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De Beers ends monopoly

    JOHANNESBURG

    The mining giant De Beers has moved to clean up the diamond trade and its
    reputation by demanding a guarantee from buyers that they are not dealing in "conflict diamonds" smuggled out of African war zones, news reports said.

    Diamond manufacturers found to have purchased conflict diamonds will no
    longer be able to buy from De Beers, which controls 60 percent of the
    world's uncut diamonds.

    In a move shifting the company away from its diamond monopoly to focussing
    on selling the output from its own mines, De Beers is positioning itself as a "supplier of choice", news reports said. "De Beers has already taken steps to ensure that all the diamonds it sells can be confidently labelled as 'conflict-free'," a company statement said.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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