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A huge gemstone that could become the world’s largest polished round diamond has been found at the Letseng Mine, owned by Gem Diamonds, in Lesotho, southern Africa. It weighs 478 carats and is the twentieth largest ever found. Gem Diamonds says that initial examination suggests that it has a flawless centre and could produce a 150-carat round-cut white diamond worth tens of millions of pounds. It would dwarf the 105-carat Kohinoor in the Crown Jewels. The largest rough diamond found was the Cullinan, in 1905, which weighed 3,106 carats uncut.

Israeli diamond merchants active in West Africa, responding to the report in Haaretz on Monday that defense officials are worried Hezbollah terrorists will target Israeli communities there, said the Lebanese movement enjoyed the strong support of locals. "The big problem for Israelis in West Africa is that there are countries whose diamond industry is controled by Lebanese locals, a majority of whom openly support Hezbollah," a source in the Israeli diamond business said Monday. "In effect, these are countries which are known as Hezbollah states," he added. Israeli companies that deal in diamonds, agriculture, communications and security operate mainly in...

Afghan Fundamentalism: The Role of the U.S., Russia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia David Storobin, Esq. - 12/12/2004 Victor Boot was a graduate of Military Institute for Foreign Languages in Moscow, a known school for Russian intelligence. He was the son of the son-in-law of foreign Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, who initiated the Russian policy of secretly assisting Islamic terrorists. In 1997, Boot arrived in the United Arab Emirates for the first time. From UAE, it was easier for Boot to funnel Russian weaponry to Afghanistan. In June 2001 - less than three months before September 11 - Pakistani intelligence described...

Russian Mogul's Planes Took al-Qaida, Taliban Gold To Sudan9-3-2 Planes owned by Russian businessman Viktor Bout have been used to fly al-Qaida and Taliban gold to Sudan in recent weeks, The Washington Post reported Tuesday. Several shipments of gold were delivered by boat from Karachi, Pakistan, to either Iran or the United Arab Emirates, the newspaper said, citing unidentified European intelligence officials. From there, the gold was flown on charted planes to the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, where al-Qaida has broad business contacts, the paper said. European officials believe the gold was transported by Air Bas, an airline set up...

Diamonds and precious metals found in the eastern United States might have rained down during the last Ice Age after a comet shattered over Canada and set North America ablaze, all leading to a mass die-off of animals and humans. New chemical analyses of diamond, gold and silver found in Ohio and Indiana reveal the minerals were transported there from Canada several thousand years ago. The question is, how? "There are no gold mines or silver mines in Ohio that anyone knows of, but there are plenty of them in Canada," said retired geophysicist Allen West, who was involved in...

- Ahmed Khalifan Ghailani, a/k/a "Foopie," is a diminutive Tanzanian with an Uzbeki wife, six children and a deep hatred of America and Western culture in general. A devout Muslim who plays a mean game of soccer but never learned to drive a car, Ghailani is also believed to be a key al Qaeda player who U.S. agents think is involved in a percolating terror plot aimed at disrupting America's upcoming elections. He had a $25 million price on his head as the FBI's No. 7 most-wanted terrorist - the same amount as the bounty for the capture of Osama...

Diamonds may be rare on Earth, but surprisingly common in space -- and the super-sensitive infrared eyes of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope are perfect for scouting them, say scientists at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. Using computer simulations, researchers have developed a strategy for finding diamonds in space that are only a nanometer (a billionth of a meter) in size. These gems are about 25,000 times smaller than a grain of sand, much too small for an engagement ring. But astronomers believe that these tiny particles could provide valuable insights into how carbon-rich molecules, the basis...

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...

