#Rough Diamonds Ministry of Mines

[bslmgoldgovnet]

Ministry of Mines in Cameroon

Ministry of Mines in Cameroon

Welcome to the Ministry of Mines in Cameroon Africa in collaboration with Bertoua Savanna Local Miners (BSLMgold) in Africa Cameroon. BSLMGOLD is the best website in Cameroon to get Gold Bars Ministry of Mines in Cameroon Bertoua. Gold Ministry in Cameroon is known to issue the Cemac permit license to purchase Gold and Diamonds online. Cameroon also provides Rough Diamonds Ministry of Mines license. Get your Cemac permit from the Ministry of Gold in Cameroon. Buyers permit the Ministry of Diamonds in Cameroon. Contact us

BUYERS AUTHORIZATION PERMIT FORM

In its (2035) long-term vision, the Buyers Permit Ministry of Mines, Cameroon intends to join the ranks of emerging countries with strong industrial and mining sectors. Gold Bars Ministry of Mines To accelerate industrialization, the country intends in its Growth and Employment Strategy (GESP), to intensify the exploration, Buyers permit Ministry of Mines, exploitation, and processing of mineral resources, attracting investors in these activities with high capital and technological intensity. v

THE MINISTER OF INDUSTRY, MINES, AND TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT prepares and implements the industrial and mining policy of the Government and technological development strategies in the different areas of the national economy. Cemac permit Ministry of Mines

Who is the Minister of Mines in Cameroon?

Gold Ministry of Mines in Cameroon, On 4 January 2019, DODO NDOKE Gabriel was appointed Minister of Mines, Industries, and Technological Development in Joseph Ngute’s government. You can also order Rough diamonds online from the US

What is the Ministry of Mines and Technological Development?

The Ministry of Mines, Industry, and Technological Development is in charge of the elaboration and implementation of the Government’s mining and industrial policy and technological development strategies within the various sectors of the national economy. Gold Bars Ministry of Mines

Where can I buy gold in Cameroon?

Looking companies by tag Where can I buy gold in cameroon in Cameroon? Find in our directory the list of companies by tag Where can I buy gold in Cameroon

Since Cameroon is a CEMAC member state, you need the CEMAC Buyer’s permit before you can buy gold from Cameroon. If you are looking for some stunning gold and diamond products to add to your collection, you can go to our website and shop. Cemac permit Ministry of Mines

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CEMAC License Scams in Cameroon

CEMAC License Scams in Cameroon

How to avoid CEMAC License Scams in Cameroon, Can you avoid Cameroon Gold Scams online? Fake Cemac permit scams in Cameroon, and Exit permit scams in Cameroon? Looking to Trusted Gold where to buy in Cameroon online. BSLMGOLD Cemac permits Cameroon, Ministry of Mines Cameroon Gold.

Bertoua Savanna Local Miners (BSLMgold) in Africa Cameroon. we are collectors of Gold and rough diamonds in Cameroon and do collect from local miners around the village council and then resell them to worldwide vendors. our prices are very good.

BUYERS AUTHORIZATION PERMIT FORM

Gabriel DODO NDOKE The Ministry of Mines, Industry, and Technological Development is in charge of the elaboration and implementation of the Government’s mining and industrial policy and technological development strategies within the various sectors of the national economy.

Has implemented new Gold documents that must be used before the purchase of Gold in Africa Cameroon which is called the BUYERS AUTHORIZATION PERMIT.

So any seller claiming to ask for the CEMAC PERMIT IS A PURE SCAM. All buyers out of the Cemac Zone willing to purchase Gold must get the BUYERS AUTHORIZATION PERMIT from BSLMGOLD ( Bertoua Savanna Local Miners ) or directly from the Ministry of Mines in Cameroon.

But we advise all buyers to kindly download the BUYERS AUTHORIZATION PERMIT FORM from our website, Use a pen to fill in the information required. Make sure to choose 2 or 5 years, scan and attach your Passport copy and revert to us.

Please Note only the seller or Village chief can apply for the BUYER’s AUTHORIZATION PERMIT on the buyer’s behalf and send it directly to the Ministry of Mines to avoid scams. Because some fake websites claim to be the Ministry Of Mines Official websites.

BUYERS AUTHORIZATION PERMIT FORM

Where to buy Gold in 2024

How to Apply for a Cemac Buyer Permit

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CEMAC Buyers Permit for Gold Exporters

FAKE WEBSITE TO BUY GOLD OR CEMAC PERMIT IN CAMEROON

Is the CEMAC Buyers Permit Real or scam – BSLMGold African governments are interested in buying gold from individuals as well as trust companies who want to sell gold. The CEMAC buyers permit is not a scam and the most trusted company to buy Gold in Cameroon is BSLMGold.gov.net and the verified ministry of mines in Cameroon is minmiidt-gov.net. So make sure to do some research before you order AU Gold online from Cameroon.

Cameroon CEMAC Gold Permit

How to get around an already issued CEMAC Permit. A Cemac certificate is issued by the government of Cameroon to show that you are an approved buyer of gold and diamonds.

The government controls the goods, diamonds, or gold and secures that the seller is paying the export fees. The government ministry of mines then arranges for the shipment to the buyer.

How to invest in Gold from Cameroon Africa in 2023, The Cemac is then supposed to guarantee the rights to purchase for a period of one to five years. The chance to get a real offer from a seller that accepts the Cemac certificate is as said earlier very high. But that goes for one reason or another for new Gold Cemac Permit certificates.

Exit permit scams online in 2023

If you already have a certificate then the sellers want to meet in Cameroon to meet and sign the agreement. The obvious explanation is that the sellers do not trust their government ministry of mines or it may be that the cost of exportation can be avoided. Exit permit scams in Cameroon

If you like me have learned from previous mistakes is that the seller does not have anything at all. When he could not catch the Cemac fee at least he can do something in Cameroon. Exit permit scams in Cameroon

BSLMGOLD Cemac permits Cameroon, So please be careful when dealing with sellers from Cameroon, they are just as bad as everybody else. They have on paper support from their government for their fraudulent behavior. Furthermore, you need to contact BSLMGold.gov.net and get instructions on how to buy or invest in Gold from Cameroon.

Pay the costs of doing business and use the support systems offered by the respective nation. Guide to invest in Gold from Cameroon Africa online in 2023, Fake Cemac permit scams.

Exporters beware of Fake CEMAC Certification Authority

Exporters beware of fake CEMAC Certification Authority which is set up by scammers. contact us

Can you avoid Cameroon Gold Scams? Some fake importers after showing interest in your products will claim to place orders and process payments in your favor only to lure you to a fake CEMAC certification authority. Here they will say you need to obtain certification to export to Cameroon. They will ask you to make deposits and you will end up losing funds and you will only get bogus certificates. So BSLMGOLD is the best and most trusted online website to buy and invest in Gold from Cameroon.

CEMAC License Scams in Cameroon

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Cemac Buyers Permit License | How to Apply for Cemac Permit

Ministry of Mines in Cameroon

Get the verified Cemac buyer’s permit Authorization license from the Ministry of Mines on Cameroon Official website like MINMIIDT-GOV.NET. CEMAC BUYER’S PERMIT LICENSE FORMMinistry of Mines in Cameroon Official website – MINMIIDT-GOV

The Cemac Buyer’s Permit Authorisation license form called Exit Permit is Issued by the Ministry of Mines in Cameroon Minmiidt-gov.net. The CEMAC Buyers Permit is issued by the Ministry of Mines and Energy to show that the buyer is an approved buyer of Gold and Diamonds with the CEMAC Countries. This document enables the buyer to trade in Gold or Diamonds in countries within the CEMAC region. The permit has a duration of five years and is renewable.

CEMAC BUYER'S PERMIT LICENSE REGISTRATION FORM

How to get a gold buying permit in Cameroon 

Cemac Buyers Permit License

How to Apply for Cemac Permit

Avoid Cemac permit Fraud

Where to Buy Gold Bars

Is the CEMAC Buyers Permit Real or scam

Cemac buyer's permit authorization license

How to order Gold from Cameroon

Gold mining services in Cameroon

Is the CEMAC Buyers Permit Real or a scam

Does a gold buyer from the USA, Europe, Australia, Asia, and Africa need a Cemac permit buyer’s license to import Gold to His or her country? Yes, you need this permit license from the Ministry of Mines Gold Permit in Cameroon. Always make sure to Avoid Cemac permit Fraud from a fake website claiming to supply Gold. You can also order a Cemac Buyer’s Permit for Gold from bonasgold.net with brinks shipping to your location.

How to Order Gold from Cameroon

Looking for How to Order Gold from Cameroon? MINMIIDT-GOV.NET Ministry of Mine is the best directive to purchase Gold and Cemac permits from the Ministry of Mines in Cameroon Africa. Ready to purchase gold from Africa? Not too fast. You may not be quite ready to place an order yet. Before you proceed to the order form, please read this vital piece of information below.

Gold Dealers Licence

The Minister of Mines Minmiidt-gov.net, Energy and Rural Electrification may issue a Gold Dealer’s Licence to any licensed bank in the Cameroon Islands or to an individual who is over 21 years old, is a citizen of the Solomon Islands, has not been convicted for an offense involving dishonesty or fraud and is a fit and proper person to hold such a license who the Board thinks that they understand the provisions of the Mines and Minerals Act well enough to be able to carry out the obligations imposed under the Act.

Kimberley Process Certification Scheme

The UN initiated, in January 2003, the Kimberly Process (KP). Since then, 76 countries, representing 99.8 % of the world’s production of rough diamonds, have taken part in the process MINMIIDT-GOV.NET.

It is an international observatory whose objective is to contain the infiltration of blood diamonds.

The Kimberly Process is a veritable world network for preventing conflicts and fighting against rebellions, by exfiltrating blood diamonds. The Kimberly Process promotes supervised and legal diamond mining and trade.Délégations Régionales

Placée sous l’autorité d’un Délégué Régional, la Délégation Régionale des Mines, de l’Industrie et du Développement Technologique est chargée Minmiidt-gov.net:

de la coordination des activités du Ministère dans la Région;

du suivi des activités des Brigades Régionales de Contrôle des Activités Minières;

de l’assistance des opérateurs dans la réalisation des projets industriels;

de la promotion des normes et du suivi de leur application, en liaison avec l’organisme national de normalisation;

du suivi au niveau régional, des programmes de recherche orientée vers la valorisation des matières premières d’origine minérale, agricole, forestière ;

de la promotion de la propriété industrielle;

de la promotion des brevets d’invention des nationaux;

du contrôle technique des projets;

de la gestion du personnel;

de la gestion du budget et du matériel; •

de la tenue de la documentation, des archives et des statistiques;

de la mise en œuvre des activités relatives au cadastre minier.

Délégations DépartementalesDélégations Départementales

Placée sous l’autorité d’un Délégué Départemental, la Délégation Départementale des Mines, de l’Industrie et du Développement Technologique est chargée Minmiidt-gov.net:

de la coordination et du suivi de toutes les activités, projets et programmes du Ministère dans le Département;

de l’assistance des opérateurs dans la réalisation des projets industriels;

du suivi du respect des normes et de l’accompagnement des entreprises dans a démarche qualité;

du suivi et de l’orientation des initiatives de transformations des matières premières agricoles, forestière et minières;

de la promotion des brevets d’invention des nationaux;

du contrôle technique des projets;

de la gestion du personnel;

du suivi du respect de la réglementation minière, industrielle et technologique;

de la gestion du matériel;

de la tenue de la documentation, des archives et des statistiques.

Avoid Cemac permit Fraud

Are you looking to Avoid Cemac permit Fraud from fake Ministry of Mines in Cameroon? https://minmidt-gov.net/ will verify your seller now and get back to you with a trusted and reliable official website of the Ministry of Mines in Cameroon.

I was informed that some individuals in Africa and other countries outside the Cemac zone were easily cheated, scammed, and robbed of their hard-earned money by unscrupulous and dubious brokers who are not licensed to handle Cemac permit matters in Africa.Avoid Cemac Permit Fraud

The brokers make these people believe that they have the power to give them an export permit from Ministry of Mines in Cameroon even when there is no legal contract between them.

How to Apply for Cemac Permit Authorization Buyer’s Gold License

How to Apply for Cemac Permit Authorization Buyer’s Gold License? You must visit Minmiidt-gov.net to buy the Cemac permit Gold License.

The Central Africa Economic Community (CEMAC) is an economic and monetary union that aims to promote the economic integration of its member countries. The CEMAC was established on June 18, 1983, in N’Djamena by six founding members: Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo.

