...and onward marches the skills shortage Antwerp's diamond polishers are aging, and new blood is needed.

So much so, that the local diamond industry is offering free polishing courses. Demand for experienced diamond polishers is increasing. The Antwerp World Diamond Centre estimates that over the next two years, there will be 55 job openings. Addressing this shortcoming, the Antwerp diamond industry is organizing a free course in diamond polishing, to be held in September. The course will cover the basic polishing skills. Several local diamond companies support the project. Each company will take under its wing one of the students and closely follow their development. The companies also commit to hiring their apprentices after the course concludes. This course stems from the Antwerp Diamond Masterplan Project 2020 and is an initiative from HRD Antwerp, fonds voor Diamantnijverheid [Diamond Industry Fund] and AWDC. With the move of the DTC from London to Gaborone in process, surely there will be some further opportunities for training more polishers right here on African soil as well? Its all double standards! Say what?! The Democratic Republic of Congos Ministry of Mines went on the defensive about allegedly granting mining licenses to companies with close connections to the government, qualifying those accusations as uninformed and a double standard. DRCs minister of mines, Martin Kabwelulu, insisted in a statement that the government has not benefited some companies over others, as a report from Global Witness exposed recently. The Global Witness listed several deals completed by a front company in the DRC, questioning how an Israeli magnates offshore companies "obtained their licenses in deals that were conducted in secrecy and not subject to public tenders"; how the offshore entities "have not revealed their full list of beneficiaries there is a risk that these beneficiaries could include corrupt Congolese officials"; and how "in at least two cases the front bankrolled the initial purchases by Israeli magnate-related offshore companies instead of doing business directly with the Congolese government." In response, minister Kabwelulu protests that all deals were conducted in strict compliance with the legal, regulatory and statutory provisions regulating the company and the process of license granting in the country sounds a bit like the rhetoric one hears from certain countries further to the south as well, I hear you murmuring This most recent example is of course not an isolated case of companies doing business in the DRC that have burned their fingers - early this year, following a dispute with the DRC government over expropriation of one of its key assets, First Quantum Minerals sold out completely from the country. The Vancouver-based copper miner sold its Kolwezi tailings project along with the Frontier and Lonshi mines and related exploration interests for $1.25 billion, about half the value some analysts put on the projects before the DRC government stepped in. As attractive deposits become harder and harder to find in traditional markets, miners are pushing the limits of the political risk they are willing to take on. However sooner or later everyone reaches a limit in my opinion the DRC is only one of many developing countries that are busy pushing that envelope too far. Willem Smuts