Karachi, Pakistan, a sweltering, overcrowded, crime-ridden metropolis of at least 18 million people on the Arabian Sea, generates seemingly endless reams of negative publicity in the media. Disturbing stories about murders (both personal and political), rapes, bombings, kidnappings and drug trafficking have become so commonplace that Karachi’s image as a nightmarish “Third World” urban hell-hole have been seared into the public’s consciousness.