to decline to answer questions about Davis' precise job in Pakistan, saying only he was a "member of the administrative and technical staff" of the Islamabad embassy and traveled on a diplomatic passport.

"We regret the incident resulted in the loss of life. Eyewitness reports showed the American acted in self defense," Beale told ABC News in response to the court decision. "There's no doubt he has diplomatic immunity, and we're working with the government of Pakistan to resolve this."

But Pakistani government officials are beginning to chafe at the way the U.S. government is going about that. They complain that U.S. pressure is disproportionately falling on them and not on the country's powerful military and intelligence service.

A congressional delegation from the House Armed Services committee visited Pakistan last weekend and raised the possibility that Davis' continuing detention would threaten military aid, according to a committee aide. But a senior Pakistani military official denied that was true.

"There were no threats," he said casually, shrugging his shoulders.

But there have been threats delivered to government officials, and the larger problem, those officials say, is that the pressure is boxing them in -- because it is eroding overall support for the United States.

Speaking in private drawing room conversations or in high-end coffee shops, even some of those who support the United States say they feel like they can't support Davis' release, especially not publicly. In their minds, the ambiguous nature of Davis' job, his killing two Pakistanis in broad daylight, and the wide coverage given to U.S. anger in Pakistan has shrunk the public acceptance of all U.S. policies in Pakistan.

'More Aggressive Anti-American Sentiments'

"I think the response to the U.S. anger is more aggressive anti-American sentiments," said Ahmed Malik, sitting at the upscale Gloria Jean's coffee in Lahore. He and his friends said the U.S. was "bullying" Pakistan. "I think people feel it's totally unjustified for the Americans to ask for a man who's done something like this" to be released, Malik said.

Their increasing skepticism of U.S. diplomacy was echoed by the senior military official, who discussed Davis' detention on the condition of anonymity.

"It should disturb the U.S. when the liberal class, on the account of U.S. attitude and bullying… is showing a lot of frustration, anger, reservations," the official told ABC News.

He argued that the U.S.' repeated and public condemnations of Davis' detention was decreasing its support across Pakistan -- and that would inevitably decrease the military's ability to support U.S. policies.

"The U.S. should help the state and the foreign office rather than putting out one statement [calling for Davis' release] after another. It will multiply the public anger," he said. "No military can take a position that is contrary to the public perception."

And if the anger increased, he argued, the U.S. was risking its already weak popularity among the public and among its most vocal Pakistani supporters.

"If that space is being lost," the official said, "then it's the last nail in the coffin."

Pakistanis Fear Releasing Ray Davis Would Spark Protests

Fears of anti-American protests in Lahore were apparent starting at 7:00 a.m. local time, when broadcast reporters began setting up their cameras outside not one but two courthouses, hoping to catch a glimpse of Davis. Police, judicial, and political officials misled journalists over the previous 24 hours, suggesting Davis would appear before different courts -- apparently an attempt to reduce security threats and media presence.

Police went so far as to send an empty armored personnel carrier to one court as a decoy as the armored personnel carrier carrying Davis arrived at another court.

In Karachi, the radical group Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which is banned in Pakistan and which U.S. officials tie to the 2008 attacks on Mumbai, led a rally with political parties. "Anyone who is a friend of America is a traitor," read one poster, according to the Associated Press.

In Lahore, government officials believe releasing Davis would spark huge protests. The family of one of the men Davis killed warned the government not to release him, and told ABC News today that they wouldn't rest until they had "blood for blood."

"In Islamic law and in Pakistan's law, the punishment for death is death," Imran Haider, Faizan Haider's brother, said in Lahore today. "And god willing, the court will have him hanged."

Is USA pushing people of Pakistan towards revolt and revolution?

To unjustly protect and save one American Spy / Agent, USA is threatening to sever all ties with Pakistan and cutoff all aid. This is an extremely difficult situation for Pakistan. People saw an American shoot two youths multiple times in broad day light in front of hundreds of people. Pakistanis who are already suspicious of USA's role in terrorists incidents in Pakistan are furious at how a foreigner could so blatantly kill youths and then another vehicle belonging to US Consulate crushed another (third) person and then managed to escape.

US embassy has refused to hand over their employees involved in hit and kill and is refusing to cooperate with the law enforcement agencies.

If the Government of Pakistan sets Raymond Davis free on US insistence then all hell will break lose. People are aware of how spineless their leaders are. With daily CIA managed US drone attacks in the northern parts of the country, bomb blasts and now threats... there is only so much a nation can take.

US must realize that their immature behavior regarding arrest and trial of Raymond Davis can have really dangerous consequences.  Pakistan  is not like Egypt or Tunisia, Pakistan is a nuclear armed country with a highly trained army. Islamic groups and extremism is prevalent here and 60% of the population (total of 180 million) is between 16 to 24 years of age.

If revolt starts here the entire region will be devastated. Is it really worth helping one America killer in exchange of compromising safety and security of thousands?

 

Update: No special privilidges will be given to Raymond Davis in prison. This means he will eatt and drink whatever is given to rest of the prisoners and same prison kind of prison cell  and toilet.