Ismaili.NET - Heritage F.I.E.L.D.

Dawn/Gemini News Service: Locals say an intervention by the Aga Khan, leader of the Ismaili community, helped halt the downward spiral. The billionaire, who has been channelling aid to the region since the fall of the Soviet Union, made his help dependent on the halt of drug cultivation and trafficking. 'And we know for a fact now that none of our farmers grow poppy,' said Mirza Jahani, chief executive officer of the Aga Khan Foundation in Tajikistan.

The Nation/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX -- The Aga Khan Hospitals in Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu will extend their laboratory services to reach surrounding areas through satellite laboratories.

Canadian-backed grassroots program in Pakistan puts village girls in school and helps women help themselves wrote Martin Regg Cohn in the Toronto Star. 'Backed by Canadian government aid, the Aga Khan Foundation helps villagers overcome formidable obstacles - natural and man-made - by bringing education and electricity to these former backwaters. Isolated by both geography and conservative local customs, women here have long borne the brunt of rural Pakistan's backwardness. The legacy of purdah - the covering up and confinement of women - has been poverty, disease and illiteracy.

New York Time. n packed, polluted and noisy New Delhi, the tranquil, sweet-scented oasis of Humayun's tomb is still remarkably empty, even desolate at times. 'For reasons I don't understand, Humayun's tomb has always been overlooked', said Tom Kessinger, general manager of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, which funded the garden's $650,000 restoration. 'It's the insiders' best-kept secret in historical and architectural terms'. That may soon change. The restoration of the garden, itself a monumental task, will be completed by year's end.

AFT. - KABUL: Afghan girls went back to school for the first time in five years Saturday, elated and emotional at the end of the draconian ban on female education imposed by the now ousted Taliban regime. Interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai and the UN's special envoy for Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi led a ceremony to celebrate the start of the new school year at the capital's Amani High School. Some 500 officials and pupils attended the ceremony, including Interior Minister Yunus Qanooni, Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, the Agha Khan and UNICEF chief executive Carol Bellamy.

Kyrgyztan Daily Digest: Representatives of the International Agha-Khan Foundation visited on 1 March the mountainous Naryn Province. They chose together with the local authorities a place in the center of Naryn town to build a branch of the Agha-Khan University. The university would have its branches in the several Central Asian states. Compiled and translated by Naryn Idinov in Prague.

BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom - The minister of information and culture, Dr Sayd Makhdum Rahin, has visited the current reconstruction work on the Babor Garden [in the Afghan capital, Kabul]. During the visit, he recalled that the Babor's Garden is one of the pleasantest places for the people of Kabul, and said that the garden contains the mausoleum of Babor Shah and Queen Qamar, as well as other monuments. Unfortunately, these have been damaged by the passage of time, carelessness and continuous wars.

Business Recorder - KARACHI : The Aga Khan University (AKU) in collaboration with the University of Alabama (UAB) at Birmingham, USA, has been awarded a grant from the Fogarty International Centre of the United States National Institute of Health, to co-develop research training courses in Karachi and abroad for Pakistani health professionals wishing to advance their expertise in occupational and environmental health.

According to Charles Clover of the Financial Times Ethnic Tajiks fought a pitched battle against Pashtuns in Afghanistan's western province of Herat this week, killing dozens, according to local news agencies. It was the second big clash in the west in the past few weeks, signalling that violence among warlords is spreading from the north to the west. 'Old scores are getting settled in the north. And the west and south are next,' said Jolyon Leslie, former humanitarian co-ordinator for the United Nations in Afghanistan, currently a consultant to the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Kabul.

Kabul, Afghanistan : Aga Khan Cultural Services (Afghanistan), a newly established affiliate of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, will lead the revitalisation of a significant but currently degraded urban area in central Kabul around the historic Timur Shah Mausoleum.

Relief Web: Construction of the first motor bridge across the Pyanj River, which will connect Tajik and Afghan Badakhshan in the point Tem in Khorog town, is under its way. Its completion is scheduled for 28 of October 2002. Parallel construction of the premises for border guard, custom and veterinary services is being conducted. This operation is financed by MSDSP/AKFand is aimed at facilitating the transportation of humanitarian cargoes and materials to Afghanistan.

Vancouver Sun: 'Cutting through the sectarian, cultural and linguistic divisions within the Islamic world, the Aga Khan Architecture Awards promote dialogue and co-operation between groups and countries that are otherwise hostile.

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan ( news - web sites) has licensed an international consortium led by the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED) to set up its second mobile phone network, the fund said in a statement on Saturday. The Geneva-based AKFED said it had a 51 percent stake in the project, while Monaco Telecom International (MTI) will hold 35 percent of the equity, U.S.-based MCT Corp nine percent and French telecoms giant Alcatel five percent.

NetAid, in partnership with the Aga Khan Foundation, recently announced a new Afghanistan initiative that will help reconstruct that country

The Times (UK) : 'The Ismailis have a tradition of philanthropy. The Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development is one of the richest Muslim charities. A centre was opened recently in Lisbon. In February the Aga Khan paid $300,000 (

Kabul (IRIN) : Work has begun to rehabilitate and preserve one of Afghanistan's most historical sites to its original splendour. The tomb of the 16th century Mogul emperor, Babur, and the grounds surrounding it in the Afghan capital Kabul, are to be restored to their former glory by Afghans themselves, with help from the Aga Khan Foundation and the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Recovery and Employment Afghanistan Programme (REAP), funded by the Japanese government.

- GULF NEWS, Dubai: The Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, is to open its first representative office here on May 4. The new office is located at the Oud Metha Office complex and will be opened by Sheikh Mohammed bin Saqr Al Qassimi, Assistant Under- secretary at the Ministry of Health and Director of the Sharjah Medical District.

IRINnews Asia: ISLAMABAD - The construction of five new bridges by the Aga Khan Foundation between the remote northeastern Afghan province of Badakhshan and the southeastern Badakhshoni Khui province in Tajikistan, will help improve the food situation in extremely vulnerable areas, aid workers told IRIN on Thursday. Both provinces are very mountainous, difficult to reach and are geographically isolated in economic terms.

- Dawn, Karachi, Pakistan: The Aga Khan Planning and Building Service, Pakistan (AKPBS, P) the other day organized a daylong workshop on 'Improving the Living Conditions of Rural Communities in Sindh' at Ali Mohammed Ismail village, Khyber, Hyderabad District.

El Aga Khan y la Begum Inaara, en una imagen que refleja el esplendor y la elegancia que rodean al Gran Premio ecuestre de Chantilly (Francia).Text in SpanishiHola! Magazine dated June 21, 2001, page 88 and Point de Vue, Week of June 20-26, 2001, page.79.