Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Security Council lifts Liberia diamond ban

|
|
 
  
Published: April 28, 2007 at 9:20 AM

UNITED NATIONS, April 28 (UPI) -- A six-year-old U.N.-imposed ban on the sale of diamonds from the West African country of Liberia has been lifted by the U.N. Security Council.

By a unanimous vote, the 15 members of the council decided to allow the resumption of diamond sales on the condition the country signs on to the Kimberley Process, an international diamond certification system that tracks the origin of diamonds on the international market, a BBC correspondent in New York reported.

British Ambassador to the United Nations Emyr Jones said the lifting of the ban also carried a 90-day review contingency.

The vote was seen as a vote of confidence in Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who was elected in January 2006, the report said. Her leadership is seen by the United Nations as combating rebel groups who used the diamond trade's profits to fund insurgencies, giving the name "blood diamonds" to the export and sale of the gems.

Topics: Ellen Johnson, Johnson Sirleaf
© 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Father's Day: Celebrity dads The 2012 Miss USA competition Faces of the 2012 French Open
2012 MTV Movie Awards Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee Notable deaths of 2012
Additional Top News Stories
1 of 21
Singer Janelle Monae arrives at the 2012 MTV Movie Awards in Universal City, California
View Caption
Singer Janelle Monae arrives for the MTV Movie Awards at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, California. UPI/Jim Ruymen
fark
Remember ladies, beating your boyfriend because he won't marry you to renew your visa won't improve...
Try meth when you really have an itch, or when you want to see in two places at once. Warning: mildly...
"Speed and alcohol may have been a factor" say investigators about the man killed when thrown from...
Surprise parties have a little more gunfire in Arizona
Rehabilitated former "bath salts" zombie explains what it's like to hunger for the flesh of the...
Threatening to personally, intimately fertilize neighbor's yard at 3:30 AM is no way to make friends,...