Jefferson linked to Africa diamonds caseBy CAIN BURDEAU Associated Press Writer NEW ORLEANS --Rep. William Jefferson, facing a federal trial on corruption charges, has been linked to the prosecution of a former diamond executive in Botswana, opening a new window onto the congressman's dealings in Africa. The New Orleans Democrat and his family allegedly were the recipients of illegally funded trips to Botswana in 2001 and 2002, according to charges Botswanan prosecutors have filed against the former director of the Debswana Diamond Co. Ltd., a partnership between diamond giant De Beers SA and the Botswana government. Jefferson has not been...

Botswana: Senator Jefferson Graces Nchindo Charge SheetMmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone) 10 January 2008 Posted to the web 10 January 2008 Tshireletso Motlogelwa The embattled United States Senator, William Jefferson has turned up in the charge sheet brought by the prosecution against former Debswana chief executive, Louis Nchindo and other senior members of the company. Jefferson, who late last year was served with a 95 page long indictment by the US department of justice on a wide range of criminal charges relating to his various trips to Africa, visited Botswana a few years ago on two occasions. Late last year, the media...

Fireballs set half the planet ablaze, wiping out the mammoth and America's Stone Age hunters Scientists will outline dramatic evidence this week that suggests a comet exploded over the Earth nearly 13,000 years ago, creating a hail of fireballs that set fire to most of the northern hemisphere. Primitive Stone Age cultures were destroyed and populations of mammoths and other large land animals, such as the mastodon, were wiped out. The blast also caused a major bout of climatic cooling that lasted 1,000 years and seriously disrupted the development of the early human civilisations that were emerging in Europe and...

Conjuring gemstones from thin air sounds like one of the alchemist's more ambitious projects. But that is what a team of chemists from China is claiming to have achieved by making small diamonds from carbon dioxide. "We are changing a waste gas into gems," claims Qianwang Chen, head of the team producing the diamonds at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, Anhui province. The team claims its method could be cheaper and more efficient than some existing methods of synthesising diamonds, which require pressures of up five million atmospheres and temperatures that reach 1400 °C. Chen...

Its five strands of diamonds covered her decolletage and made the Queen's jewels look quite modest as they attended the Queen's banquet for the Commonwealth Heads of Government in Kampala, Uganda, on Friday. But Camilla didn't deliberately set out to overshadow her mother-in-law - the Queen gave her permission to borrow it from the royal collection. Camilla's favourite couturier, Anna Valentine, designed her a simple duck-egg blue dress and matching stole to set off the necklace, estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars. The Duchess added the Queen Mother's Boucheron tiara, a set of diamond earrings and...

'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 tell story of Earth's beginning By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 12:01am BST 22/08/2007 Diamonds really are forever, according to a study that has found tiny examples of the gems that date from near the birth of the Earth. Tiny diamonds discovered inside crystals of zircon Over four billion years old, the diamonds are the oldest identified fragments of the Earth’s crust and were discovered in the Jack Hills region of Western Australia, suggesting they were created only 300 million years after the planet itself was born from the dust and debris encircling our Sun some 4.5 billion...

You want a rock-solid investment? Consider a clear and crystalline lump of carbon. For a 1-carat D flawless piece, a benchmark in the diamond trade, the wholesale price comes to $14,480. That's $33 million a pound. The rarer stuff featured in Susan Adams' cover story is worth seven times as much per carat. A denser concentration of dollars is hard to find. In the inflationary blowup of the late 1970s, diamonds were the subject of considerable investment fervor. In the postinflationary 1980s they crashed. Now, after a long slumber, the speculators are back. There is talk in Antwerp of giving...

MEXICO CITY — In the country that's home to the cult of the Day of the Dead and Saint Death, communing with the dearly departed is nothing new. But what about wearing them on a necklace or a ring? Thanks to a pair of Swiss inventors, Mexicans can do just that by transforming their loved ones' ashes into diamonds. Sound morbid? Gloria Alvarado doesn't think so. Four years after her husband died of a heart attack, the Mexico City health-store owner will now be able to carry him with her wherever she goes. "I know it's not actually him," Alvarado,...

