Regrets Curvball’s had just a few, which is more than the Bush Administration can mention.

As the diplomatic tussle between the United States and Pakistan over US demands for the release of Raymond Davis continues, it is interesting to note that their are varying reports of what Davis had in his possession (photos here) at the time he was arrested after shooting dead two Pakistanis on the streets of Lahore on January 27. Varying reports mention a GPS tracker, a GPS navigation system or a phone tracker, along with a telescope and digital cameras said to have photos of “sensitive” locations. In a very interesting development, we learn from multiple sources that on Thursday Pakistan successfully test-fired its Hatf VII cruise missile, which it also calls “Babur”. When the Express Tribune first reported that Davis’ victims were from the intelligence community (which ISI has since denied and threatened the paper with legal action), the Washington Post followed up by mentioning that Davis was trailed and confronted because he had “crossed a red line“. Was gathering information on the impending test firing of the Babur missile that red line?

No wonder Obama has no problem pushing our Egyptian torturer, Omar Suleiman, to lead Egypt. It’s completely consistent with our own practice of promoting our own torturers.

The crisis sparked by US “consular employee” Raymond Davis shooting and killing two Pakistani citizens in Lahore on January 27 heightened on Monday, when it was revealed that his victims were part of Pakistan’s “security establishment”, that a second Congressional delegation had intervened with the Prime Minister on Davis’ behalf and that the widow of one of the victims had committed suicide. Developments in the case continue at breakneck pace, with the story once again breaking into the Washington Post for Tuesday, where we learn that the US “has suspended all high-level dialogue with Pakistan” over the incident. Dawn fills in more detail on that suspension, noting that Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari had been scheduled to visit Washington next month, but that trip now appears endangered. Further, we learn that Pakistan has added three more consular employees to the exit control list, preventing their departure from Pakistan. The unidentified employees are believed to have been in the car that rushed to Davis’ defense after the shooting, hitting and killing a third Pakistani who was on a motorcycle.

When we last looked in on the ongoing saga of Raymond Davis in Pakistan, we saw that Congressman Darrell Issa was there, meeting with the President and the Prime Minister, arguing for release of Davis after he shot dead two Pakistanis on the streets of Lahore, with a third Pakistani killed by a US consular vehicle rushing to the scene in the aftermath of the shootings. Now, despite earlier US claims that Davis’ victims were thieves trying to hold him up at gunpoint, a report has surfaced in the Pakistani press that Davis’ victims were actually intelligence operatives for Pakistan’s government and that they had found Davis’ actions to be “detrimental to our national security.” In further developments, a second Congressional delegation met with Prime Minister Gilani, threatening US military funding to Pakistan if Davis is not released quickly and the widow of one of the victims has committed suicide because she believed that Davis would be released without being tried in Pakistan.

The contrast between the NYT and the Guardian is instructive: the NYT sent over every cable they planned to publish. Whereas the Guardian refused to specify which cables they’d publish.

Under cover of off the record meetings with top national security officials, the NYT collaborated with the government, at the least on damage control, if not their investigation of WikiLeaks. The Guardian, by contrast, was unwilling to do more than warn State what general topics they’d cover on a day to day basis.

We learn from Dawn.com Tuesday that Raymond Davis, a US “consular employee” who killed two men on Thursday in Lahore, has been placed on the exit control list, barring his exit from Pakistan. Remarkably, Representative Darrell Issa led a small Congressional delegation that met on Tuesday with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zadari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, seeking release of Davis, according to Pakistan’s Online International News Network. Those meetings came a day after State Department spokesman Philip Crowley declared that as a consular employee, Davis has full diplomatic immunity.

Last week, Russian Ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, told the organization that the computer worm Israel and the US devised to ruin Iran’s nuclear program could have led to a catastrophe with the Bushehr nuclear reactor like Chernobyl. Russia said on Wednesday that NATO should investigate last year’s computer virus attack on a Russian-built nuclear [...]

There are now four versions of the cooperation between Wikileaks and its journalistic “partners:” Vanity Fair, NYT, Guardian, and Spiegel. A comparison of them is more instructive than reading any in isolation.

The NYT has a sanitized version of the story of a “US Consular employee” who has been charged with shooting two Pakistanis. But Jeff Stein speculates about what might really be going on.