GABORONE, Botswana: The largest diamond found in more than a century has been unearthed at a mine in Botswana, and the country’s president showed off the fist-sized stone to the world at a viewing ceremony Thursday.
The Botswana government says the huge 2,492-carat diamond is the second-biggest ever discovered in a mine. It’s the biggest diamond found since 1905.
The as-yet-unnamed diamond was presented to the world at the office of Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi. It weighs approximately half a kilogram and Masisi was one of the first to get to hold it.
“It is overwhelming,” Masisi said. “I am lucky to have seen it in my time.” He gasped and said “wow” before calling senior government officials over to take a closer look.
Officials said it was too early to value the stone or decide how it would be sold. Another smaller diamond from the same mine in Botswana was sold for $63 million in 2016, a record for a rough gem.
“This is history in the making,” said Naseem Lahri, Botswana managing director for Lucara Diamond Corp., the Canadian mining company that found the diamond. “I am very proud. It is a product of Botswana.”
Lucara said in a statement Wednesday that it recovered the “exceptional” rough diamond from its Karowe Mine in central Botswana. Lucara said it was a “high-quality” stone and was found intact. It was located using X-ray technology designed to find large, high-value diamonds.
“We are ecstatic about the recovery of this extraordinary 2,492-carat diamond,” Lucara President and CEO William Lamb said in a statement.
The weight would make it the largest diamond found in 119 years and the second-largest ever dug out of a mine after the Cullinan Diamond that was discovered in South Africa in 1905. The famous Cullinan was 3,106 carats and was cut into gems, some of which form part of the British Crown Jewels.
A bigger, less pure black diamond was discovered in Brazil in the late 1800s, but it was found above ground and was believed to have been part of a meteorite.
Botswana, a country of 2.6 million people in southern Africa, is the second-biggest producer of natural diamonds behind Russia and has unearthed all of the world’s biggest stones in recent years. The Karowe Mine has produced four other diamonds over 1,000 carats in the last decade.
Before this discovery, the Sewelo diamond, which was found at the Karowe Mine in 2019, was recognized as the second-biggest mined diamond in the world at 1,758 carats. It was bought by French fashion house Louis Vuitton for an undisclosed amount.
The 1,111-carat Lesedi La Rona diamond, also from Botswana’s Karowe Mine, was bought by a British jeweler for $53 million in 2017. Another diamond from Karowe, The Constellation, was sold for the record $63 million.
Diamonds are formed when carbon atoms are squeezed together under high pressure deep underground. Scientists say most diamonds are at least a billion years old and some of them more than 3 billion years old.
The biggest diamond in over a century is found in Botswana — a whopping 2,492 carats
https://arab.news/43jha
The biggest diamond in over a century is found in Botswana — a whopping 2,492 carats
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- Lucara Diamond Corp. said it found the “exceptional” rough diamond from its Karowe Mine in central Botswana
- It is the second-largest ever dug out of a mine after the 3,106 carats Cullinan Diamond that was discovered in South Africa in 1905
New Queen Elizabeth II statue panned in Northern Ireland
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- Sculpture was unveiled last week in Antrim Castle Gardens park in Northern Ireland
- The sculpture is attracting increasing attention – and curious visitors to the 400-year-old gardens
ANTRIM, United Kingdom: A new statue of Queen Elizabeth II has met mixed reviews, with one non-plussed critic assessing that it looks more like “an old lady buying potatoes at the market” than Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.
The statue of the queen, who died in September 2022 aged 96, was unveiled last week in Antrim Castle Gardens park in Northern Ireland, and also features her husband Prince Philip and two of her beloved corgi dogs.
Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council said at the unveiling that the work captures “Her Majesty in a dignified pose, reflecting her grace, steadfastness and lifelong dedication to public service.”
The local authority posted images of artist Anto Brennan’s work on its social media sites but switched off comments after adverse comments.
One online commentator even likened it to Robin Williams’s elderly female housekeeper Mrs. Doubtfire in the 1993 Hollywood comedy-drama.
But while the council conceded that art can prompt “diverse opinions,” it said it was “delighted” with the “generally positive” response.
Walking his dog at the gardens on Wednesday, Ivor Ritchie, 67, called the sculpture “terrible.” “It looks no more like her than the man-in-the-moon,” he said.
“I just don’t think it looks like her face,” added another passer-by, Eddie Smyth, a 52-year-old laborer also from Antrim, a half-hour drive northwest of Belfast.
English tourist Lorraine Barker, 58, agreed. “In fact the corgis are better than the queen I’d say,” she said.
The sculpture, one of the first of the queen in the UK since her death, is attracting increasing attention — and curious visitors to the 400-year-old gardens.
“We came over to see it as we’d heard people talking about it,” said Noel Wilson, 62, who drove from the nearby town of Ballymena with his wife Dorothy, 61, to have a look.
