No need to worry about your diet with this extra rich cake because the richness isn’t edible. Instead, it comes from one-hundred diamonds sprinkled on top of the chocolate cake.
The 14-inch dessert is the creation of the Japanese jeweler Sa-Birth, who supplied the gems and Masami Miyamoto, the pastry chef who designed it.
Japan’s Takashimaya department store has the cake on display in Osaka. The diamonds on the layer cake weigh a combined 50 carats. While the store admits the cake is really just a way to draw people into the store, they would be willing to part with it for a mere $850,000. So far though, there have been no takers.
If you’re not willing to fork over the dough for the cake though, you can always opt for the Maybach 57S instead. While the regular version will run you €360,000, the truly rich head for the diamond-embedded version going for a cool €590,000. For that price, your car will be bejeweled with diamonds. The bonus: if you forgot your wife’s birthday gift, you can always run to your car to pick out a diamond.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Thursday, December 14, 2006
DeBeers Diamond Journey Pendant
The Diamond Journey Pendant is the latest marketing campaign put forth by DeBeers. The diamonds represent the different steps made through the journey of life with your significant other. Graduated round brilliant cut diamonds are prong set in highly polished gold or platinum. Find 1.00 CT pendants F/G Color, VVS/VS clarity at American Diamonds Forever for under $1199.
Ask About Diamonds but Don't Boycott
Now here is a good rebuttal to the last story. It comes from the Christian Science Monitor, and shows the positive effect that the diamond trade has on the people and the land of Africa.
Christian Science Monitor: The depiction of diamonds and disaster in the new film "Blood Diamond," is the latest horrific tale about Africa. The cinematic history lesson about the now-ended civil war in Sierra Leone may be compelling -- but don't start boycotting diamonds. Today's mundane reality is that a worldwide coalition of governments, businesses, and NGOs has built a self-policing regimen that is cutting off the "conflict-diamond" pipeline.
How diamonds are mined matters. Primary, "deep-shaft" diamonds are expensive to mine. Multinational firms, employing highly unionized workforces dominate production. African nations tax these mines for society's benefit. Southern Africa accounts for more than 40 per cent of world output by value, virtually all produced under these conditions.
Secondary or alluvial diamonds can be extracted from riverbeds with just a shovel and sieve. During political conflict, these easily lootable stones have helped finance civil wars in countries such as Sierra Leone and Angola. Anticipatory concern centres on the uneasy peace in Ivory Coast. Conflict diamonds have also been linked to al-Qaida's financial activities.
With these challenges in mind, South Africa, Botswana and Namibia initiated talks in 2000 with major importing countries and representatives from NGOs and the diamond industry. Together, they created The Kimberley Process, an international certification system. Since it began, conflict diamonds have fallen from 15 per cent to less than one per cent of the trade.
Is there more to be done? You bet: the U.S. Government Accountability Office has recommended improvements in America's domestic diamond surveillance system, enhanced capacity for tracking the activities of U.S. certified licensees abroad, and expanded diamond-related assistance for the most heavily affected countries in West Africa. The latter has begun via the Diamond Development Initiative, a global effort to improve the grim lives of artisanal miners who legally dig the alluvial stones.
Consumers can do their part by buying gems from reputable retailers. They should ask where the stones were imported from and where they were mined, and insist that they meet Kimberley criteria.
But boycotting them for fear of supporting conflict in Africa would be counterproductive. Take Botswana. It's a thriving democracy that has the world's second-highest HIV infection rate. Diamonds generate half of its government's revenue. The national producer, Debswana, plays a vital role in Botswana's medical care, including the free provision of antiretroviral drugs. The implications of a major contraction from a boycott in the diamond industry would be dire.
By Marcus Noland and J. Brooks Spector are the authors of "The Stuff of Legends: Diamonds and Development in southern Africa." This column appeared in the Christian Science Monitor.
Copyright 2006 TDNG Inc., All Rights Reserved.
