Absent that basis for capital markets, the billions of dollars of capital showered on the world's poor by international agencies is like seed falling on barren ground.

FORBES: Waking Dead Capital

We saw nothing but barren hard ground desert.

FORBES: Remembering the Road to Baghdad

Ground zero is Kotkai, which sits amid barren saffron and chocolate colored hillsides above a snaking river cutting through South Waziristan.

WSJ: In Former Taliban Sanctuary, an Eerie Silence Takes Over