Cemac Buyers Permit License

Any application for the grant of a mining title, authorization, Cemac Buyers Permit License shall be addressed to the Minister in charge of mines in Cameroon. including one original stamp at the rate in force. The following documents shall be appended to the application

Does a gold buyer from the USA, Europe, Australia, Asia, and Africa need a Cemac permit buyer’s license to import Gold to His or her country? Yes, you need this permit license from the Ministry of Mines in Cameroon, the Gold Permit in Cameroon. Always make sure to Avoid Cemac permit Fraud from a fake website claiming to supply Gold

How to get a gold buying permit in Cameroon

How to get a gold-buying permit in Cameroon from the official Gold Ministry of Mines in Cameroon? Minmiidt-gov.net is the ideal place for a Gold License permit authorization.

A gold buying permit in Cameroon is issued by the Ministry of Mines in Cameroon (MINMIIDT-GOV.NET). To get a gold buying permit visit MINMIIDT-GOV.NET.  An interview will be scheduled and in the interview, one should be prepared to commit to gold quantities they can buy per month. How to get a gold buying permit in Cameroon, It is a must that this target is met. Cemac buyer’s Licenses are issued every month and should the license holder not meet the monthly target the license will not be renewed.

[sciencespies]

Russia Fights Efforts to Declare It an Exporter of ‘Blood Diamonds’

https://sciencespies.com/environment/russia-fights-efforts-to-declare-it-an-exporter-of-blood-diamonds/

Russia Fights Efforts to Declare It an Exporter of ‘Blood Diamonds’

As a major diamond producer, Russia earns billions of dollars that other nations say help finance war. The clash exposes the many loopholes in regulation of conflict diamonds.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to global soul-searching about overreliance on Russian oil and gas, but a new drama is unfolding over another of Russia’s major exports: diamonds.

Russia is the world’s largest supplier of small diamonds. For years, engagement rings, earrings and pendants for sale in the United States and beyond have included diamonds mined from deep in the permafrost in Russia’s northeast.

Now, the United States and other countries are taking action that could officially label Russian diamonds as “conflict diamonds,” claiming their sale helps pay for Russia’s deadly aggression in Ukraine.

“Proceeds from that production are benefiting the same state that is conducting a premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified war,” said George Cajati, a U.S. State Department official, in a letter written in May to the chair of the Kimberley Process, an international organization created by United Nations resolution to prevent the flow of conflict diamonds.

The European Union, Canada and other Western nations, as well as Ukraine and several activist organizations, have joined in similar calls for a Kimberley Process discussion about the implications of the invasion of Ukraine, including whether Russian gems should be considered conflict diamonds.

Also known as blood diamonds, conflict diamonds are commonly thought of as gems sold to finance war. The Kimberley Process, created in the wake of diamonds financing a deadly war in Sierra Leone and elsewhere, defines them more specifically, as “rough diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to finance conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments.”

But “rebel movement” doesn’t accurately describe Russia, and officials there vehemently object to labeling the nation’s diamonds as conflict gems. They chalk up the effort by Western governments to do so as “political demagogy,” according to an emailed statement from the press service of Russia’s Ministry of Finance.

The issue is coming into sharper focus as Western nations outraged by Russia’s actions in Ukraine restrict Russian gas and look for long-term alternatives to their reliance on its fossil fuels. Revenues from Russia’s other big exports, such as diamonds, have gained new global relevance both for Russia as well as for countries looking to punish the nation for its actions in Ukraine.

The gems are one of Russia’s top non-energy exports by value, accounting for more than $4.5 billion of exports last year, according to U.S. government data.

The Nyurbinsky open-pit mine in Siberia, one of the largest diamond mines in the world. Maxim Babenko for The New York Times

Russian diamonds have for years been popular with American jewelers weary of the taint of diamonds from African mines — even those far from conflict areas — that consumers could confuse for blood diamonds. But the debate over Russian diamonds is exposing an often-overlooked reality about the effort to rein in the murky $80 billion global diamond industry, which commercializes the deepest of emotions and has spent years working to reassure people that its gems are trustworthy through Kimberley Process certification.

Because of loopholes and technicalities, so-called ethical diamonds don’t really exist, many jewelers acknowledge. And the effort to block Russian diamonds underscores that fact. “We use the Kimberley Process as the greatest greenwashing machine the world has ever seen,” said Martin Rapaport, a leading diamond broker whose price list is used as a benchmark for the wholesale trade in polished diamonds.

Understand the Latest News on Climate Change

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Understand the Latest News on Climate Change

Arctic warming. The rapid warming of the Arctic is occurring even faster than previously described, according to researchers in Finland. Over the past four decades the region has been heating up four times faster than the global average, they said, not the two to three times that has commonly been reported.

Understand the Latest News on Climate Change

In the Amazon. The United Nations Development Program has worked with energy companies in the region to keep oil flowing, internal documents and interviews with several officials show. The collaboration is one example of how the organization will at times partner with polluters that work against the interests of the communities the agency is supposed to help.

Understand the Latest News on Climate Change

New Zealand’s farmland. The country’s push to be carbon neutral by 2050 and the rise of a new industry that seeks to make money from the carbon trees suck from the atmosphere are causing a loss of ranch land that could threaten farming and change the face of its rural areas.

Understand the Latest News on Climate Change

Australia’s leap forward. The country’s Lower House of Parliament passed a bill that commits the government to reducing carbon emissions by at least 43 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, and reaching net zero by 2050 — a dramatic shift for Australia. The new Labor government is expected to push the legislation through the Senate in a few weeks.

Understand the Latest News on Climate Change

Extreme heat in Britain. A heat wave that demolished records in Britain in July, bringing temperatures as high as 104.5 degrees Fahrenheit to a country unaccustomed to scorching summers, would have been “extremely unlikely” without the influence of human-caused climate change, a scientific report found.

For Russia’s part, its officials say the country’s diamonds were in line with environmental, social and governance standards long before they became fashionable in the corporate world. They say Russian mines contribute to the economy in a desolate part of the country, near an area called Yakutia, that would be otherwise destitute.

Diamond proceeds have paved roads, built schools and hospitals, Russia’s finance ministry said in an email, adding that payments are also made to institutional and private investors. “The livelihoods of one million people of Yakutia fully depend on the stability of diamond mining in the region,” the ministry said.

But Ukraine officials say the diamonds contribute to Russia’s invasion.

“Russian diamonds are involved in financing the war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, which makes these diamonds not just conflict, but bloody,” said Vladimir Tatarintsev, deputy director of the State Gemmological Center of Ukraine, which is a member of the Kimberley Process.

Western officials have lined up beside the Ukrainians.

On the very day in February that Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States added to its sanctions list Serge S. Ivanov, the chief executive of Alrosa, Russia’s biggest diamond producer and the world’s largest diamond mining company. Mr. Ivanov is the son of one of President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies, who was also added to the sanctions list.

Later, the U.S. banned imports of Russian diamonds along with Russian vodka, caviar and other items.

But the U.S. action had a major loophole: It applied only to Russian rough diamonds, gems that were dug from the ground but had yet to be cut and shined. And few rough diamonds from Russia reach the U.S. market.

After being pulled from the ground, most diamonds are shipped abroad for transformation, regardless of where they’re mined. The vast majority end up in polishing centers in India, which has no ban on Russian diamonds. Once the diamonds are transformed and readied for shipping, their origin changes. Diamonds mined in Russia are no longer Russian-origin diamonds; they’re labeled Indian-origin.

A presentation room at Alrosa, Russia’s biggest diamond producer and the world’s largest diamond mining company.Maxim Babenko for The New York Times

Boycotts of Russian diamonds were launched by major jewelers such as Tiffany. De Beers increased efforts to trace the gems through the supply chain.

The U.S. escalated its action not long after, targeting the mining giant Alrosa, which is majority-owned by the Russian federal and regional governments. It added Alrosa to a U.S. Treasury list that essentially bans U.S. nationals from doing business with it. Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the Bahamas took similar action.

But critics said the ban failed to close the loophole and left open the possibility that Alrosa’s subsidiaries could still find a way to get diamonds that are cut and polished abroad into the U.S. And they note that while the U.S. is the biggest market for Russian diamonds, Alrosa can still sell diamonds freely in other major markets such as China, which has taken no action against Russian gems.

Regardless, shares of Alrosa, which the U.S. says generated more than $4.2 billion in revenue last year and is responsible for 90 percent of Russia’s diamond mining capacity, have plummeted. It was a hit for a company that five years ago had launched a new marketing campaign in America, hoping its Russian identity would be a bonus in a nation where savvy consumers were wary of atrocities in diamond mining that fueled wars in African countries.

“Alrosa has a very strong focus on environmental and social issues and conforms to the highest standards of corporate social responsibility,” the company said in an emailed statement. Its website highlights efforts aimed at protecting water and soil, helping Indigenous populations and creating a park to protect reindeer and other wildlife.

The debate over Russian diamonds reached the Kimberley Process ahead of the group’s scheduled meeting in June. A movement was already afoot by the U.S. and other Western countries to determine whether Russia was exporting conflict diamonds and to reconsider Russia’s leadership roles in the organization.

Russia itself had been among the numerous nations that for several years had been pushing within the Kimberley Process for an expansion of the definition of conflict diamonds, seeking to broaden it to apply to issues such as human rights, labor and the environment. But because the organization is governed by consensus — all decisions must be unanimous among the more than 80 countries — the movement has stalled.

Tensions over Russian diamonds split the Kimberley Process member countries along increasingly familiar geopolitical lines, with numerous Western nations pitted against Russia, which was backed by China Belarus and Kyrgyzstan as well as Mali and Central African Republic where Russia has a big presence including by its mercenaries who operate in diamond mines.

The Kimberley Process “has less and less to do with diamonds and in a way has become another geostrategic theater,” said Hans Merket, a diamond industry and human rights researcher whose organization is part of civil society membership in the Kimberley Process.

Sorting diamonds in 2018 at the Alrosa center in Mirny, Russia.Maxim Babenko for The New York Times

At the June meeting in Botswana, discussions about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and its implications for the Kimberley Process, ended after vetoes by Russia, China and Belarus. Journalists were asked to leave sessions they normally would be allowed to attend, some participants said, and talks with the organization’s chairman became tangled in disputes over whether Russia should take part. The U.S. and British representatives boycotted sessions led by Russian representatives.

Mr. Merket said the group had become “an organ of bureaucrats” who sign off on diamonds that are problematic yet receive endorsements that falsely reassure jewelry buyers. “Consumers expect something that isn’t true,” he said.

The meeting left him and other participants frustrated and worried that important work was being sidetracked.

A new process awaits review for exporting diamonds from the war-torn Central African Republic, where Russian mercenaries operate in the diamond industry and have been accused of human rights violations. Reports of violence in diamond mines in Brazil and Venezuela are not being investigated, some participants said. Allegations of violence involving security officials at mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and Tanzania have gone unaddressed.

Within the entrenched industry, where jewelry businesses are handed down for generations, defenders of the Kimberley Process say that despite the problems it mostly works.

“It’s not a perfect world,” said Edward Asscher, president of the World Diamond Council, which represents the diamond industry in the Kimberley Process. Nevertheless, Mr. Asscher, whose family diamond business dates to the 1850s, said he believed that 99 percent of diamonds certified by the Kimberley Process were conflict-free.

Still, tension over Russian diamonds threatens to overshadow work at a Kimberley Process meeting scheduled for November. “The Kimberley Process cannot stay silent following a military aggression of one participant against another,” said Xavier Cifre Quatresols, a spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy at the European Union.

And just last month, similar tensions filled the room at a gathering of diamond industry leaders in New York, where jewelers and traders who long have worked with Russian counterparts were now in the uncomfortable position of distancing themselves from the gems.

Nearly everyone in attendance agreed that, in one way or another, the industry needed reform.

Ronnie VanderLinden, a leader in the U.S. diamond industry and longtime jeweler based in New York City’s famed diamond district, said that “all diamonds in the United States are ethical diamonds,” but acknowledged the system had flaws. “It depends,” he said, “on what your definition of ethical is.”

#Environment

[an-stoirm]

tagged by @any59​ :P

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 92 truths about you. At the end choose 25 people to be tagged.

LAST:

Last drink: Arizona Green Tea :P

Last phone call: Call from my fiance

Last text message: Texted my bank account to see my pisspoor balance

Last song you listened to: Something from Undertale

Last time I cried: Probably this morning. I cry very easily ^^;

HAVE YOU EVER:

Dated someone twice: yep

Been cheated on: probably?

Kissed someone and regretted it: nope

Lost someone special: yup

Been depressed: yup

Been drunk and thrown up: nope, never even been drunk

IN THE PAST YEAR HAVE YOU:

Made a new friend: Yup!