Hezbollah, the militant Shia organisation, is building a new line of defences just north of the United Nations-patrolled zone in south Lebanon ahead of a potential resumption of war with Israel. The military build-up, only six months after the last Lebanon-Israel conflict, is being conducted in valleys and hillsides guarded by uniformed Hezbollah fighters in the rugged mountains north of the Litani river — the limit of the 12,000 strong UN Interim Force In Lebanon (Unifil). Christian and Druze-owned land is being bought for cash by a Shia businessman. Hezbollah’s opponents believe the goal is to create a Shia-populated belt...

How al-Qaida Fared in 2006 -Full Story- In 2006, agents of al-Qaida, as well as those inspired by its ideology, continued their attacks. Violence in Iraq intensified, and Afghanistan saw its bloodiest year since 2001.Despite worsening chaos on those fronts, counterterrorist forces arrested and killed high-profile terrorists and kept the West free from attack. But these actions don't appear to have weakened the appeal of al-Qaida's agenda. "Home-grown" militants around the world joined its jihad, as regional fighting heightened perceptions of a global war on Islam.Here's an assessment of some of the most significant gains and losses for al-Qaida...

A taxi driver returned a black bag carrying 31 diamond rings to a passenger who earlier had given him a 30-cent tip on an $11 ride. Hours after Osman Chowdhury dropped off the passenger, he tracked her down through a flurry of phone calls and returned the bag, which she had left in the taxi's trunk. The unidentified woman, who said she was a jeweler, offered a $100 reward. Chowdhury accepted the money to cover the fares he lost while tracking her down. Chowdhury, a native of Bangladesh, told the New York Daily News that he didn't so much as...

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...

December 8, 2006 -- LEFTY voodoo: the belief that anytime anyone in the world is hurting, America must be sticking a pin in a doll. "Blood Diamond" holds that the 1990s civil war in Sierra Leone stemmed not from that country's long history of lawlessness and corruption but from the sparkly ring fingers of our Melissas and Ashleys.

RUSH: Remember a couple weeks ago, I had this most unbelievable press release from Russell Simmons. Russell Simmons had arrived in Africa, nobody cared, but he put the press release out, "I have arrived in Africa," on my charter jet or what have you, and, "I'm here to promote jewelry, the right kind of jewelry." He's promoting his own. He's got a jewelry line now. I thought this was the most self indulgent press release I've ever read. I wish I could remember the thing because it really needs to be read. I don't have it here at my fingertips....

Nairobi, Kenya (CNSNews.com) - The international community should speed up efforts to prevent terrorist groups from using the proceeds from illicit diamond trade to finance their activities and launder their funds, campaigners say. A Nairobi-based African affairs analyst, Adan Mohamed, said it was "very likely" that groups like Hizballah still use the trade to raise additional revenue. "Nothing much has happened in putting mechanisms in place to prevent diamond trade from being used to clean dirty cash or finance conflicts," he said.Investigations by researchers, human rights groups, the United Nations and media organizations have revealed how Hizballah exploited weakness in...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Diamonds are no longer a girl's best friend, according to a new U.S. study that found three of four women would prefer a new plasma TV to a diamond necklace. The survey, commissioned by U.S. cable television's Oxygen Network that is owned and operated by women, found the technology gender gap has virtually closed with the majority of women snapping up new technology and using it easily.

Love is in the Air...but Don't Screw it UP, Dude...!!! http://www.seadogbytes.com/sbimages/EnviroDiamonds301.jpg

The relations between Russia and the Shiite's religious leadership in Lebanon started to develop in the beginning of the seventies. The spiritual leader of the Lebanese Shia community, Imam Moussa Al-Sadr, visited Moscow in 1972 and asked Soviet authorities to issue humanitarian aid to his people. At the same time cooperation between the Marxist factions of the PLO that were active in Lebanon and Soviet military intelligence – GRU, intensified greatly. Several soviet officers (speaking fluent Arabic) even visited Palestinian terrorist training camps in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon between 1972-1975. Using their connections in PLO they managed to establish...

