The News Review:

- Diamonds no longer fueling wars, yet fail to deliver on poverty
- ‘It Hits So Close to Home’
- William Jefferson Reelected In Landslide Runoff; Fires Break Out In…

Diamonds no longer fueling wars, yet fail to deliver on poverty
Taipei Times – Dec 10, 2006
But while diamonds may no longer be fueling war, they are a long way from helping pull people out of poverty on a continent that produces about 65 percent of the world’s diamonds, valued at about US$8. 4 billion a year, the World Diamond Council says. Wars in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have given way to peace deals — and even to democratic elections. Congo inaugurated its first freely elected president in more than four decades last week. And since 2003, African diamonds have been labeled and tracked, given “birth certificates” in a process that tracks gems from extraction to sale to ensure gems in Western jewelry stores don’t fund rebels. Yet in practice, rights groups say the oversight organization, called the Kimberley Process, has had a number of problems that could keep it from being effective if conflict were to break out again in major diamond producers. And residents in some of the diamond-producing nations recovering from years of war say they still aren’t seeing much benefit from the gems leaving their shores for markets in North America or Europe.

‘It Hits So Close to Home’
Washington Post – Dec 10, 2006
"It hits so close to home," said Kadija Jalloh, president of the Maryland chapter of Youth for Sierra Leone Improvement, which had organized Saturday’s gathering. "A lot of the people, a lot of them came to America just because of the war. People in my organization witnessed these things going on, witnessed their homes being burnt down, witnessed friends and family members being killed.

William Jefferson Reelected In Landslide Runoff; Fires Break Out In…
CNN International – Dec 10, 2006
It is called “Blood Diamond, Tracing the Deadly Path of the World’s Most Precious Stones”, it’s really an inside look at this problem. Author Greg Campbell is good enough to join us tonight. He met with diamond smugglers in Sierra Leone himself while researching the book and he is joining us now from Denver, Colorado, where I was just a couple of days ago we should say. Campbell, thanks so much for being with us. Start us off with this. When an American goes out and buys a diamond, what does he need to know that perhaps he’s never considered? GREG CAMPBELL, AUTHOR: Well, that’s a really important question, as a matter of fact…
The term “conflict diamonds”, what it denotes is a diamond that has been stolen by a rebel group in Africa and sold into the mainstream channels. And these are usually rebel groups that has tortured and terrorized civilian populations. In the case of Sierra Leone, for instance, where I did the research for my book, the rebel group called the Revolutionary United Front became particularly infamous for amputating the arms from their civilian victims. It was a means of military strategy so that they could continue to inspire terror and cause people to flee from the diamond mines that they wanted to control. SANCHEZ: We live in a country where we think things like this could be controlled. How is it possible that they can be stealing diamonds or working them on the black market? Something as important and as precious to their economies without it being somehow controlled? CAMPBELL: Think first of all about the commodities seeking to be controlled. They’re untraceable pebbles.