Fallen out of love:  Nope!

Laughed until you cried: Yup!

Met someone who changed you: Yup!

Found out who your true friends were: Yup!... I think lol

Found out someone was talking about you: Yes...? Not in a bad way though.

GENERAL:

How many people on tumblr do you know in real life?: I’ve met a lot of people who had tumblrs and who I followed before meeting in person. As for people I see in the flesh regularly who also have tumblrs I follow... Just one.

Do you have any pets?: Yup! A cat named Luca and a dog named Diamond!

Do you want to change your name?: Eh. Not really? Maybe. 

What time did you wake up this morning?: I woke up at 7:30pm...

What were you doing last night?: Sleeping. It’s been a rough couple days with narcolepsy.

Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: Not to my knowledge.

What’s getting on your nerves rn?: My bank account and my inability to hold onto money...

Blood type: O+

Nickname: Allec is one of them ;P

Relationship status: engaged

Zodiac sign: Sagittarius

Pronouns: they/them

Favorite tv show: Ahhh... Cutthroat Kitchen is a recent love of mine?

College: Currently attending a local community college.

Hair colour: Blonde

Long or short: Short right now.

Do you have a crush on someone: Beyond who I’m engaged to, not really.

What do you like about yourself: Physically? My boobs and my hair.

FIRSTS:

First surgery: Wisdom Teeth when I was 19.

First piercing: My ears when I was a baby (they closed up though and I had to get them re-pierced later)

First best friend: Carson, I believe!

First sport you joined: Soccer, as a wee little one.

First vacation: Somewhere in Florida probably.

First pair of sneakers: I honestly don’t remember?

Eating: I just had some grilled cheese and tomato soup!

Drinking: Tea, though I ran out so I’m gonna drink some of my energy drink

I’m about to: Probably play some video games... I should do homework but meh

Want kids: Someday :]

Get married: Someday!

Career: Something to do with interfaith ministry... I’d like anyways. IDK how likely that is.

WHICH IS BETTER:

Lips or eyes: eyes I guess?

Hugs or kisses: hugs I guess?

Shorter or taller: taller I guess?

Older or younger: older I guess?

Romantic or spontaneous:  romantic I guess?

Sensitive or loud: sensitive I guess?

Hook up or relationship:  relationship I guess?

Troublemaker or hesitant: hesitant I guess?

HAVE YOU EVER:

Kissed a stranger: yup

Drank hard liquor: I think? (Never gotten drunk though)

Lost glasses/contacts: Never had glasses or contacts

Sex on first date: Yup.

Broken someone’s heart: Maybe? 

Been arrested: Yup.

Turned someone down: I don’t think so -- not beyond not answering messages on OKC.

Fallen for a friend: Yup.

DO YOU BELIEVE:

In yourself: sure Miracles: sure Love at first sight: ehh Heaven: maybe Santa Claus: sometimes.

Tagging whoever wants to do this too :P

[sarkarimirror]

The Mumbai Dabbawala association addressed at the Kimberley Process Intersessional Meeting.

The Mumbai Dabbawala association and All India Angadiyas Federation representatives addressed at the prestigious Kimberley Process Intersessional Meeting here in Mumbai. They spoke on the Supply Chain Management skills they associations have evolved over the period of time, through their accurate and flawless delivery system in place, with utmost customer satisfaction. The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme is an international certification scheme that regulates trade in rough diamonds. It aims to prevent the flow of conflict diamonds, while helping to protect legitimate trade in rough diamonds. The Kimberley Process (KP) is open to all countries that are willing and able to implement its requirements. Currently, KP has 55 participants, representing 82 countries with the European Union and its Member States counting as a single participant. GJEPC is the KP Import/ Export Authority in India. India is the Chair for 2019, for the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme. Over 200 plus delegations from over 55 countries namely USA, Russia, European Union, Brazil, Canada, China, Isreal, Japan, Australia, South Africa etc. are attending the KP Intersessional Meeting, which is currently ongoing in Mumbai. Seen in Pic (L-R): Dr Shayequa Zeenat Ali, Consultant, NCAER, Mr Sabyasachi Ray, Executive Director, The Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council of India (GJEPC), Shri Ulhas Shamrao Muke, President, Mumbai Dabbawala.in, Ms Rupa Dutta, Economic Advisor, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Govt of India, Ms Feriel Zerouki, Vice President, GemFair, De Beers Group, Shri Mahendra Patel, President, All India Aangadiya Association and Mr Pranay Narvekar, CEO, MyKYCBank at the Special Forum on Artisanal Mining - Small Steps to Larger Outcomes to discuss on Supply Chain Management and Distribution Management Read the full article

[dailyaudiobible]

07/19/2017 DAB Transcript

1 Chronicles 28:1-29:30 ~ Romans 5:6-21 ~ Psalm 15:1-5 ~ Proverbs 19:18-19

Today is the 19th of July. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. Man, didn't it, wasn't it just July 1st? Some days I sit down in front of this mic and say the date and it's like, really, were did the last week go? So it's going to be here with you on the 19th of July as we take the next step forward in the adventure through the bible this year. And this week or reading from the Holman Christian Standard Bible, working our way through 1st Chronicles, and will actually complete the book of 1st Chronicles today before diving deeper and drinking from the Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans. But first, first Chronicles chapter 28 verse 1 through 29:30 today.

Commentary:

Okay, so, obviously, we’re continuing in the book of Romans. And so, yesterday, we were talking about circumcision and the apostle Paul showing that it was Abraham's belief, it was his faith in God, that was counted towards him as righteousness, not anything he did. So, Paul’s unpacking that further today by simply saying, look, the law shows us what sin is. Every one of us knows that we haven't been able to achieve perfection in the law. None of us can actually live up to it a hundred percent of the time all the time. If we could do that then we could claim, in our own strength, we have been made righteous, we are righteous within ourselves by our own action. But no one's been able to do that except for Jesus, who said he didn't come abolish the law, he came to fulfill it. Right? So, He did that but nobody else has been able to do that and so we should acknowledge that we're helpless. We can't achieve it on our own. We can't get there. So even while we're in the state of helplessness, that we cannot achieve it. God came through Jesus and died for the ungodly and that's rare because rarely will a person die for any other person. But God, even while we were estranged, even while we were helpless, even while we were hopeless, God did come. Even while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. It is God's way of showing Mercy to the world, extending grace to the world. In the thick of our inhumane behavior and helplessness, he is merciful to us, rescuing us.

Prayer:

Father, that rescue of us has altered the world, has certainly changed our lives, and you have extended that grace and mercy to everyone. And you've invited us to be a part of that story by living into it, by the very weight of our lives, being an example of what that restoration looks like, and in inviting us to bring light and good news into this world just like the Savior did. So, we invite Your Holy Spirit into that. Come Holy Spirit and show us what that continues to look like, as it is an ever evolving process within us. We are continually being changed from within and You have continually invited us to change the world from within. So come, in every thought that we have today, in very word that we speak today, in every interaction that we have today, may we represent You and do it well, as an ambassador for Your kingdom in this world. Come Holy Spirit, we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the web site. It's home base. It’s where you find out what's going on around here.

So, the announcements for this week are that the Sneezing Jesus audiobook is available. So, you can get it at Audible, iTunes, or wherever else you get your downloadable audio books. Which means that all of the formats, whether that be physical book or like a digital book or audiobook, they're all released and everywhere that you can get books.

The Sneezing Jesus discussion group is lively and good and amazing and encouraging and I just love seeing what everybody is saying. I’m going to do a little bit of a Facebook live discussion tomorrow evening at 7 p.m. Central Standard Time. So, I guess you'll have to Google…like…we're all over the place…we’re in a lot of different time zones…so…you’ll just kind of, like, have to Google the difference. I know here the United States that would be like 8 p.m. on the east coast and 5 p.m. on the West Coast. And I'll just share for a little bit and we’ll be able to discuss. So, make plans for that. You need to be in the Sneezing Jesus discussion group to be able to see that. So, jump over to facebook.com/groups/sneezingjesus and dive into the conversation.

The other thing is that we'll be taking this message out on the road on a limited basis and if you would like to see that come near your area, there's a form at sneezingjesus.com. If you just scroll all the way down to the bottom, there’s this little form. If you fill that out and send it in you'll be responded to. We’ll see if that can happen.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There’s a link, it’s on the homepage of dailyaudiobible.com. Thank you. Thank you for your partnership here in the thick of the summer. I appreciate it more than I can say. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the More button in the lower right-hand corner or if you prefer the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that’s it for today. I'm Brian. I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayers and Praise Reports:

Hey family, it’s Rich from Little Rock and I wanted say I thank you so much for your prayers. I love you Blind Tony and I love you Brian and it's great to friend up with you on Facebook. Things have been kind of up and down but, you know, I’ve decided…I’ve decided that I wasn’t going to let this be my lord, you know.  I mean it’s not totally gone but I reprioritized things and I love my Lord Jesus. I remember, Brian, that my mom, the month before she died, she went through this exhaustive search in the Book of Ezekiel, especially. I can hardly handle chapter 1. It was wild. The way the bible describes the angels going up and down and around but I wanted to know things like that before I go. You know that Jesus is closer than any brother. And you guys…and now I’m going to get emotional…I love guys you very much. I'm back in Exodus still. Let’s roll man. I love you guys for loving me. Keep those prayers coming. I appreciate it.

Hello Daily Audio Bible. My name is Marco. I'm from California. I'm a first-time caller. I’m just calling to… I’m going through a rough time. I never do this. Just trying to have a prayer request. I lost my job and bills are piling up. I'm the provider for me and my wife and I don't want her to start stressing.  I'm on my hands and knees and am reading my Bible and I'm praying every day. And Brian, you, you are amazing - what you do, how you do it. You brought me closer to Jesus. I know that all things are possible with God and I know that I'm going through this adversity to test my will. It’s really hard but I’m trying and I’m standing and I’m praying every day, more and more, and I’m listening. I’m listening every day to the Daily Audio Bible. And I love all the prayers that get sent in and all the prayer requests and I really want to be a part of this community. And I really want God to be a part of my life and remain to be a part of my life. I just want to pray for financial stability. If any of you can just pray for me, I’d appreciate it. I know that things are going to get better. It's just, I'm at the point right now where it's hard to see that but again I'm praying and I'm staying strong and I know that all things are possible with God. And once again thank you Daily Audio Bible family, friends, brothers and sisters. And Brian thank you for what you're doing. You're an amazing human being. God bless. Thank you.

Hi everyone this is Karen in Saint Louis. Hey, first off, I just want to say, Blind Tony, I just love your poems and I wish that you would put them all in a book. That would be, like, so awesome to have. Anyway, that was just a thought that I had. Another thing that has been on my heart and especially, through this week, something that God's been putting on my heart, the whole idea of us and how we go through seasons. There is also a friend of mine that's in Ministry that spoke about this on the praise show on TBN. And, so, I have friends that are going through tragedy, that are going through loss, that are going through struggles. I do the same. And the thing is is that, just like in Ecclesiastes 3, we go through these seasons - the low, the rocky, the rough spots. They're just as important and good as the high tops – the mountaintop experiences that we go through. And in our humanness, it’s so easy for us to focus on the sadness, the pain, the hurt of the low spots. But may we turn our eyes upon Jesus during that time because Romans 8:28 is true and God is going to make it good, no matter how bad it seems, and it seems like there’s so many things that…we’re just…it’s hard…it's hard. Nobody said it was going to be easy. But I think about how a diamond…how it is...it goes through so much to sparkle and shine. And, so, I just want to encourage us that go through these low valleys, sometimes for a very long time, that God loves us so, so much. He is for us. He is with us walking through it. And just like Brian had shown that tear bottle…

Hi Daily Audio Bible family, it’s James here from the UK. I haven’t called in for a while but been listening to the community prayer, 15th of July. Candice from Oregon, I just was so touched by your prayer and I just wanted you to know that you’ve been a real inspiration to me. I haven’t called in to mention this before but what you talked about and the love you have for your husband, your late husband. Candice, it is an absolute inspiration. And you need to know that you are inspiring many people that are listening to this podcast and sharing your grief and just sharing your openness to the Holy Spirit to take you to the next level, to transform you, to continue to be at work in your life without your life partner is something that has inspired me so much. So, thank you for reaching out Candice. I will continue to pray for you and…you know…please pray for me…that as a community it’s a beautiful thing that we can do this for each other. And Candice, I know that lots of people are thinking of you. Continue to inspire us and thank you for your heart for Jesus. Amen.

