It’s been difficult finding any positive news coming out of diamonds lately.

CAR, KP, and the Nice Narrative

A report from Amnesty International on the Central African Republic and a Time Magazine article on conflict diamonds and the KP offer a sobering reminder that, no matter, what positive narratives can come out of Botswana, Canada, Russia, South Africa or Namibia, no matter what the KP reports for how many carats come out of this and that country as a share of global supply, the temptation to focus on the sore points of the supply chain will always be too easy to pass up, and for good reason. Artisanal diamonds may take up only 15% of carats and 5% of gem production, but the press and public attention will always come back to the artisanal diamonds.

Foxes in Charge of the Chicken Coop

The KP released its figures for 2014, showing that, once again, a certain volume of rough diamonds enter the UAE, about the same volume of rough diamonds leave, yet somehow they magically increase in price by about 40%. I know “conflict diamonds” is a worthy news story and getting photography of such misery is easy, but how is the wholesale looting of national resources not worthy of significant press attention? Fittingly, the UAE has become vice-chair of the KP, and will become the chair in 2016.

Junta Jade

New chapter in a very old story: Global Witness exposes the ties between the Burmese ruby trade and the members of the military junta. How is it that peoples’ negative “ethical” impressions of gemstones mostly extend to the colorless ones with a hardness of 10.0?

Rough Diamond Gemologist resurfaces to remind us that rough buyers are most assuredly the most tough-as-nails street-smart people on the planet.
“When a man with experience meets a man with money, the man with the money gets the experience, and the man with the experience gets the money.”