Christian Science Monitor: The depiction of diamonds and disaster in the new film "Blood Diamond," is the latest horrific tale about Africa. The cinematic history lesson about the now-ended civil war in Sierra Leone may be compelling -- but don't start boycotting diamonds. Today's mundane reality is that a worldwide coalition of governments, businesses, and NGOs has built a self-policing regimen that is cutting off the "conflict-diamond" pipeline.
How diamonds are mined matters. Primary, "deep-shaft" diamonds are expensive to mine. Multinational firms, employing highly unionized workforces dominate production. African nations tax these mines for society's benefit. Southern Africa accounts for more than 40 per cent of world output by value, virtually all produced under these conditions.
Secondary or alluvial diamonds can be extracted from riverbeds with just a shovel and sieve. During political conflict, these easily lootable stones have helped finance civil wars in countries such as Sierra Leone and Angola. Anticipatory concern centres on the uneasy peace in Ivory Coast. Conflict diamonds have also been linked to al-Qaida's financial activities.
With these challenges in mind, South Africa, Botswana and Namibia initiated talks in 2000 with major importing countries and representatives from NGOs and the diamond industry. Together, they created The Kimberley Process, an international certification system. Since it began, conflict diamonds have fallen from 15 per cent to less than one per cent of the trade.
Is there more to be done? You bet: the U.S. Government Accountability Office has recommended improvements in America's domestic diamond surveillance system, enhanced capacity for tracking the activities of U.S. certified licensees abroad, and expanded diamond-related assistance for the most heavily affected countries in West Africa. The latter has begun via the Diamond Development Initiative, a global effort to improve the grim lives of artisanal miners who legally dig the alluvial stones.
Consumers can do their part by buying gems from reputable retailers. They should ask where the stones were imported from and where they were mined, and insist that they meet Kimberley criteria.
But boycotting them for fear of supporting conflict in Africa would be counterproductive. Take Botswana. It's a thriving democracy that has the world's second-highest HIV infection rate. Diamonds generate half of its government's revenue. The national producer, Debswana, plays a vital role in Botswana's medical care, including the free provision of antiretroviral drugs. The implications of a major contraction from a boycott in the diamond industry would be dire.
By Marcus Noland and J. Brooks Spector are the authors of "The Stuff of Legends: Diamonds and Development in southern Africa." This column appeared in the Christian Science Monitor.
Copyright 2006 TDNG Inc., All Rights Reserved.
APSC: 'All Diamonds are Blood Diamonds'
This is an article out of Rappaport, thought it was an interesting read. You can't really believe that you can boycott a whole trade, when the majority of the trade was not involved in the "conflict diamonds"
The African People's Solidarity Committee (APSC) launched a campaign against the diamond trade under the idea that consumers should boycott all diamonds.
APSC wished to "educate the American public about the violence and oppression" in the diamond trade, and members of the organization hit movie theaters playing Blood Diamond on December 8 in Oakland, California; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Boston, Massachusetts; and St. Petersburg, Florida.
The group was founded by the Uhuru (African freedom) movement to organize support from the white community for the African liberation and unification struggle. APSC calls for organized protests targeting the diamond industry, calls all diamonds blood diamonds, asks consumers to donate diamonds to the Uhuru Movement for African-led development programs for renewable energy and water purification in Africa, and supports reparations and national liberation for African people.
APSC rejects the notion that diamonds help those in Africa. According to the group,
"The World Diamond Council admits that $8.4 billion in rough diamonds are extracted from Africa each year. This amount multiplies as the diamonds are refined and sold, traveling from Africa to Antwerp to Israel and the United States, enriching white communities along the way."
Alison Hoehne, campaign organizer, said, “We have the responsibility to shut down an industry that ravages the land and labor of Africa to benefit the white world. For white society, the diamond is promoted to represent the ultimate expression of love. For Africa, the diamond trade has its origins in colonialism, with African people forced to labor on their own land under slave-like conditions for pennies a day.”
“All diamonds are blood diamonds!" Hoehne said. "The diamond wars are just another chapter in the centuries-long history of Western colonial domination in Africa that kidnapped millions of African people for enslavement in the Americas, wiped out whole segments of the African population in Africa, stole African land and resources, and enslaved African people on their own soil for the benefit of the white world.”
