Frankthoughts

Diamonds or the diamond industry is not all bad. But, whenever something of great value is found, many people lose their lives because of it, and diamond is no exception. The recently released movie‘Blood Diamond’, that stars Leonardo DiCaprio, and is set during Sierra Leone’s diamond fueled civil war, has created a mini public relations crisis for the diamond industry. As per recent media reports A-list celebrities such as Beyoncé Knowles and Jennifer Lopez are part of a multimillion-dollar campaign by the industry to avert this disaster. Knowles and Lopez agreed to wear jewel-encrusted rings on their right hands at last week’s Golden Globe award ceremony in return for the promise from the diamond industry of $10,000 each donated to the African charity of their choice.   Other Hollywood stalwarts too are being approached to promote diamonds at the Academy Awards next month. And that’s not all, the industry’s campaign - titled ‘Raise Your Right Hand’ - does not stop at the mov

Did they find the ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’in Iraq? Did they “smoke out” Osama Bin Laden from Afghanistan? Have they restored democracy in Iraq or any other country they have tried to do so? Then what in god’s name making the fall for the United States led imposition of sanctions on Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, even though they were invited to visit all their nuclear facilities*? (Ironically, the Iranian nuclear programme was started with US help in the 1950s during the cold war) Why are they falling for the same story again? Speaking in the southwestern provincial capital of Ahvaz, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the Security Council’s resolution of 23 December 2006 was invalid and had left the world body’s reputation in tatters. “You are nobody,” he told the Western powers. Recalling the West’s support for Iraq, then ruled by Saddam Hussein, during its eight year war with Iran in the 1980s, he said: “If all the powers that supported Saddam in his war against Iran we