Free Republic

De Beers says it will reduce its production to extend the life of its mines. Taking into account the moderated output diamond prices could rise by at least 5 per cent a year for the next five years, according to Des Kilalea, a diamond analyst at RBC Capital Markets. In 2008 De Beers produced 48m carats and the company will cut production to 40m in 2011. In the last two decades the industry has found no new diamond deposit to match the two biggest mines in Africa, owned by De Beers, or the best Russian mines of Alrosa, the other...

In recent years, African diamonds have lost much of their lustre. The ruthless hunt for so-called blood diamonds delivered little more than brutal civil wars and misery upon that continent, no more so than in Liberia, which is still recovering from years of conflict. But when Hillary Clinton touched down there on her African tour this week, she cited another nation, Botswana, as a role model for dealing with the precious stones. As Ginny Stein reports, a massive diamond deposit appears to be a godsend for the once sleepy country. REPORTER: Ginny Stein For over 40 years in an arid,...

Buy a diamond? Get a refund You may be owed a cut of a $295 million class-action settlement for gems purchased as long ago as 1994. Here's how figure out whether you're eligible and how to make a claim. advertisement Article Tools E-mail to a friendTools IndexPrint-friendly versionSite MapDiscuss in a Message BoardArticle IndexBy Marilyn Lewis How would you like a little refund on that diamond nose stud you bought in your wilder days? Or the diamond engagement ring you purchased for your sweetie when you settled down? If you bought a piece of diamond jewelry -- or jewelry with...

'Biggest diamond ever' is found in South Africa By Sebastien Berger in Johannesburg Last Updated: 8:48pm BST 28/08/2007 It is either the greatest diamond find in history, or a case of fool's gold. The diamond claim was met with scepticism South Africa's diamond industry was surprised by reports that a small mining firm had found a stone estimated at 7,000 carats, twice the size of the Cullinan diamond, the largest ever found. Gems cut from the 3,106-carat Cullinan, including the Great Star of Africa, became part of the Crown Jewels after it was found in Gauteng Province in 1905. But...

Diamonds are no longer a girl's best friend By Chris Hastings, Stephanie Plentl and Beth Jones, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:29am GMT 07/01/2007 Diamonds have been synonymous with Hollywood glamour since Marilyn Monroe declared them to be a girl's best friend in the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. But now a new generation of Hollywood stars is shunning the stones as a new film exposes the darker side of the international diamond trade. Blood Diamond tells the story of forced-labour diamond mines For the first time in the 79-year history of the Oscars, certain kinds of diamond will be absent from...

UN cuts details of Western profiteers from Congo report By Declan Walsh in Nairobi 27 October 2003 A controversial section has been omitted from a UN report on the plunder of wealth in the Democratic Republic of Congo due out this week. Senior UN officials objected to part of the report by a UN panel investigating the illegal exploitation of Congo's wealth, fearing it could derail the peace process. Sources say the section includes details on how shady networks of business and military figures, some tied to the governments of Rwanda and Uganda, are continuing illegally to export gold, diamonds...

JOHANNESBURG (Mineweb.com) --This past Friday, your intrepid correspondent set out for lunch at one of his favourite restaurants in Johannesburg’s Rosebank Mall. He stopped at his favourite tobacconist to pick up a pack of cigars and then went up the escalator to a computer store to buy a memory stick. Which was when all hell broke loose. Gun shots and scampering shoppers as thieves tried to hold up security guards carrying cash boxes. The thieves escaped without their loot, but one of the mall’s employees was killed in the cross-fire and was left for more than three hours lying where...

Feb. 14 — On Valentine's Day, what's the very best way to tell someone you love them? In one of the elegant black-and-white ads run by the DeBeers diamond cartel, a distinguished man announces solemnly: "I love this woman!" But there's a better way to say it, the ad suggests: Give her a diamond. Or a bunch of them. And she'll love you back. That's what the man in the ad does — and it gets quite a reaction: "Oh, I love this man! I love him, I love him, I love him!" says his lucky lover. Which makes me...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - De Beers, the world's top diamond producer, will plead guilty in a U.S. court to a 10-year-old price-fixing charge, opening the way for it to resume business in America after nearly 60 years, a court official said on Monday. The return of the venerable South African company is likely to spark a battle in the luxury goods market when it opens a store on Fifth Avenue this year to rival Tiffany and Co. Inc. (TIF), as well as Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels, both owned by Swiss luxury goods group Richemont-. According to Keith Mayton,...

CANANDAIGUA NY--In court papers made public this morning, a Farmington woman admitted that she killed two of her infant children. DeBeer told police that she was pregnant a total of eight times, underwent three abortions, gave one child up for adoption and wanted only “the best life possible” for the 6-year-old and 8-year-old children who survived and were living at home with her and her husband Brian DeBeer, 32, at the time of the couple’s arrest. ”I never meant for my life to be so out of control,” Stacey DeBeer said at the end of her 20-page statement, made public...

-- Researchers synthesize gem-sized diamonds of natural colour and exceptional hardness using Chemical Vapour Deposition. -- WITH U.S. GOVERNMENT DEBT now topping US$7 trillion (about US$100,000 for each family of four), and interest rates at historic lows, new life is beginning to breathe through the Canadian resource sector. One sign of this renewed vigor is a sudden surge in prospecting claims being staked throughout vast tracts of the Canadian Arctic. Over 1,500 new permits have been issued this year for Nunavut alone, compared to 190 last year. And according to the Nunavut Mining Recorder’s Office in Iqualuit, the largest number...

<p>Gary Thrapp has studied countless diamonds in his 30-year career, but he never has seen one like this.</p> <p>"It looks flawless," says the Indianapolis jeweler.</p> <p>What he has in front of his jeweler's loupe is not the product of millions of years of nature, but a couple of hours in a laboratory.</p>

I did a thorough search of the internet and found ONE LAST copy of this article on an older (defunct?) Arnold fan club web site.  So before it became extinct, I copied the complete article and the picture for ARCHIVAL purposes only. For your education and edification ..... Arnold, Buffet, and the Third World Order?Date: Wednesday, August 20 @ 09:44:18 Topic War on Terror ARNOLD & BUFFETT's LOADED ELEPHANT GUN?TheArnoldFans Reported By: Reuters - Tuesday, September 24, 2002 Buffett's Back, with the Terminator! WADDESDON MANOR, England (Reuters) - The world's second-richest man dropped into the English countryside with the Terminator...

Setback for jewel industry is good news for high-tech Two companies are manufacturing gem-quality diamonds that may break the DeBeers cartel and set off a high-tech craze for diamond chips much heartier than silicon, reports Wired Magazine's September issue. The diamonds are flawless and can fool even the most expert of gemologists. The natural conditions that produce diamonds have long been understood – put pure carbon under enough heat and pressure and it will crystallize into the hardest material known. But evolutionists have suggested it would require millions of years to reproduce the precise set of circumstances. Some have suggested...

Issue 11.09 - September 2003The New Diamond AgeArmed with inexpensive, mass-produced gems, two startups are launching an assault on the De Beers cartel.Next up: the computing industry.By Joshua DavisAron Weingarten brings the yellow diamond up to the stainless steel jeweler's loupe he holds against his eye. We are in Antwerp, Belgium, in Weingarten's marbled and gilded living room on the edge of the city's gem district, the center of the diamond universe. Nearly 80 percent of the world's rough and polished diamonds move through the hands of Belgian gem traders like Weingarten, a dealer who wears the thick beard...

ANTWERP, Belgium, Feb. 25 (UPI) -- Belgian police have arrested four suspects in connection with last week's multimillion-dollar diamond robbery in Antwerp, the city's public prosecutor confirmed Tuesday. The alleged thieves, believed to be three Italians and one Dutch woman, will appear in court Thursday charged with masterminding the diamond capital's biggest-ever jewel heist. The news will bring some relief to Antwerp's tight-knit community of diamond cutters, buyers and sellers, who have dominated the global trade in the precious stones since the end of the 19th century. More than 80 percent of the world's diamonds pass through the prosperous Belgian...

Artisanal mining was not illegal in the DRC prior to the 1980s, but diamonds could only be sold within the mining zone, or in adjacent villages. It was illegal to sell diamonds in Kinshasa and in the main urban areas in the Kasai provinces, although this was not fully respected. Corrupt officials allowed a limited trade to exist, but government attitudes vacillated and harsh measures were taken intermittently to purge the diamond fields of prospectors, especially in areas around or within the concession of La Société Minière de Bakwanga (MIBA), the diamond mining parastatal. MIBA provided the bulk of Zaire’s...