[vanessawestwcrtr5]

How DLT Helps Tracking Gems and Prevents Fraud

How DLT Helps Tracking Gems and Prevents Fraud

Last week, Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science introduced a blockchain-enabled platform for tracking diamonds.

Indeed, blockchain has been bringing transparency into the diamond industry — a complex ecosystem where corruption and irresponsible mining appear to be largely present.

Self-regulation in the diamond industry — and how Everledger’s arrival pivoted it from a dead end

The history of blockchain in the diamond industry can be traced back to May 2015, when Australian entrepreneur Leanne Kemp founded Everledger — a global digital registry for diamonds powered by the IBM Blockchain Platform. One of its main goals was to solve the “blood diamonds” issue — i.e., preventing the circulation of diamonds mined in war zones and sold to finance oppressive regimes. Everledger uses grading reports provided by Gemological Institute of America (GIA) for assessing the diamonds. Kemp told Cointelegraph in July 2018:

“We do not see ourselves as a crypto company — and, to be honest with you, we don’t even see ourselves as a blockchain company. We’re building a platform of provenance to help with transparency, and conflict and opaque markets. And we want to build an ethical trade platform.”

The idea of tracking gems is not new — in 2003, the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) regime was established by a United Nations General Assembly Resolution to increase transparency in the diamond trade and keep conflict diamonds out of the market. Essentially, the process implies that KPCS participants monitor shipments of rough diamonds and certify them as “conflict free.” More specifically, they follow a series of self-regulatory principles aimed at ensuring that diamonds are bought from legitimate sources. Some of those guidelines are mentioned in the System of Warranties introduced by the World Diamond Council in 2015.

While the KPCS scheme has been adopted by more than 80 countries since then, its efficiency has been questioned. In December 2011, international nongovernmental organization (NGO) Global Witness quit the program, arguing that “most consumers still cannot be sure where their diamonds come from” and criticizing more specific KPCS members’ decisions:

“The decision to endorse unlimited diamond exports from named companies in the Marange region of Zimbabwe – the scene of mass killings by the national army – has turned an international conflict prevention mechanism into a cynical corporate accreditation scheme.”

Further, in December 2017, Canada-based NGO Impact, which monitors the management of natural resources in Africa, also pulled out of the scheme. In an accompanying statement, the NGO’s executive director argued that KPCS “did not establish a conflict-free and legal diamond supply chain,” instead giving consumers “false confidence about where their diamonds come from.”

Decentralization, on the other hand, and the transparency that it implies, might help the industry evolve further and make sure that self-regulatory precautions are followed.

An immutable ledger would allow access to the full account of a particular diamond’s history and eliminate the possibility of forging documents, as every milestone of the gem’s destination would be recorded on the blockchain, according to representatives of Alrosa, a Russian partially state-owned diamond mining company that reportedly handles around 27 percent of global diamond production by volume:

“Creating a blockchain-based tracing system is another step towards ensuring the transparency of the industry. Blockchain could allow to track each stone’s history, from its extraction to the final purchase. This greatly lowers the chances of any unfair of [or] wrongful transaction for both consumers and resellers. Such transactions may include purchase of fake or synthetic stones under the guise of natural ones, sale stones with overstated specifications or blood diamonds coming from conflict areas.”

Blood diamonds are not the only issue, as gem retailers are also trying to detect laboratory-grown diamonds, which are less valuable among customers, and sometimes are sold as natural ones.

Synthetic diamonds. Image source: GIA

Major diamond industry participants adopt blockchain — Alrosa, De Beers, Chow Tai Fook and others

Indeed, some of the industry’s largest players — Alrosa included — have already introduced their DLT solutions for a conflict-free, responsible diamond trade.

In September 2018, major Hong Kong-based retailer Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group joined the Everledger project with its GIA grading reports to boost the sales of the T MARK line, in which the diamonds are inscribed with traceable codes so that their origin can be checked.

“We announced our collaboration with GIA in May last year to use blockchain to enhance our offering and add an additional layer of trust for consumers of T MARK. The pilot service was later launched to the market in September in the same year,” Peony Sze, spokesperson for Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group told Cointelegraph, adding:

“Since T MARK already traces a diamond’s entire journey from sourcing to finished jewellery, the blockchain initiative further enhances T MARK by allowing customers to receive both traceability and secure grading information via a single digital platform.”

Sze believes that blockchain’s arrival “is a natural evolution for the diamond industry,” which will eventually be picked up by other players as well:

“More and more leading companies in the gem and jewellery industry are developing or using blockchain in different facets of their products and services across the supply chain to enhance customer experience with security and traceability.”

In January 2018, De Beers Group — a large international corporation that specializes in diamond exploration, mining and retail — introduced an initiative similar to Everledger’s, although on a larger, enterprise scale. The company announced it was looking into blockchain to improve the transparency of the diamond value chain and get permanent digital records for every diamond registered on the platform.

De Beers added that an initial proof-of-concept (PoC) trial was successful and resulted in a working prototype. The company’s CEO, Bruce Cleaver, said in a press release:

“Diamonds hold enduring value and represent some of life’s most meaningful moments, so it’s essential to provide assurance that a diamond is conflict-free and natural. By leveraging blockchain technology, we will provide an additional layer of assurance to consumers and industry participants, with every diamond registered on the platform having a record as everlasting as the diamond itself.”

In May 2018, De Beers claimed that they tracked 100 high-value diamonds from the mine to the retailer using blockchain in what was presented as a first for the industry. Additionally, the company announced Tracr, the blockchain-based platform based on the previous PoC efforts and created in conjunction with five leading diamond manufacturers: Diacore, Diarough, KGK Group, Rosy Blue NV and Venus Jewel.

Tracr assigns every diamond it processes with a unique “Global Diamond ID” that records its characteristics — including carat, clarity and color. The data is then recorded onto an immutable digital ledger. Once the data is registered, Tracr verifies it at each milestone of the diamond’s journey, from the mine to the retailer.

The program will be open to the entire industry, Cleaver said, adding:

“The Tracr project team has demonstrated that it can successfully track a diamond through the value chain, providing asset-traceability assurance in a way that was not possible before. This is a significant breakthrough made achievable by the close engagement of the pilot participants who share our commitment to industry progress and innovation.”

Indeed, Tracr has attracted large participants since then. On Oct. 29, Alrosa joined the project, further escalating the project’s potential for the industry. The Russian firm is reported to be the world’s largest producer of raw diamonds in carat terms; together with De Beers, the two companies produce around half of the world’s supply.

As Alrosa CEO Sergey Ivanov told Mining Weekly at the time, the company’s move was motivated by a belief that industry collaboration is essential for the sake of “a common goal.”

In a separate comment provided for this article, Alrosa added that have been testing the new mine-to-market (M2M) system created by the GIA starting from October 2018. However, while M2M is presented as a mine-to-market tracking program and mobile app for consumers, and is also based on the institution’s grading reports, there is no indication that it is powered by DLT.

Nonetheless, the number of blockchain-based platforms to track diamonds continues to rise. On Jan. 30, Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science introduced its own blockchain solution for responsible diamond trade. The technology has reportedly been developed by Russian startup Bitcarat.com, which was founded by graduates of the Russian technical university MISiS and the National Research University.

The new Russian diamond tracking technology claims to fully guarantee the authenticity of diamond products across the entire supply chain, from extraction and polishing to the final owner.

The system employs the same principle as other blockchain-powered platforms — allegedly labelling each diamond with a unique digital code and monitoring it on a distributed ledger — and aims to prevent market participants from losing their financial assets, since the diamond market has both natural and synthetic diamonds, as well as fake stones.

There is also Clara, a digital platform that purportedly utilizes both cloud and blockchain technologies to ensure “diamond provenance from mine to finger.” It has been picked up by Canadian diamond exploration and mining company Lucara Diamond, whose CEO, Eira Thomas, announced a move toward modernizing the diamond industry with blockchain in February 2018. Lukas Lundin, chairman of Lucara, announced at the time:

“We believe that Clara will not only modernise the entire diamond sales process but unlock additional value for all participants across the diamond market.”

Nevertheless, blockchain can hardly solve all the industry’s problems at once. As Everledger founder Kemp told Cointelegraph, there will always be room for fraud — for instance, she argued, diamonds could go offline and disappear from the ledger, and there’s always going to be black markets. “It’s up to the governance controls to help to reduce that, not eliminate it,” Kemp added.

Source link http://bit.ly/2WNmlDr

[adrianjenkins952wblr]

How DLT Helps Tracking Gems and Prevents Fraud

How DLT Helps Tracking Gems and Prevents Fraud

Last week, Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science introduced a blockchain-enabled platform for tracking diamonds.

Indeed, blockchain has been bringing transparency into the diamond industry — a complex ecosystem where corruption and irresponsible mining appear to be largely present.

Self-regulation in the diamond industry — and how Everledger’s arrival pivoted it from a dead end

The history of blockchain in the diamond industry can be traced back to May 2015, when Australian entrepreneur Leanne Kemp founded Everledger — a global digital registry for diamonds powered by the IBM Blockchain Platform. One of its main goals was to solve the “blood diamonds” issue — i.e., preventing the circulation of diamonds mined in war zones and sold to finance oppressive regimes. Everledger uses grading reports provided by Gemological Institute of America (GIA) for assessing the diamonds. Kemp told Cointelegraph in July 2018:

“We do not see ourselves as a crypto company — and, to be honest with you, we don’t even see ourselves as a blockchain company. We’re building a platform of provenance to help with transparency, and conflict and opaque markets. And we want to build an ethical trade platform.”

The idea of tracking gems is not new — in 2003, the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) regime was established by a United Nations General Assembly Resolution to increase transparency in the diamond trade and keep conflict diamonds out of the market. Essentially, the process implies that KPCS participants monitor shipments of rough diamonds and certify them as “conflict free.” More specifically, they follow a series of self-regulatory principles aimed at ensuring that diamonds are bought from legitimate sources. Some of those guidelines are mentioned in the System of Warranties introduced by the World Diamond Council in 2015.

While the KPCS scheme has been adopted by more than 80 countries since then, its efficiency has been questioned. In December 2011, international nongovernmental organization (NGO) Global Witness quit the program, arguing that “most consumers still cannot be sure where their diamonds come from” and criticizing more specific KPCS members’ decisions:

“The decision to endorse unlimited diamond exports from named companies in the Marange region of Zimbabwe – the scene of mass killings by the national army – has turned an international conflict prevention mechanism into a cynical corporate accreditation scheme.”

Further, in December 2017, Canada-based NGO Impact, which monitors the management of natural resources in Africa, also pulled out of the scheme. In an accompanying statement, the NGO’s executive director argued that KPCS “did not establish a conflict-free and legal diamond supply chain,” instead giving consumers “false confidence about where their diamonds come from.”

Decentralization, on the other hand, and the transparency that it implies, might help the industry evolve further and make sure that self-regulatory precautions are followed.

An immutable ledger would allow access to the full account of a particular diamond’s history and eliminate the possibility of forging documents, as every milestone of the gem’s destination would be recorded on the blockchain, according to representatives of Alrosa, a Russian partially state-owned diamond mining company that reportedly handles around 27 percent of global diamond production by volume:

“Creating a blockchain-based tracing system is another step towards ensuring the transparency of the industry. Blockchain could allow to track each stone’s history, from its extraction to the final purchase. This greatly lowers the chances of any unfair of [or] wrongful transaction for both consumers and resellers. Such transactions may include purchase of fake or synthetic stones under the guise of natural ones, sale stones with overstated specifications or blood diamonds coming from conflict areas.”

Blood diamonds are not the only issue, as gem retailers are also trying to detect laboratory-grown diamonds, which are less valuable among customers, and sometimes are sold as natural ones.

Synthetic diamonds. Image source: GIA

Major diamond industry participants adopt blockchain — Alrosa, De Beers, Chow Tai Fook and others

Indeed, some of the industry’s largest players — Alrosa included — have already introduced their DLT solutions for a conflict-free, responsible diamond trade.

In September 2018, major Hong Kong-based retailer Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group joined the Everledger project with its GIA grading reports to boost the sales of the T MARK line, in which the diamonds are inscribed with traceable codes so that their origin can be checked.

“We announced our collaboration with GIA in May last year to use blockchain to enhance our offering and add an additional layer of trust for consumers of T MARK. The pilot service was later launched to the market in September in the same year,” Peony Sze, spokesperson for Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group told Cointelegraph, adding:

“Since T MARK already traces a diamond’s entire journey from sourcing to finished jewellery, the blockchain initiative further enhances T MARK by allowing customers to receive both traceability and secure grading information via a single digital platform.”

