Greetings from Islamabad

Greetings from Serena Hotel in Islamabad. I have only seen the main entrance of the hotel. According to ckarachi.blogspot.com, the hotel is located on the foothills of Margallas on fourteen acre area with beautiful gardens near the Rawal Lake. The architecture and interiors of this fabulous hotel building are a mere reflection typical Pakistani cultural heritage depicting the skills and craftsmanship of talented artisans. Being state-of-the art building, the hotel beautifully combines traditional systems equipped with latest technologies.

It's 2:48 am Brunei time but only 11:48 pm here. I have only just checked in after a long almost nine hour flight from Brunei to Dubai, stayed there for a few hours and another three hour flight from Dubai to here. The ride from the airport was uneventful, we had the security personnel with machine guns leading the way. So it was really fast. The Brunei High Commissioner has warmly greeted us with his staff at the hotel and did all the checking in, so we had a pretty much easy time compared to the last time I was here. The last time I was in Islamabad was in 1997 when I attended an OIC Fiscal Seminar at the Quaid-i-Azam University. I still keep that rather unique certificate given by that university.

I am here now representing my minister leading the Brunei delegation for another OIC meeting, this time the 14th General Assembly of COMSTECH. From its website: COMSTECH is a Ministerial Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation established by the Third Summit Islamic of OIC held at Makkah, Saudi Arabia in January 1981. Its mission is to help strengthen the individual and collective capacity of OIC member states in science and technology through mutual cooperation, collaboration, and networking of resources. COMSTECH enables the OIC member states to use science and technology as a major contributor towards socio-economic development and rapid industrialization in the OIC region. It is entrusted with the follow up actions on science and technology related decisions of the Summit and creating successful implementation strategies. All of the OIC member states are members of COMSTECH.

The meeting starts tomorrow morning and the secretariat has been more than efficient. In my room, there is now a brand new executive James Bond bag, about 30 document papers each bound into a book, the bag filled with pens, clips, glue, yellow highlighters and get this, quick acting aspirin tablets for headaches, one strip of Trisil for treating acidity and one strip of Dependal-M for diarrhea. What were the organisers expecting?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Islamabad is a beautiful city of Pakistan and one of best capital all over the world the person came through cheap flights to pakistan must like to stay in Islamabad having quality hotels and resorts.
Thursday, October 04, 2012 4:48:00 PM
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