Security escort vehicles escort supply trucks in the Khyber region November 17, 2008.Pakistani security forces escorted a truck convoy carrying supplies for Western forces in Afghanistan on Monday as Pakistan reopened the Khyber Pass a week after 13 trucks were hijacked. REUTERS/Ali Imam (PAKISTAN)Pakistan Turns To ‘Friends’ In Its Hour Of Need
-- Times Online
-- Times Online
Welcome to Pakistan's “Street of Dreams” - your chance to buy into a future free of suicide bombers, power cuts, crumbling infrastructure and bad shopping.
So goes the sales pitch for Canyon Views, a 1,000-acre complex of 5,000 luxury homes in Tuscan, Portuguese and Moorish styles being built on the outskirts of the Pakistani capital. “It's a dream come true,” said a sales executive on a recent tour. “This is the new Islamabad.”
When a Dubai-based developer invested $2.4 billion (£1.6 billion) in this and two similar projects in Pakistan in 2006, the dream seemed almost real. The economy was booming, the consumer class spending, the stock market outperforming the world. The first 250 villas - costing as much as $400,000 each - sold in a flash.
How times have changed.
Read more ....
My Comment: For the past two decades, Pakistan entered into an unholy alliance with Taliban and Islamic extremists. The chickens have come home to roost.
Coupled with a culture of corruption, political instability, and economic stagnation .... we now have a nuclear power on the verge of becoming a failed state.