Owais Mughal
Very recently I was reading a book on world rail travel called the Illustrated Book of Steam and Rail by Colin Garratt. It lists one hundred great railway routes around the World. Two railway routes from Pakistan are also included in this top 100 list. One of them is the historic Khyber Pass Railway and the other is the Trans-Baluchistan Quetta-Zahidan Railway.
The photo above is from Tozgi Railway Station located on Spezand-Taftan route. The scenery here seems to come right out of the moview Lawrence of Arabia.
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Owais Mughal and Adil Najam
Like may others, we at All Things Pakistan (ATP; Pakistaniat.com) are extremely concerned that in all the ‘high politics’ of the Lal Masjid operation, the Chief Justice saga, the opposition parties meeting in London and so much more that seems to be happening in Pakistan today, we are forgetting the plight of thousands of people affected by Cyclone YemYeni in Balochistan (and related weather events elsewhere in Pakistan).
As a token of this concern and as a very humble contribution we at ATP have decided to donate the earnings from the ads you see on ATP to relief and rehabilitation efforts in Balochistan. Last week the Justices of the Supreme Court ruled that the government legal team (which had been fined for filing scandalous documents before the Court) should deposit a sum of Rs. 100,000 for the benefit of flood victims in Balochistan. Irrespective of the merits of that case, the decision to use the fine in this was was a thoughtful, important and worthy gesture by the Justices. Inspired by this gesture of the Court, we at ATP have decided that we will match that exact same amount (Rs. 100,000). We do not know if that fine has been deposited yet or not. However, we intend to have our little contribution disbursed as soon as possible; hopefully, within the next several days.
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Adil Najam
Pakistan International Airlines’ (PIA‘s) earlier failure to sell Roosevelt Hotel, the prestigious New York property that it owns, because of political in-fights and charges of corruption may yet turn into a windfall for the beleaguered airline.
The story of PIA and the Roosevel Hotel is a long and complicated one; it reads likea roller coaster with financial ups and downs, failed attempts to sell, political intrigue, Saudi princes, court cases, and more.
But, first, the news at hand as reported in the New York Post (12 July, 2007):
NO sooner did we whis per the Roosevelt Hotel as being a potential development site last Friday then we were tipped that it was actually coming to market – and could sell for, gulp, $1 billion as an office development site. Just over a year ago, the Pakistani government, which owns the 1,013 room hotel as PIA Investments, bought out its 50/50 Saudi partner, Prince Faisal bin Khalid of Saudi Arabia.
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