APSC provides online readers with a fact sheet that states De Beers controls 80 percent of the world diamond trade, (Rapaport Research estimates it closer to 50 percent.)
Specifically on Sierra Leone the group contends, "According to a recent study, between 1937 and 1996, $15 billion worth of diamonds were exported and sold from Sierra Leone. Yet more than half the people of Sierra Leone live on about 30 cents a day."
"Africa does not need charity programs. There is a growing movement, led by the African Socialist International, for African working people themselves to control their own land and resources for their benefit," the fact sheet reads.
APSC provides readers with an Oakland mailing address for which to send their diamonds. The website offers a flyer for download called: Let people know that all diamonds are blood diamonds.
Blood Diamond movie, the group concluded, blames Africans for oppression.
APSC defines: "The term blood diamond was coined by the brutal De Beers cartel...De Beers was afraid that their worldwide control of prices would be undermined by a market flooded with renegade diamonds. This is why De Beers set up the Kimberley Process—to keep the unregulated diamonds off the market..."
The African People's Solidarity Committee (APSC) launched a campaign against the diamond trade under the idea that consumers should boycott all diamonds.
APSC wished to "educate the American public about the violence and oppression" in the diamond trade, and members of the organization hit movie theaters playing Blood Diamond on December 8 in Oakland, California; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Boston, Massachusetts; and St. Petersburg, Florida.
The group was founded by the Uhuru (African freedom) movement to organize support from the white community for the African liberation and unification struggle. APSC calls for organized protests targeting the diamond industry, calls all diamonds blood diamonds, asks consumers to donate diamonds to the Uhuru Movement for African-led development programs for renewable energy and water purification in Africa, and supports reparations and national liberation for African people.
APSC rejects the notion that diamonds help those in Africa. According to the group,
"The World Diamond Council admits that $8.4 billion in rough diamonds are extracted from Africa each year. This amount multiplies as the diamonds are refined and sold, traveling from Africa to Antwerp to Israel and the United States, enriching white communities along the way."
Alison Hoehne, campaign organizer, said, “We have the responsibility to shut down an industry that ravages the land and labor of Africa to benefit the white world. For white society, the diamond is promoted to represent the ultimate expression of love. For Africa, the diamond trade has its origins in colonialism, with African people forced to labor on their own land under slave-like conditions for pennies a day.”
“All diamonds are blood diamonds!" Hoehne said. "The diamond wars are just another chapter in the centuries-long history of Western colonial domination in Africa that kidnapped millions of African people for enslavement in the Americas, wiped out whole segments of the African population in Africa, stole African land and resources, and enslaved African people on their own soil for the benefit of the white world.”
APSC provides online readers with a fact sheet that states De Beers controls 80 percent of the world diamond trade, (Rapaport Research estimates it closer to 50 percent.)
Specifically on Sierra Leone the group contends, "According to a recent study, between 1937 and 1996, $15 billion worth of diamonds were exported and sold from Sierra Leone. Yet more than half the people of Sierra Leone live on about 30 cents a day."
"Africa does not need charity programs. There is a growing movement, led by the African Socialist International, for African working people themselves to control their own land and resources for their benefit," the fact sheet reads.
APSC provides readers with an Oakland mailing address for which to send their diamonds. The website offers a flyer for download called: Let people know that all diamonds are blood diamonds.
Blood Diamond movie, the group concluded, blames Africans for oppression.
APSC defines: "The term blood diamond was coined by the brutal De Beers cartel...De Beers was afraid that their worldwide control of prices would be undermined by a market flooded with renegade diamonds. This is why De Beers set up the Kimberley Process—to keep the unregulated diamonds off the market..."
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Fishy Diamonds Surface at Russian Airport
Russian custom officers found 25 large, rough diamonds tucked in a dead fish. The strong aroma drifting from a woman’s suitcase raised their suspicions, resulting in the surprising discovery.
The search of the 51-year-old woman’s belongings took place at the Polyarny airport as she was about to board a flight to Moscow, Ananova reported. During the search, officers pulled a three-foot long pike out of her luggage, and that’s when the diamonds fell out.
