Straight Talk - Remembering Home

Both are a lively couple and are fun to have around. We all had a great time, especially the kids, golfing, sailing and fishing. What a difference life is over here. In Karachi, the only place where one can take the kids is Park Towers and even there, there are the apprehensions of a bomb blast, because of McDonalds.

From what I read in the newspapers on the net 'Almost the whole of Karachi, including the posh Clifton and Defence areas, plunged into darkness for the second time last Tuesday after a late Monsoon outbreak. Seven people were killed and more than two dozen injured. The city's traffic was clogged after rainwater flooded roads, causing traffic jams and gridlocks lasting hours'.

As they say here - 'Welcome to the reality show'. If these reports are right, then what happened to the new massive drainage system, which was suppose to have solved the cities flooding problems and on which millions of rupees of the tax payers money have been spent and for which the entire city, including DHA and Clifton were dug up? Will anybody be held accountable and answerable or will it be the usual, money down the drain, instead of the rain water?

For the last few days, Pakistan was not in the news and was replaced by the deadly, senseless and mysterious blasts in India and Istanbul. But on Wednesday, 30th July, one of the front page news in the NYT read, 'CIA Outlines Pakistan Links With Militants'. This was followed the next day with another damaging headline: 'Pakistanis Aided Attack in Kabul'.

Our PM, who is on a visit to the US, but has hardly received any news coverage, has naturally denied the allegations, but was confronted with hard proof of ISI's links with militants. But more about Venice Beach, 'Controversies Galore' and politics in America next week.

Before I end, I would like to give you a follow up on the "Zinda Hai BB" saga. I had written about Naeem Sadiq's letter in my last article, urging political leaders to follow traffic laws. Naeem had emailed the letter to the top 25 PPP leaders and writes: