".....will it fit around Hilda's neck?
Posted on 02/22/2014 9:59:44 AM PST by Pan_Yan
London: A giant jade boulder that could be worth billions of pounds has been discovered in Burma.
The 50-tonne block was found half buried in soil and rock in the gem-rich north of the country.
Villagers discovered the 5.5 metre-wide boulder in the mountainous state of Kachin, where rebels have been fighting the government for more than 50 years. It is now under armed guard as officials negotiate with rebels about what to do with it.
Burma, also known as Myanmar, is one of the world’s biggest producers of precious stones.
Jade expert Jason Holt, of Holts Jewellers in Hatton Garden, London, said the find was astonishing.
“The very best imperial jade can be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds for a piece that would fit into the palm of your hand,” he said.
“If it is the top, top quality, then you are talking about billions of pounds.”
So that’s where I left it!
".....will it fit around Hilda's neck?
Might'a changed the entire wardrobe of Dorothy
I just had a vision of Kerry getting on the plane to visit Myanmar ... and Hillary stepping off the plane after it lands.
Finally. This can be cut and polished into a jade ring large enough for Mooch-elle’s, the Worst Lady, ego.
Yes, "if." Burmese jadeite is often found in large masses like that. But the top, top quality is exceedingly rare. Most is middling to low quality and misleading treated low-value stones are very common.
But even if Americans want some of that new material it's now illegal to import Burmese jade and rubies into the U.S. The late California Democrat Congressman Tom Lantos wrote a bill ensuring that. The U.S. ban has no effect on the oppressive regime in Myanmar. The Generals are stuffing wads of money into their Swiss accounts from selling the country's resources to the wealthy Chinese.
It’s illegal to import Burmese jade? Pfftt…we’ll see what Obama has to say about THAT law! Flick of the pen…done!
For less than the price of a beer, an injectionist administers the drug directly into the vein of a miner, delivering as many as 800 separate injections from the same dirty needle. Large quantities of the drug are provided by the mine owners, who pay their addicted workers with a daily fix.
An estimated 500,000 miners are paid this way, some consuming as much as 10 grams of pure heroin every day. On top of the unsanitary injections, workers also routinely have unsafe sex with prostitutes, creating an HIV pandemic in the region and giving Myanmar the highest rate of HIV infection among drug users in the world -- nine out of 10 addicted workers are HIV positive.
The trade, however, is a lucrative one. The exploitation of the trade yields billions of dollars each year. Both China and Myanmar governments, and the KIA struggle, stand in the way of assistance that NGOs, the United Nations and the World Health Organization can offer to the region, according to the Australian Financial Review.
"On Aug. 7, President Obama issued an executive order extending the current ban on rubies and jade from the former Burma, now called Myanmar. This means the ban will be extended for another year, says Jennifer Quigley, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma.
"The order “prohibits the importation into the United States of any jadeite or rubies mined or extracted from Burma and any articles of jewelry containing jadeite or rubies mined or extracted from Burma,” Obama said.
"The gems have been banned from entering the United States since the Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE Act passed in 2008. Some had thought the embargo might be lifted, given signs of greater democracy and human rights in Myanmar. And in November, the president waived most of the sanctions included in a previous import ban, while keeping the blockade on rubies and gems."
I wouldn’t doubt he did that so FLOTUS could hog the entire output of precious stones from Myanmar.
1 tonne = 2204.6 lbs.
Therefore, the big hunk of jade weighs 112,230 lbs, or 55.1 tons in the Understandable Scale.
1 tonne = 1000 kilos
1 ton = 2000 pounds
Of course we are talking about a half buried rock in the rebel controlled mountains of Burma. All estimates are rough, to say the least.
The question is will the greed of the military junta be enough to allow them to swallow their pride and pay the rebels they've been fighting for 50 years so it can be excavated, shipped out and sold?
Larger boulders of jade exist from Wyoming north into British Colombia, many and much larger.....
Province of “Kachin” is right.
All of the rebels can afford to buy a nice new home and maidservants.
That should give them a different view of capitalism.
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