Sze believes that blockchain’s arrival “is a natural evolution for the diamond industry,” which will eventually be picked up by other players as well:

“More and more leading companies in the gem and jewellery industry are developing or using blockchain in different facets of their products and services across the supply chain to enhance customer experience with security and traceability.”

In January 2018, De Beers Group — a large international corporation that specializes in diamond exploration, mining and retail — introduced an initiative similar to Everledger’s, although on a larger, enterprise scale. The company announced it was looking into blockchain to improve the transparency of the diamond value chain and get permanent digital records for every diamond registered on the platform.

De Beers added that an initial proof-of-concept (PoC) trial was successful and resulted in a working prototype. The company’s CEO, Bruce Cleaver, said in a press release:

“Diamonds hold enduring value and represent some of life’s most meaningful moments, so it’s essential to provide assurance that a diamond is conflict-free and natural. By leveraging blockchain technology, we will provide an additional layer of assurance to consumers and industry participants, with every diamond registered on the platform having a record as everlasting as the diamond itself.”

In May 2018, De Beers claimed that they tracked 100 high-value diamonds from the mine to the retailer using blockchain in what was presented as a first for the industry. Additionally, the company announced Tracr, the blockchain-based platform based on the previous PoC efforts and created in conjunction with five leading diamond manufacturers: Diacore, Diarough, KGK Group, Rosy Blue NV and Venus Jewel.

Tracr assigns every diamond it processes with a unique “Global Diamond ID” that records its characteristics — including carat, clarity and color. The data is then recorded onto an immutable digital ledger. Once the data is registered, Tracr verifies it at each milestone of the diamond’s journey, from the mine to the retailer.

The program will be open to the entire industry, Cleaver said, adding:

“The Tracr project team has demonstrated that it can successfully track a diamond through the value chain, providing asset-traceability assurance in a way that was not possible before. This is a significant breakthrough made achievable by the close engagement of the pilot participants who share our commitment to industry progress and innovation.”

Indeed, Tracr has attracted large participants since then. On Oct. 29, Alrosa joined the project, further escalating the project’s potential for the industry. The Russian firm is reported to be the world’s largest producer of raw diamonds in carat terms; together with De Beers, the two companies produce around half of the world’s supply.

As Alrosa CEO Sergey Ivanov told Mining Weekly at the time, the company’s move was motivated by a belief that industry collaboration is essential for the sake of “a common goal.”

In a separate comment provided for this article, Alrosa added that have been testing the new mine-to-market (M2M) system created by the GIA starting from October 2018. However, while M2M is presented as a mine-to-market tracking program and mobile app for consumers, and is also based on the institution’s grading reports, there is no indication that it is powered by DLT.

Nonetheless, the number of blockchain-based platforms to track diamonds continues to rise. On Jan. 30, Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science introduced its own blockchain solution for responsible diamond trade. The technology has reportedly been developed by Russian startup Bitcarat.com, which was founded by graduates of the Russian technical university MISiS and the National Research University.

The new Russian diamond tracking technology claims to fully guarantee the authenticity of diamond products across the entire supply chain, from extraction and polishing to the final owner.

The system employs the same principle as other blockchain-powered platforms — allegedly labelling each diamond with a unique digital code and monitoring it on a distributed ledger — and aims to prevent market participants from losing their financial assets, since the diamond market has both natural and synthetic diamonds, as well as fake stones.

There is also Clara, a digital platform that purportedly utilizes both cloud and blockchain technologies to ensure “diamond provenance from mine to finger.” It has been picked up by Canadian diamond exploration and mining company Lucara Diamond, whose CEO, Eira Thomas, announced a move toward modernizing the diamond industry with blockchain in February 2018. Lukas Lundin, chairman of Lucara, announced at the time:

“We believe that Clara will not only modernise the entire diamond sales process but unlock additional value for all participants across the diamond market.”

Nevertheless, blockchain can hardly solve all the industry’s problems at once. As Everledger founder Kemp told Cointelegraph, there will always be room for fraud — for instance, she argued, diamonds could go offline and disappear from the ledger, and there’s always going to be black markets. “It’s up to the governance controls to help to reduce that, not eliminate it,” Kemp added.

Source link http://bit.ly/2WNmlDr

[courtneyvbrooks87]

How DLT Helps Tracking Gems and Prevents Fraud

How DLT Helps Tracking Gems and Prevents Fraud

Last week, Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science introduced a blockchain-enabled platform for tracking diamonds.

Indeed, blockchain has been bringing transparency into the diamond industry — a complex ecosystem where corruption and irresponsible mining appear to be largely present.

Self-regulation in the diamond industry — and how Everledger’s arrival pivoted it from a dead end

The history of blockchain in the diamond industry can be traced back to May 2015, when Australian entrepreneur Leanne Kemp founded Everledger — a global digital registry for diamonds powered by the IBM Blockchain Platform. One of its main goals was to solve the “blood diamonds” issue — i.e., preventing the circulation of diamonds mined in war zones and sold to finance oppressive regimes. Everledger uses grading reports provided by Gemological Institute of America (GIA) for assessing the diamonds. Kemp told Cointelegraph in July 2018:

“We do not see ourselves as a crypto company — and, to be honest with you, we don’t even see ourselves as a blockchain company. We’re building a platform of provenance to help with transparency, and conflict and opaque markets. And we want to build an ethical trade platform.”

The idea of tracking gems is not new — in 2003, the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) regime was established by a United Nations General Assembly Resolution to increase transparency in the diamond trade and keep conflict diamonds out of the market. Essentially, the process implies that KPCS participants monitor shipments of rough diamonds and certify them as “conflict free.” More specifically, they follow a series of self-regulatory principles aimed at ensuring that diamonds are bought from legitimate sources. Some of those guidelines are mentioned in the System of Warranties introduced by the World Diamond Council in 2015.

While the KPCS scheme has been adopted by more than 80 countries since then, its efficiency has been questioned. In December 2011, international nongovernmental organization (NGO) Global Witness quit the program, arguing that “most consumers still cannot be sure where their diamonds come from” and criticizing more specific KPCS members’ decisions:

“The decision to endorse unlimited diamond exports from named companies in the Marange region of Zimbabwe – the scene of mass killings by the national army – has turned an international conflict prevention mechanism into a cynical corporate accreditation scheme.”

Further, in December 2017, Canada-based NGO Impact, which monitors the management of natural resources in Africa, also pulled out of the scheme. In an accompanying statement, the NGO’s executive director argued that KPCS “did not establish a conflict-free and legal diamond supply chain,” instead giving consumers “false confidence about where their diamonds come from.”

Decentralization, on the other hand, and the transparency that it implies, might help the industry evolve further and make sure that self-regulatory precautions are followed.

An immutable ledger would allow access to the full account of a particular diamond’s history and eliminate the possibility of forging documents, as every milestone of the gem’s destination would be recorded on the blockchain, according to representatives of Alrosa, a Russian partially state-owned diamond mining company that reportedly handles around 27 percent of global diamond production by volume:

“Creating a blockchain-based tracing system is another step towards ensuring the transparency of the industry. Blockchain could allow to track each stone’s history, from its extraction to the final purchase. This greatly lowers the chances of any unfair of [or] wrongful transaction for both consumers and resellers. Such transactions may include purchase of fake or synthetic stones under the guise of natural ones, sale stones with overstated specifications or blood diamonds coming from conflict areas.”

Blood diamonds are not the only issue, as gem retailers are also trying to detect laboratory-grown diamonds, which are less valuable among customers, and sometimes are sold as natural ones.

Synthetic diamonds. Image source: GIA

Major diamond industry participants adopt blockchain — Alrosa, De Beers, Chow Tai Fook and others

Indeed, some of the industry’s largest players — Alrosa included — have already introduced their DLT solutions for a conflict-free, responsible diamond trade.

In September 2018, major Hong Kong-based retailer Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group joined the Everledger project with its GIA grading reports to boost the sales of the T MARK line, in which the diamonds are inscribed with traceable codes so that their origin can be checked.

“We announced our collaboration with GIA in May last year to use blockchain to enhance our offering and add an additional layer of trust for consumers of T MARK. The pilot service was later launched to the market in September in the same year,” Peony Sze, spokesperson for Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group told Cointelegraph, adding:

“Since T MARK already traces a diamond’s entire journey from sourcing to finished jewellery, the blockchain initiative further enhances T MARK by allowing customers to receive both traceability and secure grading information via a single digital platform.”

Sze believes that blockchain’s arrival “is a natural evolution for the diamond industry,” which will eventually be picked up by other players as well:

“More and more leading companies in the gem and jewellery industry are developing or using blockchain in different facets of their products and services across the supply chain to enhance customer experience with security and traceability.”

In January 2018, De Beers Group — a large international corporation that specializes in diamond exploration, mining and retail — introduced an initiative similar to Everledger’s, although on a larger, enterprise scale. The company announced it was looking into blockchain to improve the transparency of the diamond value chain and get permanent digital records for every diamond registered on the platform.

De Beers added that an initial proof-of-concept (PoC) trial was successful and resulted in a working prototype. The company’s CEO, Bruce Cleaver, said in a press release:

“Diamonds hold enduring value and represent some of life’s most meaningful moments, so it’s essential to provide assurance that a diamond is conflict-free and natural. By leveraging blockchain technology, we will provide an additional layer of assurance to consumers and industry participants, with every diamond registered on the platform having a record as everlasting as the diamond itself.”

In May 2018, De Beers claimed that they tracked 100 high-value diamonds from the mine to the retailer using blockchain in what was presented as a first for the industry. Additionally, the company announced Tracr, the blockchain-based platform based on the previous PoC efforts and created in conjunction with five leading diamond manufacturers: Diacore, Diarough, KGK Group, Rosy Blue NV and Venus Jewel.

Tracr assigns every diamond it processes with a unique “Global Diamond ID” that records its characteristics — including carat, clarity and color. The data is then recorded onto an immutable digital ledger. Once the data is registered, Tracr verifies it at each milestone of the diamond’s journey, from the mine to the retailer.

The program will be open to the entire industry, Cleaver said, adding:

“The Tracr project team has demonstrated that it can successfully track a diamond through the value chain, providing asset-traceability assurance in a way that was not possible before. This is a significant breakthrough made achievable by the close engagement of the pilot participants who share our commitment to industry progress and innovation.”

Indeed, Tracr has attracted large participants since then. On Oct. 29, Alrosa joined the project, further escalating the project’s potential for the industry. The Russian firm is reported to be the world’s largest producer of raw diamonds in carat terms; together with De Beers, the two companies produce around half of the world’s supply.

As Alrosa CEO Sergey Ivanov told Mining Weekly at the time, the company’s move was motivated by a belief that industry collaboration is essential for the sake of “a common goal.”

In a separate comment provided for this article, Alrosa added that have been testing the new mine-to-market (M2M) system created by the GIA starting from October 2018. However, while M2M is presented as a mine-to-market tracking program and mobile app for consumers, and is also based on the institution’s grading reports, there is no indication that it is powered by DLT.

Nonetheless, the number of blockchain-based platforms to track diamonds continues to rise. On Jan. 30, Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science introduced its own blockchain solution for responsible diamond trade. The technology has reportedly been developed by Russian startup Bitcarat.com, which was founded by graduates of the Russian technical university MISiS and the National Research University.

The new Russian diamond tracking technology claims to fully guarantee the authenticity of diamond products across the entire supply chain, from extraction and polishing to the final owner.

The system employs the same principle as other blockchain-powered platforms — allegedly labelling each diamond with a unique digital code and monitoring it on a distributed ledger — and aims to prevent market participants from losing their financial assets, since the diamond market has both natural and synthetic diamonds, as well as fake stones.

There is also Clara, a digital platform that purportedly utilizes both cloud and blockchain technologies to ensure “diamond provenance from mine to finger.” It has been picked up by Canadian diamond exploration and mining company Lucara Diamond, whose CEO, Eira Thomas, announced a move toward modernizing the diamond industry with blockchain in February 2018. Lukas Lundin, chairman of Lucara, announced at the time:

“We believe that Clara will not only modernise the entire diamond sales process but unlock additional value for all participants across the diamond market.”

Nevertheless, blockchain can hardly solve all the industry’s problems at once. As Everledger founder Kemp told Cointelegraph, there will always be room for fraud — for instance, she argued, diamonds could go offline and disappear from the ledger, and there’s always going to be black markets. “It’s up to the governance controls to help to reduce that, not eliminate it,” Kemp added.

