Into its nondescript offices arrive billion-year-old gemstones from mines in Botswana, Canada, South Africa, Angola-and Russia. Despite the war in Ukraine that has halted billions of dollars in trade, Belgium continues to import diamonds from Russia, albeit in much-diminished quantities.
The EU has stopped importing Russian coal, is phasing out most Russian oil and has stopped buying numerous Russian goods, including gold, caviar, and vodka. Yet diamonds have evaded the sanctions list again and again. The omission is even more striking as the trade affects only one member - Belgium - which has always said it would not block a ban. Trade has continued despite moral pressure from Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Peace was worth "more than any diamonds", he told Belgium's parliament in March.
Alrosa, the Russian diamond company, is 66% owned by Russia and the republic of Yakutia, the vast north Siberian region that is home to most of the company's mines. Alrosa's chief executive, Sergei Sergeevich Ivanov, was one of the first oligarchs to have sanctions imposed by the US on day one of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. His father, Sergei Borisovich Ivanov, a former Russian defence minister, also under US sanctions, is said by Washington to be one of Vladimir Putin's closest allies.
Furthermore, the company has funded a combat submarine, named the Alrosa, according to internal company literature and the European Commission. The Alrosa submarine returned to the seas in June after an eight-year upgrade that included fitting the vessel with Kalibr cruise missiles, Russian news agency Tass reported in June.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 25, 2022 من The Guardian Weekly.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 25, 2022 من The Guardian Weekly.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Finn family murals
The optimism that runs through Finnish artist Tove Jansson's Moomin stories also appears in her public works, now on show in a Helsinki exhibition
I hoped Finland would be a progressive dream.I've had to think again Mike Watson
Oulu is five hours north from Helsinki by train and a good deal colder and darker each winter than the Finnish capital. From November to March its 220,000 residents are lucky to see daylight for a couple of hours a day and temperatures can reach the minus 30s. However, this is not the reason I sense a darkening of the Finnish dream that brought me here six years ago.
A surplus of billionaires is destabilising our democracies Zoe Williams
The concept of \"elite overproduction\" was developed by social scientist Peter Turchin around the turn of this century to describe something specific: too many rich people for not enough rich-person jobs.
'What will people think? I don't care any more'
At 90, Alan Bennett has written a sex-fuelled novella set in a home for the elderly. He talks about mourning Maggie Smith, turning down a knighthood and what he makes of the new UK prime minister
I see you
What happens when people with acute psychosis meet the voices in their heads? A new clinical trial reveals some surprising results
Rumbled How Ali ran rings around apartheid, 50 years ago
Fifty years ago, in a corner of white South Africa, Muhammad Ali already seemed a miracle-maker.
Trudeau faces 'iceberg revolt'as calls grow for PM to quit
Justin Trudeau, who promised “sunny ways” as he won an election on a wave of public fatigue with an incumbent Conservative government, is now facing his darkest and most uncertain political moment as he attempts to defy the odds to win a rare fourth term.
Lost Maya city revealed through laser mapping
After swapping machetes and binoculars for computer screens and laser mapping, a team of researchers have discovered a lost Maya city containing temple pyramids, enclosed plazas and a reservoir which had been hidden for centuries by the Mexican jungle.
'A civil war' Gangs step up assault on capital
Armed fighters advance into neighbourhoods at the heart of Port-au-Prince as authorities try to restore order
Reality bites in the Himalayan 'kingdom of happiness'
High emigration and youth unemployment levels belie the mountain nation's global reputation for cheeriness
