During 2012, Sierra Leone’s diamond industries were unbelievable, and the amount of exporting was over one hundred millions of dollars in U.S. dollars (Sierra). The principles of supply and demand seem central in the characterization of the various trends in the market. In various market structures, the black market tends to be rarely regulated. However, the black market observes in the venture allow for the integration of some strategies in the effort of the market to the interest traders. Traders pegged to the various black market on the places where best deals are secured on illegal merchandise. These goods are defined to be oriented on the interests of the society, as well as the improvement in demands. Veblen goods are the main targets of such market developments. This originates from people increase demand and status of luxury associated to their usage, and implies the prospective capacity of the reduction of the performance of the rest of the goods.
In” Blood Diamonds” Weinstein (2006) showed that a civil war happened in the 1990s in Republic of Sierra Leone. Archer, Vandy and Bowen were the main characters in the movie. They were risking lives and circulating countless battles. They finally had a common goal that they wanted to uncover the dark side that was the black market of diamonds in Africa and America.
In “ “Blood Diamonds” and Africa’s Armed Conflicts in the Post – Cold War Era, “ Orogun (2004) said that diamonds are referring as “clean stones”. This article explains about the black market is really happening in African. I am using this article to support how the black market of diamond trades is still not regulated, and they defined it as “licit” trade.
In “Regimes of Ethical Value? Landscape, Race and Represent...
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...the potential interference of the market into the legal trade circle may be shaped up to match the interest of the involved traders.
Works Cited
Falls, S. (2011). Picturing blood diamonds. Critical Arts, 25(3), 441-466. doi:10.1080/02560046.2011.615144
Orogun, P. (2004). "Blood diamonds" and Africa's armed conflicts in the post—cold war era. World Affairs, 166(3), 151-161. doi:10.3200/WAFS.166.3.151-161
Schlosser, K. (2013). Regimes of ethical value? landscape, race and representation in the Canadian diamond industry. Antipode, 45(1), 161-179. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8330.2012.00996.x
Sierra Leone | KimberleyProcess. (n.d.). Retrieved March 8, 2014, from http://www.kimberleyprocess.com/en/sierra-leone
Weinstein, P. (Producer), Zwick, E. (Producer & Director), Herskovitz, M. (Producer), King, G. (Producer) . (2006). Blood diamond. [Motion picture]. USA: Warner Bros.
Being located in the west coast of Africa and between Guinea and Liberia, “Sierra Leone has an abundance of easily extractable diamonds”(BBC News). The diamonds had brought “encouragement” for violence in the country in 1991. Attacks of the Revolutionary “United Front (RUF) ,led by former army corporal Foday Sankoh”(Encyclopedia Britannica), were on government military and civilians. In response to a corrupt government, the RUF performed violent and terrorist acts that scarred many. “The RUF captured civilians and forced them to work”(Analyzing the Causes) in their army to gain control over Sierra Leone. The savages went a...
DeBeers founded in 1880’s became the world’s largest diamond mining and trading company in the world. When DeBeers was established it controlled around 45% of the world’s diamond production and sold over 80% of all diamonds produced. DeBeers used underhand tactics to remove smaller diamond mines and punished those who tried to break away from the DeBeers “empire”.
The controversial artist Kanye West has always attempted to make known what he thinks, no matter if he has to be disrespectful or graphic in his illustrations of said topic. So it wasn't a real surprise when he chose to focus his energy into reveling to the American public horrors happening that had a direct connection with the beloved diamond stone. West's 2005 music video “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” shows the corrupted underground diamond trade in the African country, Sierra Leone. From this groundbreaking video, West showed the devastated lives those who worked on the mining rivers live. However upon further investigation into the issue of diamond workers in Sierra Leone there emerged the true source of the situation, a violent conflict between the government and rebel leaders. Due to this conflict the entire country was thrown on a downward spiral. This downward spiral eventually resulted in the people longing for the conflict to stop and for the country to come together as one again. The people of Sierra Leone want to forget about the events that transpired during their civil war, however the more we look and attempt to learn from what happened, the better we set ourselves up for the future. West's video only depicts one side of a multifaceted struggle of the diamonds in Sierra Leone, however from this one side the public is encouraged to research more into the conflict themselves and uncover the truth behind the diamonds that we so desperately love.
In this section, I will provide a brief history of U.S. military involvement on the African continent, starting with the Barbary Wars and working up through the current date. This historical documentation will highlight the change in the role the United States has played in Africa [post 9-11???]. Prior to 9-11, the United States’ interactions were mainly [capture summary here]. Since [?], however, the continent has faced a marked increase in violent extremism and terrorism leading the United States to partner with many African nations in counterterrorism initiatives. These, and other initiatives, mean an increasing number U.S. service members are deploying to Africa to take part in training, humanitarian issues and military operations. These military activities are run by United States African Command, a recently created combatant command.
Diamonds were not bought as a store of value, they could not be traded in the same w...
The movie Blood Diamond starts with a man and his son walking down a road in Sierra Leone. It is obvious that the man Solomon is a loving father to his son Dia. They talk about Dia’s future as a doctor until Solomon spots a car full of Revolutionary United Front (RUF) soldiers coming down the road. The RUF soldiers are there to kidnap young men and turn them into child soldiers as well as take some of the grown men to work in the diamond fields. The RUF is cutting off the hands of some of the grown men, but decide to spare Solomon and use him in the diamond field. They kidnap Dia where they will later abuse and brainwash him into becoming a child soldier.
