Diamonds

Ronald seems a sober, respectable, church-on-Sunday type. Not the kind you'd find prospecting for diamonds here in Zimbabwe's wild east, a world of swaggering foreigners, dirty money and shoot-to-kill police. Not the sort who'd utter movie-script lines like this one: "You can make $15,000 or $20,000 in 30 minutes. But you can die within seconds." Ronald, like the rest of Zimbabwe, has caught Africa's nastiest ailment -- diamond fever.

On a night when actresses will be draped in diamonds, Amnesty International USA and Global Witness have asked artists and filmmakers to wear a red teardrop pin to the Academy Awards to raise awareness about diamonds mined in war zones and their effect on child soldiers. The groups said that Oscar nominees Leonardo DiCaprio, Ryan Gosling and Djimon Hounsou and other members of the "Blood Diamond" cast would be wearing the symbols.

Orange County sheriff's officials have found a $25,000 diamond in a most unusual spot: stuck in the drain of a shower stall at the jail housing the man accused of stealing it two years ago. On Thursday they outlined the circuitous route they believe the 2-carat rock took to get there. On April 4, 2005, Bret Allen Langford, 39, allegedly walked into a Jewelry Express store at Westminster Mall and asked to see the diamond along with its document of certification.

A man stole $28 million worth of diamonds from an Antwerp, Belgium, bank where he had become a trusted trader with access to the vault, officials said. Prosecutors say the suspect broke into safe-deposit boxes in an ABM Amro bank last week. He took diamonds weighing 120,000 carats, police said. The suspect gave the name Carlos Hector Flomenbaum of Argentina, but authorities believe he was lying. A passport in that name was stolen in Israel a few years ago.

Diamonds may be a girl's best friend, but when it comes to paying for the expensive sparklers, the boy's best friend may be Stephen D. Lux. Lux is a chemical engineer whose company, Gemesis Corp., turns out thousands of gem-quality yellow diamonds every month from a factory in Sarasota, Fla. Gem snobs may never go for them. But they're not fakes -- no cheap cubic zirconias, no moissanites these.

GOLD-plated rims, diamond-studded teeth. It was only a matter of time before sneakers got the same flash-custom treatment. So now, it's possible to spend thousands -- tens of thousands -- bejeweling your shoelaces. The designers at Greedy Genius created diamond eyelets to accessorize their sneakers -- and they're selling at Barneys New York and www.greedygenius.com. The interchangeable eyelets in 14k white, yellow or rose gold run from $2,800 to $6,000 for a set of 28.

The U.N. Security Council lifted a 6-year-old ban on Liberian diamond exports aimed at stopping so-called blood or conflict diamonds from reaching the world market. The unanimous vote by the 15-nation council was in "recognition of the progress made by Liberia" in setting up controls on its diamonds, the sale of which helped fuel a 14-year civil war that ended in 2003, British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said.

The government said it had lifted a six-year moratorium on the diamond trade put in place after former President Charles Taylor was accused of using "blood diamonds" to fuel civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone. "People can start applying for mining, selling and broker licenses" for diamonds on Monday, a government official said. The United Nations imposed sanctions on Liberia's diamonds in May 2001 and the Liberian government complied by placing a moratorium on all mining. The U.N.

Diamonds more than 4 billion years old -- nearly as old as Earth itself -- have been discovered in Western Australia, giv- ing scientists vital clues about the early history of our pla- net. Found trapped in zircon crystals in the Jack Hills re- gion, the small gems are the oldest identified fragments of the Earth's crust and sug- gest that the Earth may have cooled faster than previously believed, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Na- ture.

His heart's full of love, and he's walking on diamonds. But Alassan Kabia's daily toil -- shoveling the gravel that holds gems -- will never pay enough for him to marry his sweetheart. "We both want to get married, but we can't," he said. "She says I should try to find money." Kabia, 25, shovels for the boss at $2 a day. He's too lowly to wash gravel -- the stage of the process when the diamonds are found -- so he has no hope of finding a glittering rock.