29.6 Carat Blue Diamond Found in S.African Mine

LONDON (Reuters) - A 29.6 carat blue diamond, one of the rarest and most coveted in the world with a possible price tag of tens of millions of dollars, has been discovered at a South African mine by Petra Diamonds.

The miner said the "exceptional" acorn-sized diamond, small enough to fit into the palm of a hand, was unearthed at the Cullinan mine near Pretoria.

The mine, owned by the firm since 2008, was also where the Cullinan Diamond was found in 1905 - described as the largest rough gem diamond ever recovered and weighing 3,106 carats.

Other notable diamonds found in the mine include a 25.5 carat Cullinan blue diamond, found in 2013 and sold for $16.9 million, and a diamond found in 2008, known as the Star of Josephine, which was sold for $9.49 million.

Chief Executive Johan Dippenaar told Reuters the latest blue diamond discovery could outstrip recent finds.

"By some margin ... this is probably the most significant stone we've ever, in terms of blue stones, recovered," he said.

"The stones in the last year or so are selling well above $2 million per carat. That's not my quote, that's updates in the market," he said ahead of the company's first-half trading statement.

Petra Diamonds is due to release figures on production and sales for the six months to December 31 on Thursday, but these will not take into account the find which occurred in January.

Analyst Cailey Barker at brokers Numis thought the diamond could fetch between $15 million and $20 million at auction.

Diamonds from both the Cullinan mine in South Africa and the Williamson facilities in Tanzania, both owned by Petra, have been displayed at London's Buckingham Palace and are regarded as among the rarest and most valuable in the world.

The 1905 Cullinan Diamond has been cut into two stones - the First Star of Africa and the Second Star of Africa - and form part of Britain's Crown Jewels held in the Tower of London.

Dippenaar said the company would decide what to do with the diamond in the next week.

Source: news.yahoo.com

The Almond-Orange Cookies, Light as Lace

Even while trying to be healthy it’s hard not to crave dessert.  A mix of sugar and honey in these cookies satisfies a sweet tooth, but each thin crisp cookie has only forty-four calories.  Go ahead have two.

Lacy Almond-Orange Cookies

1/2 cup blanched slivered almonds

3/4 teaspoon anise or fennel seed

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

1/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoons honey

1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

1/4 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)

1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, with racks in middle and lower thirds. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. In a food processor, pulse almonds and anise seed until coarsely ground. Transfer mixture to a small saucepan. Add butter, sugar, honey, and salt. Bring to a boil over medium-high, stirring once to combine ingredients as butter melts. Boil 1 minute; remove from heat. Stir in flour and zest.

Working quickly, drop batter by teaspoonfuls, 2 1/2 inches apart, on sheets. Bake until golden brown, 6 to 8 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Let cool completely on sheets on wire racks.

Source: www.yahoo.com

7 TESTS TO SHOW THAT GOD IS WITH YOU

Success in life goes beyond motivational talks; it is beyond self-help or psychology. Success is defined by God. If God is with you:
 

1. He makes you prosper and keeps you in an established path.
2. He makes you exceptional. The Psalmist said, ‘I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation’ (Psalm 119:99).
3. He frees you from envy. Imitation is suicide and jealousy is self-destruction.
4. He frees you from encumbrances. He makes you trim, organized and nice looking.
5. He gives you eternal life. He gives you everlasting life.
6. You will enjoy life not just endure life. In the presence of God, there are pleasures forevermore.
7. You have the Zoe kind of life. The life principle that comes from God permeates your life mentally, spiritually and emotionally. Your spirit soul and body will be preserved.

This is good success, this is God-given success and this is the success you must strive for. It comes when you ask God and obey His voice.
-By Rev. Erhabor

RESPECT AND RESPONSIBILITY

 
So many lives have been destroyed just because no one was responsible for them. Juvenile delinquency is the order of the day just because some children were not cared for. They grew wayward and became thugs on the street.

