NPR focuses on Karachi
NPR has just started a new series called The Urban Frontier which focuses on the expanding cities of the world. The first city they covered was Karachi. The series is available to listen to online on the NPR website. Steve Inskeep has a report about an Edhi ambulance driver originally from NWFP and his experience on May 12, 2007:
Gun battles began on that day in 2007 and word came in of gunshot victims on a bus. So Faisal Edhi decided to climb into Mohammed Nader’s ambulance. “Nader was accompanying me, and we were stopped, surrounded by about 30-40 people, gunmen, belonging to ruling party,” he says.
Those ruling-party gunmen focused on Nader’s face. His complexion marked him as a man from northern Pakistan.
Edhi describes what happened next: “He was sitting in the back of the ambulance,” he says. “They grabbed, they took him out of the ambulance for shooting purposes, because of his appearance. And I yelled at them do not shoot, he’s our man.”
As he argued for his driver’s life, Edhi knew that one ambulance driver had already been killed that day. But after pointing a gun at Nader’s head and instructing him to say his prayers, the gunmen let him go.
Faisal Edhi is Abdul Sattar Edhi’s son.
The Urban Frontier: Karachi. NPR. June 2, 2008. No comments
The Sunlight factory that continues to spread darkness
The Sunlight factory located in the Landhi Industrial Area of Karachi and which manufactures wooden plywood and compression chips has been releasing hazardous waste into the environment due to a technical fault. This waste is causing loss of eyesight, TB, asthma and chest and throat cancer not only to the factory workers but to people living nearby. Despite the protests of residents, neither the City Government nor the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency has helped.
Article: The Sunlight factory that continues to spread darkness
Author: Farooq Baloch
Publication: The Dawn