It has been said that true love knows no boundaries -- not even death. There's a company in Chicago that can turn your deceased loved one into a diamond so you can keep your lost relatives with you at all times as jewelry. For some it may seem morbid but to others it's a way for love to live on in a tangible way. Sarah Tomicich's most prized possession is a sparkling blue diamond, which she says is her father. "It's a great way for me to remember my dad," said Tomicich.The gem is manmade from the cremated remains of...

Today it is Valentine's Day Men are in a hurry to say "I love you" to her with Diamonds or Fur ...and hope to get paid back "some way". Note: the thread in the hypertext link is a parody, so your mileage may vary... Off-topic, but couldn't resist: Dick Cheney hunted last weekend and accident'ly shot his friend But what makes it worse (no room in this verse) It means this gambit's at an end!

Call them "Desperate Husbands" -- men who wait until the last minute to go Christmas shopping. Men who wear procrastination as a badge of honor. Girlie men shop online or visit the mall in November, wrap their presents and stash them in the closet. Real men put off shopping until Dec. 24. Because men don't shop. They buy. They are goal-oriented. And what they end up buying is jewelry. Diamond jewelry, to be exact. Square-shaped or pear-shaped, from Harry Winston to Wal-Mart, from Tiffany's to Target, the most dangerous place to be on Christmas Eve is between a desperate husband...

WESTBOROUGH, Mass. -- Imagine getting off the train after work and finding a $15,000 diamond ring in your car. A Northborough, Mass., man said that's what happened to him. It seems the ring was left by a total stranger, heartbroken over a lost love. The ring came in a box topped with a white bow. A note with it read: "Merry Christmas. Thank you for leaving your car door unlocked. Instead of stealing your car I gave you a present. Hopefully this will land in the hands of someone you love, for my love is gone now." The finder told...

(Los Angeles -AP, December 1, 2005) - A Southern California cab driver's simple act of honesty has turned to gold. Two weeks ago, the driver, Haider Sediqi, tracked down a jeweler and returned to him the $350,000 worth of diamonds he left in the back seat of the taxi. As a way of saying "thank you," the jeweler sent the cabbie a $10,000 check and a diamond bracelet. But the honest cabbie was just as impressed with the man's thank-you note. The jeweler wrote that the cab driver had "changed his life." The driver is putting the money in a...

Honest cabbie returns diamonds 18/11/2005 16:22  - (SA)    Los Angeles - Haider Sediqi didn't give much thought to the small, zippered pouch left in his taxicab by the passenger he took to the Los Angeles international airport. The Afghan United States immigrant taxi driver stashed the brown bag in the front, leaving it unopened as he finished his Wednesday shift, and met a fellow driver for lunch. As he walked to a restroom, Sediqi casually asked his friend to check the bag for identification. "Oh, God," Sediqi, 40, recalled his friend saying as he stared into the bag. "Look at those...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - What should the leader of the United States buy his wife for sticking with him through 28 years of marriage? "Diamonds," was the resounding advice given by military wives at a luncheon on Tuesday where President George W. Bush asked what he should give first lady Laura Bush for their anniversary on Saturday. "The best decision I ever made was marrying Laura in Midland, Texas," Bush said to applause. "Some question whether or not it was the best decision she ever made," he said to laughter. "Speaking about decisions, I got another decision to make, and maybe...

The Natural History Museum in London is to publicly display a rare black diamond said to have been cursed when it was removed from a Hindu idol in India two centuries ago. This is the first time that so-called Black Orlov or "Eye of Brahma" stone will be on display in Britain. It will be showcased along with other world-famous gems like the De Beers Millennium Star and the Steinmetz Pink in an exhibition on diamonds, reports The Independent. The Black Orlov is being lent as a late addition to the exhibition by Dennis Petimezas, a diamond dealer from Pennsylvania,...