Responsibility is simply "Response to the Ability" you possess. Live responsibly! If you have the ability to stop that child from going wayward, do it! If you fold your arms and watch, you could be watching a destiny go marred. Be a good example to that young child. Strengthen that friend! Sow the seeds of your words. Be sure, One day, it will grow! Claim the salvation of that loved one in prayers.

 This is a call to responsibility! Certain people demand respect from others, but I discovered that Respect is not to be demanded. Respect is earned. One of the ways to earn respect is to be responsible. Instead of demanding respect, be responsible first! Another important way to earn respect is to respect others.

Esteem others better than yourself. We find it so easy to shout at "conductors", "gate-men", "cleaner" and so on. You earn nothing by esteeming other people likely, irrespective of their status! 

I leave you with this: "Live responsibly!” It pays! Rescue that destiny from being ruined!

Try This S'more Cookies

INGREDIENTS

3 cups whole wheat flour or white whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups (packed) golden brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 large eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon robust-flavored (dark) molasses
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips (about 9 ounces)
1 cup mini marshmallows
3/4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 3 large rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda in large bowl. Whisk eggs, buttermilk, molasses, and vanilla extract in medium bowl; whisk in butter.

Add egg mixture to dry ingredients, stirring until dough is evenly moistened. Stir in chocolate chips, marshmallows, and nuts. Drop cookie dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto prepared sheets, spacing about 3 inches apart (about 12 cookies per sheet).

Bake cookies, 1 sheet at a time, until golden brown, dry to touch, but still slightly soft, about 15 minutes. Let cookies cool on sheets 10 minutes. Transfer cookies to racks and cool (cookies will firm up). DO AHEAD Can be made 2 days ahead. Store in rtight container at room temperature.

 Source: www.yahoo.com

BE INNOVATIVE

One of the great strategies to break even is the strategy of innovation. Innovative minds get at it on time while lazy thinkers get it the hard way.

Innovation is the capacity to create new approaches to deal with old challenges.

Innovation is the perceptibility to see possibilities in a different approach.

Innovation is equally the creation, the development and the application to solving old and new challenges.
If you keep doing the same thing all the time and expect a different result then you are living in the Wood. You must not do that business the way everyone is doing it. Do you know that God Himself is a great innovator.

 Look at the great innovations that accompany the creative process is all a great innovation. Become a different employee/employer. Learn better ways of going through challenges in office and your worth in that organisation will change.
Even as a preacher of the word, don't just preach any message, try to innovate and come out with a unique word. Let people know you by your uniqueness. EVERYONE IS DOING SYNDROME, and this syndrome is more than the pandemic AIDS. So change your ways and thinking. Looking forward to see you taking your place this year. Keep soaring and be blessed.

One of the great strategies to break even is the strategy of innovation. Innovative minds get at it on time while lazy thinkers get it the hard way.

Innovation is the capacity to create new approaches to deal with old challenges.

Innovation is the perceptibility to see possibilities in a different approach.

Innovation is equally the creation, the development and the application to solving old and new challenges.
If you keep doing the same thing all the time and expect a different result then you are living in the Wood. You must not do that business the way everyone is doing it. Do you know that God Himself is a great innovator.
 Look at the great innovations that accompany the creative process is all a great innovation. Become a different employee/employer. Learn better ways of going through challenges in office and your worth in that organisation will change.
Even as a preacher of the word, don't just preach any message, try to innovate and come out with a unique word. Let people know you by your uniqueness. EVERYONE IS DOING SYNDROME, and this syndrome is more than the pandemic AIDS. So change your ways and thinking. Looking forward to see you taking your place this year. Keep soaring and be blessed.

The Central African Republic gets first woman president

Bangui (Central African Republic) (AFP) - The mayor of the Central African Republic's capital Bangui was chosen as interim president Monday, becoming the first woman to lead the violence-wracked country, as the European Union agreed to send hundreds of troops to help stem the bloodshed.