Source link http://bit.ly/2WNmlDr

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Buy Bertoua Savanna Local Miners is the best place to come to if you are looking to buy gold online. We set out to make this site the largest manually built directory for gold related businesses . Our goal is to provide a free web site that Best place to buy physical gold consumers and small businesses can use to connect each other easily so that everybody involved can benefit. To Buy AU Gold Bars online from legit vendors Dedicated to making sure you buy gold bars, gold nuggets, gold coins, gold dust and diamonds from Africa without getting scammed.

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How DLT Helps Tracking Gems and Prevents Fraud

How DLT Helps Tracking Gems and Prevents Fraud

Last week, Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science introduced a blockchain-enabled platform for tracking diamonds.

Indeed, blockchain has been bringing transparency into the diamond industry — a complex ecosystem where corruption and irresponsible mining appear to be largely present.

Self-regulation in the diamond industry — and how Everledger’s arrival pivoted it from a dead end

The history of blockchain in the diamond industry can be traced back to May 2015, when Australian entrepreneur Leanne Kemp founded Everledger — a global digital registry for diamonds powered by the IBM Blockchain Platform. One of its main goals was to solve the “blood diamonds” issue — i.e., preventing the circulation of diamonds mined in war zones and sold to finance oppressive regimes. Everledger uses grading reports provided by Gemological Institute of America (GIA) for assessing the diamonds. Kemp told Cointelegraph in July 2018:

“We do not see ourselves as a crypto company — and, to be honest with you, we don’t even see ourselves as a blockchain company. We’re building a platform of provenance to help with transparency, and conflict and opaque markets. And we want to build an ethical trade platform.”

The idea of tracking gems is not new — in 2003, the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) regime was established by a United Nations General Assembly Resolution to increase transparency in the diamond trade and keep conflict diamonds out of the market. Essentially, the process implies that KPCS participants monitor shipments of rough diamonds and certify them as “conflict free.” More specifically, they follow a series of self-regulatory principles aimed at ensuring that diamonds are bought from legitimate sources. Some of those guidelines are mentioned in the System of Warranties introduced by the World Diamond Council in 2015.

While the KPCS scheme has been adopted by more than 80 countries since then, its efficiency has been questioned. In December 2011, international nongovernmental organization (NGO) Global Witness quit the program, arguing that “most consumers still cannot be sure where their diamonds come from” and criticizing more specific KPCS members’ decisions:

“The decision to endorse unlimited diamond exports from named companies in the Marange region of Zimbabwe – the scene of mass killings by the national army – has turned an international conflict prevention mechanism into a cynical corporate accreditation scheme.”

Further, in December 2017, Canada-based NGO Impact, which monitors the management of natural resources in Africa, also pulled out of the scheme. In an accompanying statement, the NGO’s executive director argued that KPCS “did not establish a conflict-free and legal diamond supply chain,” instead giving consumers “false confidence about where their diamonds come from.”

Decentralization, on the other hand, and the transparency that it implies, might help the industry evolve further and make sure that self-regulatory precautions are followed.

An immutable ledger would allow access to the full account of a particular diamond’s history and eliminate the possibility of forging documents, as every milestone of the gem’s destination would be recorded on the blockchain, according to representatives of Alrosa, a Russian partially state-owned diamond mining company that reportedly handles around 27 percent of global diamond production by volume:

“Creating a blockchain-based tracing system is another step towards ensuring the transparency of the industry. Blockchain could allow to track each stone’s history, from its extraction to the final purchase. This greatly lowers the chances of any unfair of [or] wrongful transaction for both consumers and resellers. Such transactions may include purchase of fake or synthetic stones under the guise of natural ones, sale stones with overstated specifications or blood diamonds coming from conflict areas.”

Blood diamonds are not the only issue, as gem retailers are also trying to detect laboratory-grown diamonds, which are less valuable among customers, and sometimes are sold as natural ones.

Synthetic diamonds. Image source: GIA

Major diamond industry participants adopt blockchain — Alrosa, De Beers, Chow Tai Fook and others

Indeed, some of the industry’s largest players — Alrosa included — have already introduced their DLT solutions for a conflict-free, responsible diamond trade.

In September 2018, major Hong Kong-based retailer Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group joined the Everledger project with its GIA grading reports to boost the sales of the T MARK line, in which the diamonds are inscribed with traceable codes so that their origin can be checked.

“We announced our collaboration with GIA in May last year to use blockchain to enhance our offering and add an additional layer of trust for consumers of T MARK. The pilot service was later launched to the market in September in the same year,” Peony Sze, spokesperson for Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group told Cointelegraph, adding:

“Since T MARK already traces a diamond’s entire journey from sourcing to finished jewellery, the blockchain initiative further enhances T MARK by allowing customers to receive both traceability and secure grading information via a single digital platform.”

Sze believes that blockchain’s arrival “is a natural evolution for the diamond industry,” which will eventually be picked up by other players as well:

“More and more leading companies in the gem and jewellery industry are developing or using blockchain in different facets of their products and services across the supply chain to enhance customer experience with security and traceability.”

In January 2018, De Beers Group — a large international corporation that specializes in diamond exploration, mining and retail — introduced an initiative similar to Everledger’s, although on a larger, enterprise scale. The company announced it was looking into blockchain to improve the transparency of the diamond value chain and get permanent digital records for every diamond registered on the platform.

De Beers added that an initial proof-of-concept (PoC) trial was successful and resulted in a working prototype. The company’s CEO, Bruce Cleaver, said in a press release:

“Diamonds hold enduring value and represent some of life’s most meaningful moments, so it’s essential to provide assurance that a diamond is conflict-free and natural. By leveraging blockchain technology, we will provide an additional layer of assurance to consumers and industry participants, with every diamond registered on the platform having a record as everlasting as the diamond itself.”

In May 2018, De Beers claimed that they tracked 100 high-value diamonds from the mine to the retailer using blockchain in what was presented as a first for the industry. Additionally, the company announced Tracr, the blockchain-based platform based on the previous PoC efforts and created in conjunction with five leading diamond manufacturers: Diacore, Diarough, KGK Group, Rosy Blue NV and Venus Jewel.

Tracr assigns every diamond it processes with a unique “Global Diamond ID” that records its characteristics — including carat, clarity and color. The data is then recorded onto an immutable digital ledger. Once the data is registered, Tracr verifies it at each milestone of the diamond’s journey, from the mine to the retailer.

The program will be open to the entire industry, Cleaver said, adding:

“The Tracr project team has demonstrated that it can successfully track a diamond through the value chain, providing asset-traceability assurance in a way that was not possible before. This is a significant breakthrough made achievable by the close engagement of the pilot participants who share our commitment to industry progress and innovation.”

Indeed, Tracr has attracted large participants since then. On Oct. 29, Alrosa joined the project, further escalating the project’s potential for the industry. The Russian firm is reported to be the world’s largest producer of raw diamonds in carat terms; together with De Beers, the two companies produce around half of the world’s supply.

As Alrosa CEO Sergey Ivanov told Mining Weekly at the time, the company’s move was motivated by a belief that industry collaboration is essential for the sake of “a common goal.”

In a separate comment provided for this article, Alrosa added that have been testing the new mine-to-market (M2M) system created by the GIA starting from October 2018. However, while M2M is presented as a mine-to-market tracking program and mobile app for consumers, and is also based on the institution’s grading reports, there is no indication that it is powered by DLT.

Nonetheless, the number of blockchain-based platforms to track diamonds continues to rise. On Jan. 30, Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science introduced its own blockchain solution for responsible diamond trade. The technology has reportedly been developed by Russian startup Bitcarat.com, which was founded by graduates of the Russian technical university MISiS and the National Research University.

The new Russian diamond tracking technology claims to fully guarantee the authenticity of diamond products across the entire supply chain, from extraction and polishing to the final owner.

The system employs the same principle as other blockchain-powered platforms — allegedly labelling each diamond with a unique digital code and monitoring it on a distributed ledger — and aims to prevent market participants from losing their financial assets, since the diamond market has both natural and synthetic diamonds, as well as fake stones.

There is also Clara, a digital platform that purportedly utilizes both cloud and blockchain technologies to ensure “diamond provenance from mine to finger.” It has been picked up by Canadian diamond exploration and mining company Lucara Diamond, whose CEO, Eira Thomas, announced a move toward modernizing the diamond industry with blockchain in February 2018. Lukas Lundin, chairman of Lucara, announced at the time:

“We believe that Clara will not only modernise the entire diamond sales process but unlock additional value for all participants across the diamond market.”

Nevertheless, blockchain can hardly solve all the industry’s problems at once. As Everledger founder Kemp told Cointelegraph, there will always be room for fraud — for instance, she argued, diamonds could go offline and disappear from the ledger, and there’s always going to be black markets. “It’s up to the governance controls to help to reduce that, not eliminate it,” Kemp added.

Source link http://bit.ly/2WNmlDr

[bobbynolanios88]

How DLT Helps Tracking Gems and Prevents Fraud

How DLT Helps Tracking Gems and Prevents Fraud

Last week, Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science introduced a blockchain-enabled platform for tracking diamonds.

Indeed, blockchain has been bringing transparency into the diamond industry — a complex ecosystem where corruption and irresponsible mining appear to be largely present.

Self-regulation in the diamond industry — and how Everledger’s arrival pivoted it from a dead end

The history of blockchain in the diamond industry can be traced back to May 2015, when Australian entrepreneur Leanne Kemp founded Everledger — a global digital registry for diamonds powered by the IBM Blockchain Platform. One of its main goals was to solve the “blood diamonds” issue — i.e., preventing the circulation of diamonds mined in war zones and sold to finance oppressive regimes. Everledger uses grading reports provided by Gemological Institute of America (GIA) for assessing the diamonds. Kemp told Cointelegraph in July 2018:

“We do not see ourselves as a crypto company — and, to be honest with you, we don’t even see ourselves as a blockchain company. We’re building a platform of provenance to help with transparency, and conflict and opaque markets. And we want to build an ethical trade platform.”

The idea of tracking gems is not new — in 2003, the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) regime was established by a United Nations General Assembly Resolution to increase transparency in the diamond trade and keep conflict diamonds out of the market. Essentially, the process implies that KPCS participants monitor shipments of rough diamonds and certify them as “conflict free.” More specifically, they follow a series of self-regulatory principles aimed at ensuring that diamonds are bought from legitimate sources. Some of those guidelines are mentioned in the System of Warranties introduced by the World Diamond Council in 2015.

While the KPCS scheme has been adopted by more than 80 countries since then, its efficiency has been questioned. In December 2011, international nongovernmental organization (NGO) Global Witness quit the program, arguing that “most consumers still cannot be sure where their diamonds come from” and criticizing more specific KPCS members’ decisions:

“The decision to endorse unlimited diamond exports from named companies in the Marange region of Zimbabwe – the scene of mass killings by the national army – has turned an international conflict prevention mechanism into a cynical corporate accreditation scheme.”

Further, in December 2017, Canada-based NGO Impact, which monitors the management of natural resources in Africa, also pulled out of the scheme. In an accompanying statement, the NGO’s executive director argued that KPCS “did not establish a conflict-free and legal diamond supply chain,” instead giving consumers “false confidence about where their diamonds come from.”

Decentralization, on the other hand, and the transparency that it implies, might help the industry evolve further and make sure that self-regulatory precautions are followed.

An immutable ledger would allow access to the full account of a particular diamond’s history and eliminate the possibility of forging documents, as every milestone of the gem’s destination would be recorded on the blockchain, according to representatives of Alrosa, a Russian partially state-owned diamond mining company that reportedly handles around 27 percent of global diamond production by volume:

“Creating a blockchain-based tracing system is another step towards ensuring the transparency of the industry. Blockchain could allow to track each stone’s history, from its extraction to the final purchase. This greatly lowers the chances of any unfair of [or] wrongful transaction for both consumers and resellers. Such transactions may include purchase of fake or synthetic stones under the guise of natural ones, sale stones with overstated specifications or blood diamonds coming from conflict areas.”

Blood diamonds are not the only issue, as gem retailers are also trying to detect laboratory-grown diamonds, which are less valuable among customers, and sometimes are sold as natural ones.

Synthetic diamonds. Image source: GIA

Major diamond industry participants adopt blockchain — Alrosa, De Beers, Chow Tai Fook and others

Indeed, some of the industry’s largest players — Alrosa included — have already introduced their DLT solutions for a conflict-free, responsible diamond trade.

In September 2018, major Hong Kong-based retailer Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group joined the Everledger project with its GIA grading reports to boost the sales of the T MARK line, in which the diamonds are inscribed with traceable codes so that their origin can be checked.