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...

JANETTE Howard has kept a low profile since arriving in Washington with Prime Minister John Howard, but a $20,000 diamond drew her into the public spotlight today. The glittering 2.09 carat, cognac-coloured diamond was presented to Washington's famous Smithsonian Museum by Mrs Howard on behalf of Sydney jeweller Nicola Cerrone and Rio Tinto's Argyle diamond mine in Western Australia. The museum has an extensive collection of gemstones from around the world, but the Argyle diamond is its first from Australia. Wearing a borrowed gold Cerrone broach featuring champagne and cognac diamonds on her pale lemon suit jacket, Mrs Howard was...

Amnesty International accused Ukraine of supply weapon to Congo. The report of Amnesty International concerning the weapon supply to rebels of Eastern Congo and Congolese government was published on Tuesday, on the eve of G8. As it is known, the main target of G8’s discussion is Africa and its problems. However, Sunday Times has been aware of the report. It informed about the details of the agreements on weapon supply in exchange for the diamonds. The agreements were signed by Congolese government with Ukrainian, Israeli and Czech companies. However, it is still unknown whether the new power of Ukraine is...

Crystal-clear material is better for optics, scientific applications May 16, 2005 Researchers at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C. have produced 10-carat, half-inch thick single-crystal diamonds at rapid growth rates (100 micrometers per hour) using a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process. The size is approximately five times that of commercially available diamonds produced by the standard high-pressure/high-temperature (HPHT) method and other CVD techniques. In addition, the team has made colorless single-crystal diamonds, transparent from the ultraviolet to infrared wavelengths with their CVD process. Most HPHT synthetic diamond is yellow and most CVD diamond is brown, limiting their optical applications. Colorless...

The smell of rokok kretek was thick in the air as we stepped into the lobby of the Dusit Mangga Dua Hotel in Jakarta that morning. I sat down with Dr. Z. on the sofas on the far right side of the lobby in the corner as we waited for his contact and the others to arrive in from Bogor. The waitress came over to take our orders. Dr. Z had a coffee and for me, kopi o tampa gula (black coffee without sugar) You could always order kurang manis (less sweet) if you wanted, but it really makes no...

MURDER BY MARBURG ?? During my 71 years on this earth,I've seen the "unthinkable" become almost commonplace: wars ,bombings of civilian populations,famines,and genocide: lots and lots of genocide . In Angola,a growing body of evidence suggests the recent lethal outbreak of Marburg (an Ebola - like disease) may have been triggered - deliberately and cold-bloodedly- by injecting children with vaccine,contaminated by this killer virus. I had recently exchanged correspondence with a noted virologist;suggesting the disease might have been brought home to the infected children by diamond miners,who had been exposed to meat or excrement from infected monkeys,but my correspondent pointed...

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 SOME THOUGHTS ON THE ANGOLAN MARBURG OUTBREAK New information suggests the Marburg outbreak in Angola may have begun as early as October or November,2004 : simmering almost undetected until late March of 2005. Knowledgeable experts in the field of virology have suggested-because the initial cases all involved very young children-the infection itself might have been caused by childhood immunization shots,administered with improperly sterilized needles. The big problem with this hypothesis is the lack of patients infected with Marburg before the outbreak began.How did the needles (assuming they were re-used) become contaminated in the first place ?...

Confusion surrounded the recent whereabouts of the right-hand man of Saddam Hussein's oldest son Uday after Iraqi exile groups claimed he had defected last week after disappearing from a hotel in Beirut. The reports circulated for several days before Adeeb Shabaan emerged in Damascus last night and insisted that he was in Syria on an unspecified work trip and had not defected. Mr Shaaban, 47, is officially head of the Iraqi Photographic Association and a Baghdad newspaper editor, but in practice he has for the past five years run Uday's private office and acted as his press officer. He is...