Catherine Samba-Panza, a businesswoman with a reputation as a fighter who became Bangui mayor last year, was elected in a second-round vote by the transitional parliament. She now faces the enormous task of restoring peace to the chronically unstable country. Cheers broke out in the assembly as the result was announced, with lawmakers singing the national anthem in celebration.

In her victory speech, Samba-Panza -- who won 75 votes against 53 for Desire Kolingba, the son of a former president -- called for an end to violence by the mostly Muslim Seleka ex-rebels and Christian self-defence militias known as "anti-balaka" (anti-machete).

"I'm launching a resounding appeal to my anti-balaka children who are listening to me: Show your support for my nomination by giving the strong signal of laying down your weapons," said Samba-Panza, who is Christian but did not campaign on a religious platform.

"To my ex-Seleka children who are also listening to me: Lay down your weapons," she said.

"Stop the suffering of the people."

The 59-year-old called herself "the president of all Central Africans, without exclusion", and said her top priority was "to stop people's suffering, to restore security and the authority of the state across the country".

EU foreign ministers meanwhile agreed to send hundreds of troops to the country in a rare joint military mission.

The mission, which will deploy in and around the capital and last up to six months, is expected to involve the rapid deployment of a force numbering anywhere from 400 to 1,000.

The troops will help back up 1,600 French soldiers and the African Union's MISCA force, which currently has 4,400 troops on the ground.

Chronology and fact file on the crisis in Central African Republic (AFP Photo/)

International donors also pledged $496 million (365 million euros) in aid to the country this year.

'CAR is in free-fall'

Samba-Panza's election comes 10 months after the Seleka rebels overthrew the government and installed their leader, Michel Djotodia, as the country's first Muslim president.

But Djotodia proved powerless to control his fighters, and many went on a rampage of killing, rapes and looting targeting the Christian majority.

Some Christian communities responded by forming self-defence militias and attacking Muslims. Rights watchdogs accuse both sides of major abuses, and the United Nations has warned of a potential inter-religious genocide.

Djotodia stood down under international pressure on January 10.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Monday the Central African Republic is "caught in a crisis of epic proportions".

"The CAR is in free-fall... We must act together, and act now, to pull CAR back from the brink of further atrocities," he said in a statement.

The UN's top human rights body appointed an expert to probe violations in the country, Ivory Coast national Marie-Therese Keita Bocoum, who has previously worked in Burundi and Sudan's Darfur region.

A team of UN investigators who spent nearly two weeks in the CAR last month reported a litany of gross human rights violations, including killings, kidnappings, torture and rape.

"The mission received consistent, credible testimony and photographs supporting allegations that anti-balaka (Christian militias) mutilated Muslim men, women and children, before or after they were killed," said UN human rights chief Navi Pillay.

The violence has uprooted a million people out of a population of 4.6 million, and the UN estimates 2.6 million need urgent humanitarian aid.

Relief workers said they have found at least 73 more bodies of people killed in the north since Friday.

'An absolutely remarkable woman'

Christians and Muslims had previously lived in relative peace in the impoverished country, but it has had a long chain of coups and rebellions since independence in 1960.

Residents of Bangui, where outbreaks of brutal violence still spread fear despite the presence of foreign troops, voiced elation at Samba-Panza's election.

"We're wild with joy because we've been freed, because we've found a new president," said 19-year-old Jean-Franklin Debonheur, one of dozens who took to the street in celebration in the capital's central Miskine district.

"At last we can forget Seleka. I'm happy. It warms my heart to see a woman lead the country," said Diane, 22.

France, the country's former colonial ruler, welcomed Samba-Panza's election and urged her to hold speedy national polls. As interim leader she is tasked with organising general elections by mid-2015, though France is pressing for them to be held this year.

"It now falls to her to assure the needed peace and reconciliation in CAR, with a view to holding democratic elections," said French President Francois Hollande.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called Samba-Panza "an absolutely remarkable woman".

 Congratulations to people of the Central African Republic, from us Adenike Salako Blog's World.

Source:news.yahoo.com