Afghanistan - Building boom in Kabul

The AP reports good news from Afghanistan - grudingly.

KABUL, Afghanistan - The first five-star hotel opened in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, part of a construction boom that is changing the face of dusty Kabul nearly four years after the ouster of the Taliban.

President Hamid Karzai inaugurated the Serena Hotel in a ceremony attended by ambassadors, foreign aid workers and others. The luxury hotel joins a shiny office block and a glitzy shopping mall, two other new additions to a city nearly destroyed by a quarter-century of war. [...]

The fancy shopping mall, the Kabul City Center, was an instant hit after it opened earlier this year. Afghans throng there on weekends, marveling wide-eyed at its shiny escalators and elevators.

“I am amazed by these moving stairs,” said Ahmad Jan, a 23-year-old tailor visiting Kabul from the eastern town of Gardez. “I just had to see this building. It’s so beautiful.”

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