{"id":24479,"date":"2020-11-05T16:15:39","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T07:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2020\/nov\/05\/lahore-metro-line-opened-to-fanfare-but-what-is-the-real-cost-of-china-gift"},"modified":"2020-11-05T16:15:39","modified_gmt":"2020-11-05T07:15:39","slug":"lahores-metro-line-opened-to-fanfare-but-what-is-the-real-cost-of-chinas-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=24479","title":{"rendered":"Lahore\u2019s metro line opened to fanfare \u2013\u00a0but what is the real cost of China&#8217;s &#8216;gift&#8217;?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Pakistani city\u2019s railway is a hit with passengers, but critics say worker deaths and huge debt are too high a price to pay<\/p>\n<p>In a global pandemic, people across the world have avoided public transport systems where they can. But this week the Pakistani city of Lahore unveiled its \u201cgift from China\u201d \u2013 a $1.6bn (\u00a31.23bn) light-rail transit system. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.railwaygazette.com\/projects-and-planning\/lahore-joins-the-metro-club\/57648.article\">Orange Line metro<\/a> is designed to carry nearly a quarter of a million people a day in Pakistan\u2019s second-largest city.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, 50,000 masked commuters packed into gleaming, air-conditioned trains festooned with Chinese and Pakistani flags to celebrate the first day of operation. Tayyaba Urooj, a 45-year-old mother, was among them, and had brought nine of her relatives from Karachi along for the trip. \u201c<em>Alhamdulillah<\/em>, the train just started. We want it to succeed and for Pakistan to succeed,\u201d says Urooj in the packed carriage. \u201cI am a little worried because it\u2019s congested \u2013 but it\u2019s Pakistan, so there\u2019s always a rush.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2020\/nov\/05\/lahore-metro-line-opened-to-fanfare-but-what-is-the-real-cost-of-china-gift\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pakistani city\u2019s railway is a hit with passengers, but critics say worker deaths and huge debt are too high a price to payIn a global pandemic, people across the world have avoided public transport systems where they can. But this week the Pakistan&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1352,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50,59,60,766,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-global-development","category-pakistan","category-rail-transport","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24479"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24485,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24479\/revisions\/24485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}