Hungarian tourist Gabor Laszlo, 50, struggled to see the queen’s likeness but conceded: “Prince Philip is OK.”
The queen, who ruled for 70 years, is depicted in a country jacket and tweed skirt, wearing a headscarf and carrying her trademark handbag.
Laszlo was unimpressed, saying it made her look “like an old lady at the market buying some potatoes.”
Yet the depiction still has its fans.
“It’s a really good replica of how warmly and fondly she is remembered by the British public, I think it’s an excellent job,” said English visitor Stephen Barker.
For 90-year-old Canadian tourist Roy Hill the work is “a wonderful depiction, very impressive.”
“It brings back a lot of memories, I am old enough to remember Queen Elizabeth as a young person, at the coronation,” he said.
Another local out for a walk in the park, Muriel McCandless, 81, expressed sympathy with the sculptor, who has yet to comment on the controversy.
“I actually think it’s quite good,” she laughed.
Leading olive oil producer Spain turns to olive stones for fuel
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- “We use olive pits from our trees to heat the swimming pool, the underfloor heating system and get hot water,” said the 48-year-old
MADRID: Farmer David Jimenez Zamora barely flinched when gas and electricity prices in Spain soared with the energy crisis.
He kept heating the covered pool in the 18th century farmhouse he rents to tourists and the hot water running for as many as 26 guests at once without getting the terrifying energy bills hammering fellow Spaniards.
His secret? Olive stones.
“We use olive pits from our trees to heat the swimming pool, the underfloor heating system and get hot water,” said the 48-year-old.
“This is normally used from September onwards,” he said, standing by a store holding 5,000 kilos of stones overlooking a sea of olive trees in the province of Granada, in the southern Andalusia region.
Olive stones also power the machines producing Spain’s famed “liquid gold” olive oil at two agricultural cooperatives he’s part of. Solar panels cover the rest of their energy needs.
The use of pits to fuel boilers in homes and small enterprises, mills and even flights in Spain’s olive-growing heartland shows the role the industry and the country’s vast agricultural sector can play in helping decarbonize hard-to-electrify sectors, like aviation.
Using stones as biomass isn’t new in olive-producing countries like Spain and Italy. However, the energy shock following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Europe’s decarbonization push and the olive oil industry’s struggles in recent years with fluctuating prices have sparked renewed interest in getting maximum value out of the crop, farmers and industry groups said.
Spain’s olive oil industry is also a natural ally for companies like Repsol and Cepsa, which are investing heavily to boost capacity to turn organic waste into biofuels.
GLOBAL LEADERSHIP Spain is the world’s largest producer of olive oil, accounting for up to half of the global output in recent years, 80 percent of that from Andalusia.
In the ten years through 2019, the country accounted on average for over half of Europe’s stock of olive stones, Spanish biomass association Avebiom estimates.
A byproduct of olive oil production, pits account for between 8 and 10 percent of a ton of processed olives. On average, Spain produces around 400,000 tons of olive pits a year, Avebiom’s Pablo Rodero said.
Roughly a third of this is refined to reduce moisture content and get a clean product that can fuel domestic boilers, fetching the highest prices — up to twice as much as unrefined stones, according to Rodero. The rest is used to produce thermal energy to drive the almazaras – as the traditional mills are known – and in industrial boilers, according to the association.
PRICE ROLLERCOASTER More and more mills and companies are refining the stones for sale to domestic users, Rodero said.
At the end of last year, Spain had 31 firms refining and producing olives stones as biomass, up from 25 in 2020.
Many, like Pelaez Renovables, are in Andalusia. Every year, it refines up to 25,000 tons of stones for sale to domestic and industrial customers, with an added value of between 60-80 euros a ton, managing partner Jose Pelaez said.
The past couple of years have been difficult, he added.
Scorching temperatures devastated Spain’s olive crop. With fewer stones on the market, prices soared, upending years of stability and leading to a 40 percent drop in demand, Pelaez said.
Last year, consumers had to shell out up to 400 euros a ton, or some 8 euro cents per kilowatt-hours (kWh), for olive pits, including transport and taxes, more than double the price in 2021, according to Avebiom data.
Stones remained cheaper than diesel and the government-regulated gas tariff but in line with wood pellets and more expensive than wood chips.
In the second quarter of this year, prices fell toward 300 euros a ton, a decline Pelaez hopes will bring higher sales.
“I would be happy with an increase of 5-10 percent per year,” he said.
Biomass and biofuels should play a limited role in the energy mix when electrification isn’t an option, Sara Pizzinato and Helena Moreno of Greenpeace Spain said, as burning biomass still has an environmental impact and releases contaminants.
“The sector is attracting private equity firms eager to industrialize the production, making it unsustainable,” Moreno said.
