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| Saturday, 13-Nov-2010 02:51 |
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Pearl Jewelry - The Story of Pearl Hunters
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As long as pearl jewelry have been known to people, they have been a highly sought commodity for their beauty. It's only in recent times however that the industry has taken the hunt for the perfect pearl to a whole different level. Today, the shiny orbs that we see on in display in jewelry stores have actually almost always been grown in farms.
That's a far cry from the dangerous extraction and collection methods used before the invention of modern technology. In the past, not more than 100 years ago, the only way to retrieve pearls was by diving in lakes, floods and the ocean to pick them up, one at the time. The unfortunate divers who'se job it was to do this, were often poor and lured by the relative large sums they could get. The diver would sometimes have to dive as deep as 100 feet on one single breath of air. In order to preserve air and to stay submerged the longest, the divers would hold on to heavy stones on the way down.
Naturally, this dangerous activity was reserved for the desperate or the powerless - in many cases slaves or extremely poor peasents. Today, this method is all but obsolete in most places of the world. The cheaper cultured pearls have become popular and are many times the only pearls available to the consumer.
There are however still a few isolated areas that practice this old art of pearl diving. Some of the finest natural pearl speciments come from the gulf of Bahrain. Here, divers still risk their health to retrieve what are considered the top of the crop in the world. In fact, Bahrain wants no part of the sale of cultured pearls, banned from trade. Bahrain is one of the few places on earth that does an active job in trying to preserve the natural habitat and waters from pollution.
It's an interesting story and one that continues to fascinate buyers around the world. Somehow, the beauty of the pearl grows when it's been retrieved from the depth of the ocean.
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| Saturday, 13-Nov-2010 02:49 |
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Buying Pearl Jewelry Without Being Ripped Off
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Buying pearl jewelry can be fun, exciting and confusing. Whether you're considering a gift of pearl jewelry for someone special or as a treat for yourself, take some time to learn the terms used in the industry. Here's some information to help you get the best quality pearl jewelry for your money, whether you're shopping in a traditional brick and mortar store or online.
Pearls
Natural or real pearls are made by oysters and other mollusks. Cultured pearls also are grown by mollusks, but with human intervention; that is, an irritant introduced into the shells causes a pearl to grow. Imitation pearls are man-made with glass, plastic, or organic materials.
Because natural pearls are very rare, most pearls used in jewelry are either cultured or imitation pearls. Cultured pearls, because they are made by oysters or mollusks, usually are more expensive than imitation pears. A cultured pearl's value is largely based on its size, usually stated in millimeters, and the quality of its nacre coating, which give it luster. Jewelers should tell your if the pearls are cultured or imitation. Some black, bronze, gold, purple, blue and orange pearls, whether natural or cultured, occur that way in nature; some, however, are dyed through various processes. Jewelers should tell you whether the colored pearls are naturally colored, dyed or irradiated.
Clams, oysters, mussels and many other mollusks with limy shells are known to produce pearls. But very few kinds yield gem pearls of jeweler's quality. The pearl is an abnormal growth of mother-of-pearl, or nacre, imbedded in the soft bodies of these shellfish. It is built up, layer upon layer, in the same way as nacre is added to the lining of the growing shell and always has the same color and luster. For example, over the country, hundreds of good-sized pearls are found each year in the oysters we eat. Unfortunately these have no commercial value regardless of whether they have been cooked or not because they are dull opaque white or purple like the shell of the parent oyster. In recent times almost all pearls of gem quality come from the oriental pearl oyster which has a bright shimmering translucent nacre.
A pearl starts growing when some irritating foreign substance such as a sand grain, bit of mud, parasite or other object becomes lodged in the shell-producing gland called the mantle. Pearls formed in the soft flesh where nacre can be added on all sides are most likely to be spherical and the most highly prized. By far the great majority are flattened or variously distorted and have little value. Size, color, luster and freedom from flaws are other essential qualities. Unlike other gems, such as diamonds, pearls have an average life of only about 50 years. In time the small amount of water in a pearl's make-up is lost and its surface cracks. Because they are mostly lime, necklaces which are worn often are injured by the acid secretions of the human skin.
