Free Republic

Somewhere in the Carmel hills of northern Israel, diamond exploration company Shefa Yamim hopes to uncover the exact spot where faith meets science. Inspired by the words of a revered rabbi who prophesized that precious stones were divinely buried in the area, the firm has been mining for about a decade along the steep hills and lush valleys that surround the city of Haifa. Now, Shefa Yamim, the first and only diamond explorer in Israel, says it has found strong signs that significant diamond deposits are indeed hidden in the Holy Land, surprising many who had dismissed the mission as...

SENIOR Zanu PF politicians and members of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces have with the help of Canadian lobbyists Dickens & Madson turned Zimbabwe into a hub for trade in "blood" diamonds illegally brought into the country from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), it emerged this week. The Zimbabwe Independent has been told how gemstones from the DRC have been laundered to line the pockets of Zanu PF big-wigs. American international diamond buyer, John Marsischky, managing director of gemstones company Flashes of Color, revealed in an interview this week that Dickens & Madson, the company which last week claimed it ...

NASA discovered Saturn’s mysterious atmosphere boasts diamonds raining down on the planet, it was revealed during a new documentary. “Below the upper atmosphere great clouds of water grow and lightning 10,000 times more powerful than on Earth illuminates the sky. “This lightning transforms the methane gas into huge clouds of soot.” He added: “Deeper still, the pressure grows so great that these chunks of soot are likely transferred into diamonds. “But even these diamonds will succumb to the pressure of Saturn, liquifying.

... De Beers said it would invest $94 million over four years to build a new synthetic diamond production facility near Portland, Oregon.

A jewelry restorer has gone undercover at some of New York's most recognizable diamond stores to 'prove' that customers are being ripped off. Diamond expert Jacob Worth, founder of I Want What It's Worth, claims that luxury retailers Tiffany & Co, Cartier, Van Cleef and Harry Winston all use 'identical' diamonds to those found in basic retailers - but with huge markups. 'There really is nothing special about these diamonds. Identical rings can be found at Costco or websites like Blue Nile,' he said. 'At Tiffany you are basically paying a massive markup up for a blue box which you...

Diamond miners recently discovered a ship that went down 500 years ago after draining a man-made lagoon on Namibia’s coast. While shipwrecks are often found along Africa’s Skeleton Coast, this one just so happened to be loaded with $13,000,000 worth of gold coins. It also answers a centuries–old mystery and is what some archaeologists are calling one of the most significant shipwrecks ever found. The wreck was first discovered along the coast near Oranjemund by geologists from the mining company De Beers in April 2008. One reason it took centuries to find is because it was underneath the ocean floor....

The budget deficit, the Ministry of Finance will hold several auctions for the sale of diamonds from Gokhran - the total amount of 167.5 thousand carats.. For comparison: for the whole 2015 the Ministry of Finance sold 8.8 thousand carats.. For the first time will be sold only medium-sized stones - to 10.8 carats. Such diamonds on the market in abundance, experts say, and they are of special interest for the buyers do not represent, but oversupply may adversely affect the market and revenues in the budget hardly exceed $ 15 million (1.2 billion rubles). The Ministry of Finance in...

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...