KARACHI An award winning American magazine Foreign Policy, has chosen Nazim Karachi, Syed Mustafa Kamal as second among the three best mayors in the world for the year 2008.
The magazine has included the names of Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit and Wang Hongju, Mayor of Chongqing as the other mayors of the moment, said a CDGK statement issued on Sunday.
The magazine said no city globalises on its own, but with shrewd investments and smart urban planning, a mayor can help turn a regional player into a global powerhouse.
About Mustafa Kamal the magazine wrote that the mayor of Karachi is an unlikely poster child for innovative urban planning.
It said the 36-year-old Mustafa Kamal governs a city thats more often in the news for religious violence than cosmopolitan ways. But the hard-charging Kamal is looking to change all that. Hes courting foreign investment, encouraging international ties, and boosting the citys tourism.
According to the US magazine Kamal is not shy about his goals He has said he wants to turn Karachi into the next Dubai. His Green Karachi project aims to plant thousands of trees in the city. Kamal is not letting anything stand in the way of his grand plans. He has threatened to arrest anyone who tries to cut down the new saplings, it added.
In a statement, the Nazim said that in the past there was no concept of ownership in Karachi. He said his administration carried out development works on a large scale, but added that lot of work still remains to be done.
With matters frozen in the political and diplomatic spheres, it will take military-to-military engagement to prevent miscalculation in the strategic sphere.
