In ‘Brazilian Diamond Exports Resumed: Fraud wider than originally believed, ’ the challenge for Brazil will be to enforce new regulations, which are largely computer based, in a system where huge volumes of diamonds are mined by diggers with no legal land title and no Internet access. In ‘Conflict diamonds transit Ghana’ the trial of Charles Taylor, the former Liberian warlord president, is tentatively set to begin on April 2, 2007. Taylor’s 32 month sojourn in Nigeria ended in April with an attempted escape to Cameroon, capture and an ignominious arraignment before the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in Freetown. ‘USGAO report on conflict diamonds’ recommends improvements in the accuracy of US rough diamond trade data and in processes used for importing and exporting rough diamonds, including the need to conduct periodic physical inspections and confirmation of rough diamond import receipts with foreign exporting authorities. ‘Transit Ghana: UN Report Calls for Tough Action’ found that conflict diamonds from Côte d’Ivoire, possibly worth as much as $23.5 million annually, has been exported from Ghana as Ghanaian diamonds. In ‘Conflict diamonds go to the movies,’ when the diamond wars were at their height in the mid to late 1990s, there was little international interest in the subject outside the NGO world. Since then, however, the UN Security Council, UN peacekeepers, the diamond industry, the media and academia have all become involved. The newsletter then looks at different articles under its Media Watch.