Sierra Leone, a small country located in west Africa, has recently dropped its population from 4.4 million to 2 million because of a massive war that had struck quite swiftly. This war had been a great tragedy to those who were in Sierra Leone at the time for they were innocent and had no do of wrong. To dig to the core, you would find that this war was primarily caused by the diamonds in the country. In efforts to preventing such a tremble in this or any other country again, many solutions to this issue have been brought up from around the world.
African leaders knew that isolating Africa from international politics would harm security and economic stability, but opening their states to aid from the US and the USSR allowed for foreign ideological influence. The West planned to stop the spread of foreign communism with “containment” policies, using the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as military force, while the USSR responded with the Warsaw Treaty Organization in 1955. These military organizations were examples of the actions the West and East took to make themselves appear intimidating to other states, but neither resulted in major military action. Instead, they acted as support and communication systems for the West and East as they tried...
Ans. 1) Genocide, child soldiers, slavery. Solomon was forced into slavery in a diamond mine, working in terrible conditions against his will by Captain Poison. After Solomon escaped his son Dia was captured by Captain Poison and he too was forced into slavery as a child soldier, Dia was brainwashed by the RUF and forced to take part in the torture and murder of innocent civilians, he was drugged and mentally tortured. Solomon’s whole village was burned down and the villagers who were not fit for work has their hands cut off. Those who were fit for work were torn from their families and forced into slave labour. Refugees including Solomon’s wife and
This relates back to Congo, where violence spurred by ethnic rivalries is due to local groups’ desire to make money by getting into the extractive industries. In another example, Newmont, an American company, mines Ghanaian gold and pays the government part of the profits. Here, Burgis shined the spotlight on an environmental issue: the sodium cyanide spill in Kwamebourkrom that killed aquatic life and posed hazardous living conditions for locals (Burgis, 134). Finally, in the last few chapters, Burgis touched on Cecil John Rhodes’ legacy as the founder of De Beers, blood diamonds, imperialism, and violence carried out by local governments and mining companies in order to protect their interests.
Deep within African mines, elusive diamonds lay enveloped in the Earth’s crust. Possessing much influence, beauty, and tension, nature’s hardest known substance causes parallel occurrences of unity and destruction on opposite sides of the globe. Diamonds, derived from the Greek word "adamas", meaning invincible, are formed deep within the mantle, and are composed entirely from carbon. Moreover, only under tremendous amounts of heat and pressure can diamonds form into their preliminary crystal state. In fact, diamonds are formed approximately 150km- 200km below the surface and at radical temperatures ranging from 900-1300 C°. When these extremes meet, carbon atoms are forced together creating diamond crystals. Yet how do these gems, ranking a ten on Moh’s hardness scale, impact the individual lives of millions of people besides coaxing a squeal out of brides-to-be? These colorless, yellow, brown, green, blue, reddish, pink, grey and black minerals are gorgeous in their cut state, but how are these otherwise dull gems recognized and harvested? Furthermore, how and why is bloodshed and violence caused over diamonds in Africa, the supplier of approximately 65% of the world’s diamonds? (Bertoni) The environmental, social, and economic impact of harvesting, transporting, and processing diamonds is crucial because contrary to popular belief, much blood has been spilled over first-world “bling”.
Santarossa, B. (2004, January 13). Diamonds: Adding lustre to the Canadian economy. Retrieved November 06, 2017, from https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-621-m/11-621-m2004008-eng.htm
The film marker is trying to raise awareness of the illicit conflict diamond trade and reinforcing the Kimberley process1 and showing how it will stem the flow of conflict diamonds. This is successful mainly due to the public outburst after the movie. The great impact of the movie has caused diamond companies like De Beers2 to start a pre-emptive PR (public relationship) campaign, even before the movie was released to inform people that their diamonds are conflict-free.
Since diamonds is a good market and congo does not use it outside people is coming and taking them from Congo with congo resourses and that’s were forced labor starts because people from outside is not bringing people in if they have a lot of people in congo that they can pay for super extended tuns and they pay the least they can to them but as it is needed much people is forced into labors a lot of times even without getting paid.
From the sound of the phrase, an ordinary reader would assume that black market is a place for the exchange of merchandise. In fact, black market refers to economic activities involving illegal transactions of goods and services. The goods and services involved or found in the black market may be genuine and legal in nature, but the process of transacting may make the whole process illegal. The activity of transacting illegal business bears the name “black” because it involves dark practices that always dodge the legal environments. According to Bahmani-Oskooee & Goswami (2005), the process is usually secrete and concealed from the legal officials who otherwise would have known about the transactions if they were legal. Although security officers and intelligence authorities have been striving to stop the practice, there is no sign that black market trade will come to an end any time soon. People who oppose black market trade cite reasons that include a number of well-observed facts. For example, the trade endangers the lives of consumers; moreover, it leads to the loss of taxes. In addition, it negatively affects legal business systems; it increases criminal activities and it violates cross-border trades. It is clear that black market trade is a serious economic issue and since it is unlikely to end , it is important to inform readers of its positive and negative points. Even though the phrase black market sounds enigmatic and undesirable in the current economic conditions, global economists attribute particular advantages to black market trade. Among the alleged advantages of black market trade are facts such as the following: the practice helps improve the circulation of money in the economies, it creates employment opportun...