“We announced our collaboration with GIA in May last year to use blockchain to enhance our offering and add an additional layer of trust for consumers of T MARK. The pilot service was later launched to the market in September in the same year,” Peony Sze, spokesperson for Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group told Cointelegraph, adding:

“Since T MARK already traces a diamond’s entire journey from sourcing to finished jewellery, the blockchain initiative further enhances T MARK by allowing customers to receive both traceability and secure grading information via a single digital platform.”

Sze believes that blockchain’s arrival “is a natural evolution for the diamond industry,” which will eventually be picked up by other players as well:

“More and more leading companies in the gem and jewellery industry are developing or using blockchain in different facets of their products and services across the supply chain to enhance customer experience with security and traceability.”

In January 2018, De Beers Group — a large international corporation that specializes in diamond exploration, mining and retail — introduced an initiative similar to Everledger’s, although on a larger, enterprise scale. The company announced it was looking into blockchain to improve the transparency of the diamond value chain and get permanent digital records for every diamond registered on the platform.

De Beers added that an initial proof-of-concept (PoC) trial was successful and resulted in a working prototype. The company’s CEO, Bruce Cleaver, said in a press release:

“Diamonds hold enduring value and represent some of life’s most meaningful moments, so it’s essential to provide assurance that a diamond is conflict-free and natural. By leveraging blockchain technology, we will provide an additional layer of assurance to consumers and industry participants, with every diamond registered on the platform having a record as everlasting as the diamond itself.”

In May 2018, De Beers claimed that they tracked 100 high-value diamonds from the mine to the retailer using blockchain in what was presented as a first for the industry. Additionally, the company announced Tracr, the blockchain-based platform based on the previous PoC efforts and created in conjunction with five leading diamond manufacturers: Diacore, Diarough, KGK Group, Rosy Blue NV and Venus Jewel.

Tracr assigns every diamond it processes with a unique “Global Diamond ID” that records its characteristics — including carat, clarity and color. The data is then recorded onto an immutable digital ledger. Once the data is registered, Tracr verifies it at each milestone of the diamond’s journey, from the mine to the retailer.

The program will be open to the entire industry, Cleaver said, adding:

“The Tracr project team has demonstrated that it can successfully track a diamond through the value chain, providing asset-traceability assurance in a way that was not possible before. This is a significant breakthrough made achievable by the close engagement of the pilot participants who share our commitment to industry progress and innovation.”

Indeed, Tracr has attracted large participants since then. On Oct. 29, Alrosa joined the project, further escalating the project’s potential for the industry. The Russian firm is reported to be the world’s largest producer of raw diamonds in carat terms; together with De Beers, the two companies produce around half of the world’s supply.

As Alrosa CEO Sergey Ivanov told Mining Weekly at the time, the company’s move was motivated by a belief that industry collaboration is essential for the sake of “a common goal.”

In a separate comment provided for this article, Alrosa added that have been testing the new mine-to-market (M2M) system created by the GIA starting from October 2018. However, while M2M is presented as a mine-to-market tracking program and mobile app for consumers, and is also based on the institution’s grading reports, there is no indication that it is powered by DLT.

Nonetheless, the number of blockchain-based platforms to track diamonds continues to rise. On Jan. 30, Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science introduced its own blockchain solution for responsible diamond trade. The technology has reportedly been developed by Russian startup Bitcarat.com, which was founded by graduates of the Russian technical university MISiS and the National Research University.

The new Russian diamond tracking technology claims to fully guarantee the authenticity of diamond products across the entire supply chain, from extraction and polishing to the final owner.

The system employs the same principle as other blockchain-powered platforms — allegedly labelling each diamond with a unique digital code and monitoring it on a distributed ledger — and aims to prevent market participants from losing their financial assets, since the diamond market has both natural and synthetic diamonds, as well as fake stones.

There is also Clara, a digital platform that purportedly utilizes both cloud and blockchain technologies to ensure “diamond provenance from mine to finger.” It has been picked up by Canadian diamond exploration and mining company Lucara Diamond, whose CEO, Eira Thomas, announced a move toward modernizing the diamond industry with blockchain in February 2018. Lukas Lundin, chairman of Lucara, announced at the time:

“We believe that Clara will not only modernise the entire diamond sales process but unlock additional value for all participants across the diamond market.”

Nevertheless, blockchain can hardly solve all the industry’s problems at once. As Everledger founder Kemp told Cointelegraph, there will always be room for fraud — for instance, she argued, diamonds could go offline and disappear from the ledger, and there’s always going to be black markets. “It’s up to the governance controls to help to reduce that, not eliminate it,” Kemp added.

Source link http://bit.ly/2WNmlDr

[mccartneynathxzw83]

How DLT Helps Tracking Gems and Prevents Fraud

How DLT Helps Tracking Gems and Prevents Fraud

Last week, Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science introduced a blockchain-enabled platform for tracking diamonds.

Indeed, blockchain has been bringing transparency into the diamond industry — a complex ecosystem where corruption and irresponsible mining appear to be largely present.

Self-regulation in the diamond industry — and how Everledger’s arrival pivoted it from a dead end

The history of blockchain in the diamond industry can be traced back to May 2015, when Australian entrepreneur Leanne Kemp founded Everledger — a global digital registry for diamonds powered by the IBM Blockchain Platform. One of its main goals was to solve the “blood diamonds” issue — i.e., preventing the circulation of diamonds mined in war zones and sold to finance oppressive regimes. Everledger uses grading reports provided by Gemological Institute of America (GIA) for assessing the diamonds. Kemp told Cointelegraph in July 2018:

“We do not see ourselves as a crypto company — and, to be honest with you, we don’t even see ourselves as a blockchain company. We’re building a platform of provenance to help with transparency, and conflict and opaque markets. And we want to build an ethical trade platform.”

The idea of tracking gems is not new — in 2003, the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) regime was established by a United Nations General Assembly Resolution to increase transparency in the diamond trade and keep conflict diamonds out of the market. Essentially, the process implies that KPCS participants monitor shipments of rough diamonds and certify them as “conflict free.” More specifically, they follow a series of self-regulatory principles aimed at ensuring that diamonds are bought from legitimate sources. Some of those guidelines are mentioned in the System of Warranties introduced by the World Diamond Council in 2015.

While the KPCS scheme has been adopted by more than 80 countries since then, its efficiency has been questioned. In December 2011, international nongovernmental organization (NGO) Global Witness quit the program, arguing that “most consumers still cannot be sure where their diamonds come from” and criticizing more specific KPCS members’ decisions:

“The decision to endorse unlimited diamond exports from named companies in the Marange region of Zimbabwe – the scene of mass killings by the national army – has turned an international conflict prevention mechanism into a cynical corporate accreditation scheme.”

Further, in December 2017, Canada-based NGO Impact, which monitors the management of natural resources in Africa, also pulled out of the scheme. In an accompanying statement, the NGO’s executive director argued that KPCS “did not establish a conflict-free and legal diamond supply chain,” instead giving consumers “false confidence about where their diamonds come from.”

Decentralization, on the other hand, and the transparency that it implies, might help the industry evolve further and make sure that self-regulatory precautions are followed.

An immutable ledger would allow access to the full account of a particular diamond’s history and eliminate the possibility of forging documents, as every milestone of the gem’s destination would be recorded on the blockchain, according to representatives of Alrosa, a Russian partially state-owned diamond mining company that reportedly handles around 27 percent of global diamond production by volume:

“Creating a blockchain-based tracing system is another step towards ensuring the transparency of the industry. Blockchain could allow to track each stone’s history, from its extraction to the final purchase. This greatly lowers the chances of any unfair of [or] wrongful transaction for both consumers and resellers. Such transactions may include purchase of fake or synthetic stones under the guise of natural ones, sale stones with overstated specifications or blood diamonds coming from conflict areas.”

Blood diamonds are not the only issue, as gem retailers are also trying to detect laboratory-grown diamonds, which are less valuable among customers, and sometimes are sold as natural ones.

Synthetic diamonds. Image source: GIA

Major diamond industry participants adopt blockchain — Alrosa, De Beers, Chow Tai Fook and others

Indeed, some of the industry’s largest players — Alrosa included — have already introduced their DLT solutions for a conflict-free, responsible diamond trade.

In September 2018, major Hong Kong-based retailer Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group joined the Everledger project with its GIA grading reports to boost the sales of the T MARK line, in which the diamonds are inscribed with traceable codes so that their origin can be checked.

“We announced our collaboration with GIA in May last year to use blockchain to enhance our offering and add an additional layer of trust for consumers of T MARK. The pilot service was later launched to the market in September in the same year,” Peony Sze, spokesperson for Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group told Cointelegraph, adding:

“Since T MARK already traces a diamond’s entire journey from sourcing to finished jewellery, the blockchain initiative further enhances T MARK by allowing customers to receive both traceability and secure grading information via a single digital platform.”

Sze believes that blockchain’s arrival “is a natural evolution for the diamond industry,” which will eventually be picked up by other players as well:

“More and more leading companies in the gem and jewellery industry are developing or using blockchain in different facets of their products and services across the supply chain to enhance customer experience with security and traceability.”

In January 2018, De Beers Group — a large international corporation that specializes in diamond exploration, mining and retail — introduced an initiative similar to Everledger’s, although on a larger, enterprise scale. The company announced it was looking into blockchain to improve the transparency of the diamond value chain and get permanent digital records for every diamond registered on the platform.

De Beers added that an initial proof-of-concept (PoC) trial was successful and resulted in a working prototype. The company’s CEO, Bruce Cleaver, said in a press release:

“Diamonds hold enduring value and represent some of life’s most meaningful moments, so it’s essential to provide assurance that a diamond is conflict-free and natural. By leveraging blockchain technology, we will provide an additional layer of assurance to consumers and industry participants, with every diamond registered on the platform having a record as everlasting as the diamond itself.”

In May 2018, De Beers claimed that they tracked 100 high-value diamonds from the mine to the retailer using blockchain in what was presented as a first for the industry. Additionally, the company announced Tracr, the blockchain-based platform based on the previous PoC efforts and created in conjunction with five leading diamond manufacturers: Diacore, Diarough, KGK Group, Rosy Blue NV and Venus Jewel.

Tracr assigns every diamond it processes with a unique “Global Diamond ID” that records its characteristics — including carat, clarity and color. The data is then recorded onto an immutable digital ledger. Once the data is registered, Tracr verifies it at each milestone of the diamond’s journey, from the mine to the retailer.

The program will be open to the entire industry, Cleaver said, adding:

“The Tracr project team has demonstrated that it can successfully track a diamond through the value chain, providing asset-traceability assurance in a way that was not possible before. This is a significant breakthrough made achievable by the close engagement of the pilot participants who share our commitment to industry progress and innovation.”

Indeed, Tracr has attracted large participants since then. On Oct. 29, Alrosa joined the project, further escalating the project’s potential for the industry. The Russian firm is reported to be the world’s largest producer of raw diamonds in carat terms; together with De Beers, the two companies produce around half of the world’s supply.

As Alrosa CEO Sergey Ivanov told Mining Weekly at the time, the company’s move was motivated by a belief that industry collaboration is essential for the sake of “a common goal.”

In a separate comment provided for this article, Alrosa added that have been testing the new mine-to-market (M2M) system created by the GIA starting from October 2018. However, while M2M is presented as a mine-to-market tracking program and mobile app for consumers, and is also based on the institution’s grading reports, there is no indication that it is powered by DLT.

Nonetheless, the number of blockchain-based platforms to track diamonds continues to rise. On Jan. 30, Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science introduced its own blockchain solution for responsible diamond trade. The technology has reportedly been developed by Russian startup Bitcarat.com, which was founded by graduates of the Russian technical university MISiS and the National Research University.

The new Russian diamond tracking technology claims to fully guarantee the authenticity of diamond products across the entire supply chain, from extraction and polishing to the final owner.

The system employs the same principle as other blockchain-powered platforms — allegedly labelling each diamond with a unique digital code and monitoring it on a distributed ledger — and aims to prevent market participants from losing their financial assets, since the diamond market has both natural and synthetic diamonds, as well as fake stones.

There is also Clara, a digital platform that purportedly utilizes both cloud and blockchain technologies to ensure “diamond provenance from mine to finger.” It has been picked up by Canadian diamond exploration and mining company Lucara Diamond, whose CEO, Eira Thomas, announced a move toward modernizing the diamond industry with blockchain in February 2018. Lukas Lundin, chairman of Lucara, announced at the time:

“We believe that Clara will not only modernise the entire diamond sales process but unlock additional value for all participants across the diamond market.”

Nevertheless, blockchain can hardly solve all the industry’s problems at once. As Everledger founder Kemp told Cointelegraph, there will always be room for fraud — for instance, she argued, diamonds could go offline and disappear from the ledger, and there’s always going to be black markets. “It’s up to the governance controls to help to reduce that, not eliminate it,” Kemp added.