Oil company Cepsa even took the humble pits to the sky. In 2022, it used them and other olive industry waste to make sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) that powered more than 200 flights out of Andalusia’s Seville airport.
Large companies have focused on cheaper waste, equally or better suited to become biofuels, like used cooking oil, Rodero and other industry sources said.
Stones and other organic waste are though an increasingly important income source for mills, said Macarena Sanchez, director of Almazaras Federadas de Espana which represents more than 200 mills, accounting for up to a third of their revenue.
This marks a drastic change for an industry that in the past didn’t know what to do with its waste, said Rodero.
“Now everything is used,” he said. “Olives are like pigs: Nothing goes to waste.”
Jon Bon Jovi helps talk woman down from ledge on Nashville bridge
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NASHVILLE, Tennessee: Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Jon Bon Jovi and a video production assistant persuaded a woman standing on the ledge of a pedestrian bridge in Nashville to come back over the railing to safety.
Police say the encounter happened Tuesday on the Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge, which spans the Cumberland River.
The Tennessean reported that Bon Jovi was filming a music video on the bridge, which remained open to the public during the shoot.
Video provided by the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department and widely shared on social media showed the assistant talking to the woman. The Grammy-winning front man slowly approached, waved to the woman and joined in the conversation.
Eventually the woman turned around to face the two, and they helped her over the railing to safety. Bon Jovi talked to the woman and hugged her.
Representatives for Bon Jovi did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Haiti condemns bogus claim about US pet-eating migrants pushed by Trump
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- Donald Trump: ‘In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs — the people that came in — they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there’
- When ABC News debate moderator David Muir debunked the claim to him, Trump insisted that he had seen ‘people on television say their dog was eaten’
PORT-AU-PRINCE: Haiti’s government on Wednesday condemned “discriminatory remarks” made by US presidential candidate Donald Trump and other Republicans, who spouted debunked claims that Haitian migrants were eating pet cats and dogs in the state of Ohio.
“Unfortunately, this is not the first time that compatriots abroad have fallen victim to disinformation campaigns, been stigmatized and dehumanized to serve electoral political interests,” the government said.
“We firmly reject these remarks, which undermine the dignity of our compatriots and could endanger their lives,” it added.
Several Republican figures this week circulated claims that Haitian migrants were killing and eating the pets of residents in Springfield in Ohio — accusations that the city’s manager said had no basis in fact.
On Tuesday, Trump repeated the bogus claims in his televised presidential debate with Democrat Kamala Harris, which was watched by tens of millions of people in the United States and around the world.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs — the people that came in — they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” the former US president said.
When ABC News debate moderator David Muir debunked the claim to him, Trump insisted that he had seen “people on television say their dog was eaten.”
The owner of X, Elon Musk, has also used his social network to help circulate the baseless claims, which quickly garnered attention in the United States, where two-thirds of households own pets.
Remains found in car in Illinois river identified as 2 men who vanished in 1976, coroner says
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- Hawley, 72, of Stockton, Illinois, and Owens, 65, of Freeport, Illinois, vanished after leaving a farm auction on Feb. 19, 1976, near the Winnebago-Ogle County line
- More than 100 bones were retrieved from the vehicle and the river at the site about 161 kilometers west of Chicago
ILLINOIS: DNA testing on skeletal remains found in a car pulled from an Illinois river confirmed they are those of two men who vanished in 1976 after leaving a farm auction, authorities said.
Testing performed by the Illinois State Police Division of Forensic Services confirmed they are the remains of Clarence Owens and Everett Hawley, the Winnebago County Coroner’s Office said Tuesday.
Hawley, 72, of Stockton, Illinois, and Owens, 65, of Freeport, Illinois, vanished after leaving a farm auction on Feb. 19, 1976, near the Winnebago-Ogle County line, the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office said
Hawley was a real estate broker in Freeport, while Owens was a salesperson in Hawley’s firm.
“This bring us one step closer to providing closure to the families of Clarence Owens and Everett Hawley who have waited many years for answers that have been affected by this tragic case,” Winnebago County Sheriff Gary Caruana said in a statement.
In March, people fishing along the Pecatonica River discovered a submerged vehicle in the river using a sonar fish finder. Recovery crews then used a crane to pull the 1966 Chevrolet Impala sedan from the river in the village of Pecatonica, the Rockford Register Star reported.
The men had left the farm auction in that vehicle, authorities said.
More than 100 bones were retrieved from the vehicle and the river at the site about 100 miles (161 kilometers) west of Chicago. DNA extracted from the bones was compared with DNA profiles from the men’s relatives to identify them.
Before the DNA testing, the remains were examined by a forensic anthropologist in St. Louis, Missouri, who found no evidence of trauma.
Winnebago County Coroner Jennifer Muraski told WIFR-TV that how the two men died is still unknown, but no foul play is suspected.