Police suspect the diamonds are fishy and have started an investigation. A police spokesperson said, “The woman thought the stink from the fish would be enough to put guards off asking too many questions if she was stopped. Luckily, the guards were keen fishermen and didn't mind at all.”
The search of the 51-year-old woman’s belongings took place at the Polyarny airport as she was about to board a flight to Moscow, Ananova reported. During the search, officers pulled a three-foot long pike out of her luggage, and that’s when the diamonds fell out.
Police suspect the diamonds are fishy and have started an investigation. A police spokesperson said, “The woman thought the stink from the fish would be enough to put guards off asking too many questions if she was stopped. Luckily, the guards were keen fishermen and didn't mind at all.”
Friday, December 08, 2006
Industry Members 'Must See' Blood Diamond Movie
Every member of the diamond and jewelry industry must see this film. It is as strong and violent as Africa. It has the potential to activate us to do good.
The Blood Diamond movie is a clear signal to the diamond industry that we must raise our ethical awareness and moral consciousness. The real issue is not the quality of the movie, its impact on the mindset and subconscious of diamond consumers, or our diamond sales. It is time for us to wake up and question what kind of people we are. Do we give damn about the diggers in Africa or are we only concerned about ourselves, our sales, and our profits?
The real issue is not us. It is the diggers of Africa and the people of Sierra Leone. The war is over but the extreme poverty and suffering continues. We must ask ourselves - is there anything we can do to help these people?
We must help. Not because we are guilty of anything…And not because opportunist NGO’s generate publicity. The reason we must relate to the people of Sierra Leone is because we in the diamond and jewelry industry are decent human beings. Because the diggers in Sierra Leone are as much a part of our industry as we are. Because the diamond dream that we all sell does not only belong to our customers and us. The diamond dream also belongs to the people of Africa.
We must wake up to the fact that the poorest people of Africa, the artisanal diggers, are a part of our diamond family -- and that we must share our wealth with them. We must learn to care about other because it is the right thing to do.
I will be writing more in the days ahead and calling on the diamond industry to take on a much more aggressive and proactive role. I will also be taking action.
The Rapaport Group is establishing a non-profit fund for the education of the children of artisanal diamond diggers in Sierra Leone. Rapaport will be donating $100,000 to kick off this program. We have asked and hope that others will work with us so that we may do something powerfully good for the people of Sierra Leone. We are also establishing a non-profit organization -- The Fair Trade Diamond and Jewelry Association -- that will work to ensure fair compensation and beneficiation to the poorest members of our industry.
The Blood Diamond movie is a clear signal to the diamond industry that we must raise our ethical awareness and moral consciousness. The real issue is not the quality of the movie, its impact on the mindset and subconscious of diamond consumers, or our diamond sales. It is time for us to wake up and question what kind of people we are. Do we give damn about the diggers in Africa or are we only concerned about ourselves, our sales, and our profits?
The real issue is not us. It is the diggers of Africa and the people of Sierra Leone. The war is over but the extreme poverty and suffering continues. We must ask ourselves - is there anything we can do to help these people?
We must help. Not because we are guilty of anything…And not because opportunist NGO’s generate publicity. The reason we must relate to the people of Sierra Leone is because we in the diamond and jewelry industry are decent human beings. Because the diggers in Sierra Leone are as much a part of our industry as we are. Because the diamond dream that we all sell does not only belong to our customers and us. The diamond dream also belongs to the people of Africa.
We must wake up to the fact that the poorest people of Africa, the artisanal diggers, are a part of our diamond family -- and that we must share our wealth with them. We must learn to care about other because it is the right thing to do.
I will be writing more in the days ahead and calling on the diamond industry to take on a much more aggressive and proactive role. I will also be taking action.
The Rapaport Group is establishing a non-profit fund for the education of the children of artisanal diamond diggers in Sierra Leone. Rapaport will be donating $100,000 to kick off this program. We have asked and hope that others will work with us so that we may do something powerfully good for the people of Sierra Leone. We are also establishing a non-profit organization -- The Fair Trade Diamond and Jewelry Association -- that will work to ensure fair compensation and beneficiation to the poorest members of our industry.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
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