GOVERNMENT ministers and industry leaders from diamond producing and trading countries are meeting in Pretoria to fine-tune agreements banning the sale of diamonds used to finance warfare in Africa. The industry, responding to pressure from human rights movements, established the World Diamond Council in July at a meeting in Antwerp, Belgium. It proposed a system of import controls including certificates of origin and laws to penalise those dealing in stones from mines run by African rebel movements. The world’s 24 diamond markets, including those in the biggest trading centres of Antwerp and Tel Aviv, recently adopted laws to ban anyone caught knowingly trading in conflict diamonds. Diamonds are the major source of funding for rebels waging savage wars in Angola, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo that have claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. – AFP