SADDAM HUSSEIN has sent his personal jeweller to Thailand on a secret mission to buy millions of dollars worth of diamonds, prompting speculation that he is preparing to flee or send his family into hiding, writes Jon Swain. Sources with knowledge of the trip revealed that the jeweller travelled from Baghdad to Bangkok via Jordan. They said he bought the gems in the Thai capital in a prearranged deal. “He purchased millions of dollars worth,” said one. This was the jeweller’s second recent visit to Bangkok. Three months ago the sources said that Saddam’s son Uday had sent him to...

Military police are to guard valuable cargo at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport after thieves hijacked a security truck in what may have been the country's biggest ever diamond raid, the Dutch government said on Tuesday. The announcement came as a military police spokesman said the number of detectives investigating Friday's robbery, in which Dutch media said jewels worth around EUR75 million (USD$99.10 million) were stolen, had been doubled to 40. The largest ever gem theft recorded by Guinness World Records resulted in an estimated loss of USD$100 million when most of the vaults at the Antwerp Diamond Centre in Belgium were...

Iraqis Capture Saddam's Half Brother 29 minutes ago By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press Writer BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi security forces captured Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, Saddam Hussein's half brother and former adviser who was suspected of financing insurgents from Syria after U.S. troops ousted the former dictator, the government said Sunday. In a statement, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's office said the arrest "shows the determination of the Iraqi government to chase and detain all criminals who carried out massacres and whose hands are stained with the blood of the Iraqi people, then bring them to justice to face the right punishment."...

"Gunmen hijack armored car full of jewelry at Amsterdam airport MSNBC staff and news service reports Updated: 6:40 p.m. ET Feb. 25, 2005 AMSTERDAM, Holland - Thieves hijacked an armored truck carrying diamonds and jewelry at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport on Friday and escaped with their haul, Dutch airline KLM said. advertisement Click Here! A spokesman declined to put a value on the loss, but the BBC cited unconfirmed reports that the load of “high-value goods” was worth at least 75 million euros (approximately $99 million U.S.). The gems were on their way to a flight bound for Antwerp, Europe's diamond...

Diamonds sparkle in myriad ways in Canada’s frontier outpost town of Yellowknife, where the glint of diamond earrings, rings and bracelets brighten the long sub-Arctic nights. “There’s a lot of bling-bling here now,” says Denise Burlingame, a 20-year-plus resident of Yellowknife who is now senior external affairs specialist with BHP Billiton. She is among the hundreds of mine employees who commute between Yellowknife and one of two diamond mines now operating in the Northwest Territories (NWT): Billiton’s Ekati Diamond Mine and the Diavik Diamond Mine, a joint venture with Aber Diamond Mines Ltd. and Rio Tinto plc. One employee benefit...

Public Release: 11-Feb-2005 ArchaeometryChinese used diamonds to polish sapphire-rich stone in 2500 BC Researchers have uncovered strong evidence that the ancient Chinese used diamonds to grind and polish ceremonial stone burial axes as long as 6,000 years ago -– and incredibly, did so with a level of skill difficult to achieve even with modern polishing techniques. The finding, reported in the February issue of the journal Archaeometry, places this earliest known use of diamond worldwide thousands of years earlier than the gem is known to have been used elsewhere. Harvard University's Asia Center, Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, Princeton...

In 1999, when Canada’s first diamond mine — BHP Billiton’s Ekati — registered its first full year of production, the country’s contribution to world diamond production was just 5.3 percent, or $7 billion. When Rio Tinto’s Diavik Diamond Mine went into production in 2003, Canada weighed in with 11.2 million carats, or 7.5 percent of the total world production of 144 million carats — $1.24 billion or 12.5 percent by value of the world total of $9.4 billion. This made Canada the world’s third-largest producer of diamonds behind Botswana and Russia and surpassing South Africa and Angola. In 2006, when...