Africa's Conflict Diamonds

If you missed today's class, check out the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaqQjIzIbiY

Use it to answer the following questions on loose leaf paper (30 points):

1. List the city and country where the reporter began his story.
2. Why were the diamonds so important to the rebels?
3. What is the “symbol” of modern Sierra Leone?
4. What was the estimated value of the 110 carat rough cut diamond?
5. What percentage of Sierra Leone’s diamonds are smuggled out of the country?
6. Why have many farmers in the countryside abandoned their fields?
7. How much earth must be removed to find a pound of diamonds?
8. The reporter watched a man digging and sifting for diamonds.  He found one!  How many days did that man dig to find that one diamond? What was the street value of it in U.S. Dollars?
9. Approximately how many diamond miners work in Sierra Leone? How many of them have licenses to do so?
10. Explain how the reporters were able to film the diamond transactions without being caught?
11. List two of the three reasons why diamonds are the world’s perfect currency.
12. Explain why the diamond divers do not work on Fridays.
13. Besides being bought and sold, what happens to the diamonds when the reach Antwerp, Belgium?  They undergo two steps.  What are these two steps?
14. According to the man at Rosy Blue, it is nearly impossible to know the origins of every diamond.  Explain why.  Hint:  It has something to do with the sorting process.