Source link http://bit.ly/2WNmlDr

[emilestrange]

STORM THORGERSON

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Album Covers

10cc:

Sheet Music (1974)

The Original Soundtrack (1975)

How Dare You! (1976)

Deceptive Bends (1977)

Bloody Tourists (1978)

Greatest Hits 1972–1978 (1979)

Look Hear? (1980)

Mirror Mirror (1994)

AC/DC

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (1976) (international edition)

Alan Parsons:

Try Anything Once (1993)

On Air (1996)

The Time Machine (1999)

A Valid Path (2004)

The Alan Parsons Project

Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1976)

I Robot (1977)

Pyramid (1978)

Eve (1979)

Eye in the Sky (1982)

Ammonia Avenue (1984)

Al Stewart

Past, Present and Future (1973)

Modern Times (1975)

Year of the Cat (1976)

The Early Years (1977)

Time Passages (1978)

The Answer

New Horizon (2013)

Anthrax

Stomp 442 (1995)

Argent

Ring of Hands (1971)

In Deep (1973)

Ashra

Correlations (1979)

Audience

The House on the Hill (1971)

Lunch (1972)

You Can’t Beat ’em (1973)

Audioslave

Audioslave (2002)

Bad Company

Bad Company (1974)

Straight Shooter (1975)

Burnin’ Sky (1977)

Desolation Angels (1979)

Rough Diamonds (1982)

Be-Bop Deluxe

Drastic Plastic (1978)

Biffy Clyro:

Puzzle (2007)

“Saturday Superhouse” (2007)

“Living is a Problem Because Everything Dies” (2007)

“Folding Stars” (2007)

“Machines” (2007)

Only Revolutions (2009)

“That Golden Rule” (2009)

“The Captain” (2009)

“Lonely Revolutions” (2010)

Opposites (2013)

“Black Chandelier” (2013)

“Biblical” (2013)

“Opposite” (2013)

“Victory Over the Sun” (2013)

“Similarities” (2014)

Black Sabbath:

Technical Ecstasy (1976)

Never Say Die! (1978)

Brand X

Unorthodox Behaviour (1976)

Moroccan Roll (1977)

Livestock (1977)

Product (1979)

Do They Hurt? (1980)

Bruce Dickinson

Skunkworks (1996)

Catherine Wheel:

Chrome (1993)

Happy Days (1995)

Like Cats and Dogs (compilation) (1996)

Adam And Eve (1997)

Wishville (2000)

The Cranberries:

Bury the Hatchet (1999)

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee (2001)

The Cult:

Electric (1987) (credited on the picture sleeve as “Art Direction by Storm Thorgerson”)

Cochise

Cochise (1970)

David Gilmour

David Gilmour (1978)

About Face (1984)

David Gilmour in Concert DVD (2002)

Def Leppard

High ‘n’ Dry (1981)

Deepest Blue

Late September (2004)

Disco Biscuits:

Planet Anthem (2010)

Dream Theater:

Falling into Infinity (1997)

“Once in a LIVEtime” (1998)

“5 Years in a Livetime” (1998)

The Dukes

The Dukes (1979)

Edgar Broughton Band

Edgar Broughton Band (1971)

Inside Out (1972)

Oora (1973)

A Bunch of 45s (1975)

Parlez-Vous English (1979)

Electric Light Orchestra

The Electric Light Orchestra (1971)

ELO 2 (1973)

On the Third Day (1973)

The Light Shines On (1977)

Ellis, Beggs, & Howard

Homelands (1989)

Ethnix

Home Is Where The Head Is (2002)

Europe

Secret Society (2006)

Fabulous Poodles

Mirror Stars (1978)

Flash

Flash (1972)

Out of Our Hands (1973)

Foreigner

4 (Labels only) (1981)

Gary Brooker

No More Fear of Flying (1979)

Godley & Creme

Freeze Frame (1979)

The Gods

Genesis (1968)

To Samuel a Son (1969)

Genesis

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974)

A Trick of the Tail (1976)

Wind & Wuthering (1976)

…And Then There Were Three… (1978)

The Greatest Show on Earth

Horizons (1970)

The Going’s Easy (1970)

The Greatest Show on Earth (1975)

Greg Friedman

Can’t Talk Now (2013)

goodbyemotel

If (2014)

Goose

Synrise (2012)

Helloween

Pink Bubbles Go Ape (1991)

Herman Rarebell

Nip in the Bud (1981)

Humble Pie

Town and Country (1969)

Thunderbox (1974)

Ian Dury and The Blockheads

Mr. Love Pants (1998)

John Wetton

Caught in the Crossfire (1980)

Korda Marshall

Now We Breathe (2015)

Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin (1969)

Houses of the Holy (1973)

Presence (1976)

The Song Remains the Same (1976)

In Through the Out Door (1979)

Coda (1982)

Leisure Cruise

Leisure Cruise (2014)

Leo Sayer

Living in a Fantasy (1980)

The Mars Volta:

De-Loused in the Comatorium (2003)

“Inertiatic ESP” single (2003)

“Televators” single (2003)

Frances the Mute (2005)

“The Widow” single (2005)

Amputechture (2006) (original artwork)

Megadeth:

Rude Awakening DVD (2002)

Mick Taylor

Mick Taylor (1979)

Mike Oldfield

Earth Moving (1989)

Earth Moving single (1989)

Mike Rutherford

Smallcreep’s Day (1980)

Muse:

Absolution (2003)

“Butterflies and Hurricanes” single (2004)

Black Holes and Revelations (2006)

“Uprising” single (2009)

Nazareth

Rampant (1974)

Close Enough for Rock ‘n’ Roll (1976)

The Nice

Five Bridges (1970)

Elegy (1971)

Autumn ’67 – Spring ’68 (1972)

Nick Mason

Fictitious Sports (1981)

O.A.R.

Stories of a Stranger (2005)

The Offspring

Splinter (2003)

Paul McCartney

Tug of War (1982)

Peter Gabriel:

Peter Gabriel (1977) (“Car”)

Peter Gabriel (1978) (“Scratch”)

Peter Gabriel (1980) (“Melt”)

Pendulum

Immersion (2010)

Phish

Slip Stitch and Pass (1997)

The Pineapple Thief

Someone Here Is Missing (2010)

Pink Floyd:[20]

A Saucerful of Secrets (1968)

More (1969)

Ummagumma (1969)

Atom Heart Mother (1970)

Meddle (1971)

Obscured by Clouds (1972)

The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)

A Nice Pair (1973)

Wish You Were Here (1975)

Animals (1977)

A Collection of Great Dance Songs (1981)

A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987)[10]

Delicate Sound of Thunder (1988)

Shine On (1992)[10]

The Division Bell (1994)

P*U*L*S*E (1995), including the blinking LED light that was featured in early CD packaging.[21]

Relics re-release (1996)

Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980–81(2000)

Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd (2001)

Oh, by the Way (2007)

The Best of Pink Floyd: A Foot in the Door (2011)

The Plea

The Dreamers Stadium (2012)[22]

The Police

“De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” (single) (1980)

Powderfinger

Golden Rule (2009)

Pretty Things

Parachute (1970)

Freeway Madness (1972)

Silk Torpedo (1974)

Savage Eye (1976)

Cross Talk (1980)

Program the Dead

Program The Dead (2005)

Quatermass

Quatermass (1970)

Rainbow

Difficult to Cure (1981)[9]

Straight Between the Eyes (1982)

Bent Out of Shape (1983)

Ralph McTell

Slide Away the Screen (1979)

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Stadium Arcadium (2006) (unused)

Renaissance

Prologue (1972)

Ashes Are Burning (1973)

Turn of the Cards (1974)

Scheherazade and Other Stories (1975)

A Song for All Seasons (1978)

Rick Wright

Wet Dream (1978)

Broken China (1996)

Rival Sons

Pressure & Time (2011)

Robert Plant:

The Principle of Moments (1983)

“Big Log“ (single) (1983)

Roger Taylor

Fun in Space (1981)

Roy Harper

Lifemask (1973)

Valentine (1974)

Flashes from the Archives of Oblivion (1974)

HQ (1975)

Bullinamingvase (1977)

Sammy Hagar

Sammy Hagar (1977)

Musical Chairs (1977)

Scorpions

Lovedrive (1979)

Animal Magnetism (1980)

Crazy World (1990)

Shpongle

Ineffable Mysteries from Shpongleland (2009)

Slow Earth

Latitude and 023 (2013)

Steve Hillage

Live Herald (1979)

Steve Miller Band:

Bingo! (2010)

Let Your Hair Down (2011)

Strawbs

Deadlines (1977)

Styx

Pieces of Eight (1978)

Cyclorama (2003)

Syd Barrett

The Madcap Laughs (1970)

Barrett (1970)

Syd Barrett (1974)

An Introduction to Syd Barrett (2010)

Toe Fat

Toe Fat (1970)

Toe Fat 2 (1971)

Thornley

Come Again (2004)

Tiny Pictures (2009)

Thunder

Laughing on Judgement Day (1992)

Behind Closed Doors (1995)

T. Rex

Electric Warrior (1971)

UFO

Phenomenon (1974)

Force It (1975)

No Heavy Petting (1976)

Lights Out (1977)

Obsession (1978)

Strangers in the Night (1979)

No Place to Run (1980)

The Wild, the Willing and the Innocent (1981)

Making Contact (1983)

UK

Danger Money (1979)

Umphrey’s McGee

Safety in Numbers (2006)

The Bottom Half (2007)

Uno

Uno (1974)

Villainy

Mode. Set. Clear. (2012)

Wax

American English (1987)

A Hundred Thousand in Fresh Notes (1989)

Ween

The Mollusk (1997)

Wishbone Ash

Pilgrimage (1971)

Argus (1972)

Wishbone Four (1973)

Live Dates (1973)

There’s the Rub (1974)

New England (1976)

Classic Ash (1977)

Front Page News (1977)

No Smoke Without Fire (1978)

Just Testing (1980)

Wings

Band on the Run (1973)

Venus and Mars (1975)

Wings at the Speed of Sound (1976)

Wings over America (1976)

London Town (1978)

Wings Greatest (1978)

Back to the Egg (1979)

The Wombats:

This Modern Glitch (2011)

XTC

Go 2 (1978)

Yes

Going for the One (1977)

Tormato (1978)

Yumi Matsutoya

Sakuban Oaisimashō (1981)

Younger Brother

Last Days of Gravity (2007)

Vaccine (2011)

Yourcodenameis:milo

Rapt. Dept. (2005)

17 (2005)

Ignoto (2005)

Music videos

Paul Young – “Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home)” (1983)

Rainbow – “Street of Dreams” (1983)

Robert Plant – “Big Log” (1983)

Yes – “Owner of a Lonely Heart” (1983)

Intaferon – “Get Out of London” (1983)

Kevin Kitchen – “Tight Spot” (1984)

Nik Kershaw – “Wouldn’t It Be Good” (1984)

David Gilmour – “Blue Light” (1984)

David Gilmour – “All Lovers Are Deranged” (1984)

Nik Kershaw – “The Riddle” (1984)

Nik Kershaw – “Wide Boy (1984)

Nik Kershaw – “Don Quixote” (1985)

Belouis Some – “Imagination” (1985)

Belouis Some – “Some People” (1985)

Glass Tiger – “Thin Red Line” (1985)

Glass Tiger – “Someday” (1985)

Ministry – “Over the Shoulder” (1985)

The Cult – “Love Removal Machine” (1987)

Pink Floyd – “Learning to Fly” (1987)

Pink Floyd – “The Dogs of War” (1987)

Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe – “Brother of Mine” (1989)

Bruce Dickinson – “Tattooed Millionaire” (1990)

Bruce Dickinson – “All the Young Dudes” (1990)

Helloween – “Kids of the Century” (1991)

Alan Parsons – “Turn It Up” (1993)

Pink Floyd – “High Hopes” (1994)

Richard Wright – “Night Of a Thousand Furry Toys” (1996)

The Designers Behind Our Favorite Album Covers STORM THORGERSON Album Covers 10cc: Sheet Music (1974) The Original Soundtrack (1975) How Dare You!

[diamondcourses]

Angola Renews Sales Policy On Rough Diamonds

Angola Renews Sales Policy On Rough Diamonds

Luanda — The Ministry of Mining and Petroleum Resources has set up a working group to renew the profit-orientated sale of rough diamonds.

The Secretary of State for Geology and Mines, in Angola Jânio Victor will be heading up the group.

This working group, as stated in the executive order published in the State Gazette, December 18, consists of the…