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| Monday, 8-Nov-2010 03:24 |
Email | Share | | Bookmark |
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Pearl Jewelry - The Story of Pearl Hunters
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|
As long as pearl jewelry have been known to people, they have been a
highly sought commodity for their beauty. It's only in recent times
however that the industry has taken the hunt for the perfect pearl to
a whole different level. Today, the shiny orbs that we see on in
display in jewelry stores have actually almost always been grown in
farms.
That's a far cry from the dangerous extraction and collection methods
used before the invention of modern technology. In the past, not more
than 100 years ago, the only way to retrieve pearls was by diving in
lakes, floods and the ocean to pick them up, one at the time. The
unfortunate divers who'se job it was to do this, were often poor and
lured by the relative large sums they could get. The diver would
sometimes have to dive as deep as 100 feet on one single breath of
air. In order to preserve air and to stay submerged the longest, the
divers would hold on to heavy stones on the way down.
Naturally, this dangerous activity was reserved for the desperate or
the powerless - in many cases slaves or extremely poor peasents.
Today, this method is all but obsolete in most places of the world.
The cheaper cultured pearls have become popular and are many times
the only pearls available to the consumer.
There are however still a few isolated areas that practice this old
art of pearl diving. Some of the finest natural pearl speciments come
from the gulf of Bahrain. Here, divers still risk their health to
retrieve what are considered the top of the crop in the world. In
fact, Bahrain wants no part of the sale of cultured pearls, banned
from trade. Bahrain is one of the few places on earth that does an
active job in trying to preserve the natural habitat and waters from
pollution.
It's an interesting story and one that continues to fascinate buyers
around the world. Somehow, the beauty of the pearl grows when it's
been retrieved from the depth of the ocean.
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| Monday, 8-Nov-2010 03:21 |
Email | Share | | Bookmark |
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Buying Pearl Jewelry Without Being Ripped Off
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Buying pearl jewelry can be fun, exciting and confusing. Whether you're considering a gift of pearl jewelry for someone special or as a treat for yourself, take some time to learn the terms used in the industry. Here's some information to help you get the best quality pearl jewelry for your money, whether you're shopping in a traditional brick and mortar store or online.
Pearls
Natural or real pearls are made by oysters and other mollusks. Cultured pearls also are grown by mollusks, but with human intervention; that is, an irritant introduced into the shells causes a pearl to grow. Imitation pearls are man-made with glass, plastic, or organic materials.
Because natural pearls are very rare, most pearls used in jewelry are either cultured or imitation pearls. Cultured pearls, because they are made by oysters or mollusks, usually are more expensive than imitation pears. A cultured pearl's value is largely based on its size, usually stated in millimeters, and the quality of its nacre coating, which give it luster. Jewelers should tell your if the pearls are cultured or imitation. Some black, bronze, gold, purple, blue and orange pearls, whether natural or cultured, occur that way in nature; some, however, are dyed through various processes. Jewelers should tell you whether the colored pearls are naturally colored, dyed or irradiated.
Clams, oysters, mussels and many other mollusks with limy shells are known to produce pearls. But very few kinds yield gem pearls of jeweler's quality. The pearl is an abnormal growth of mother-of-pearl, or nacre, imbedded in the soft bodies of these shellfish. It is built up, layer upon layer, in the same way as nacre is added to the lining of the growing shell and always has the same color and luster. For example, over the country, hundreds of good-sized pearls are found each year in the oysters we eat. Unfortunately these have no commercial value regardless of whether they have been cooked or not because they are dull opaque white or purple like the shell of the parent oyster. In recent times almost all pearls of gem quality come from the oriental pearl oyster which has a bright shimmering translucent nacre.
A pearl starts growing when some irritating foreign substance such as a sand grain, bit of mud, parasite or other object becomes lodged in the shell-producing gland called the mantle. Pearls formed in the soft flesh where nacre can be added on all sides are most likely to be spherical and the most highly prized. By far the great majority are flattened or variously distorted and have little value. Size, color, luster and freedom from flaws are other essential qualities. Unlike other gems, such as diamonds, pearls have an average life of only about 50 years. In time the small amount of water in a pearl's make-up is lost and its surface cracks. Because they are mostly lime, necklaces which are worn often are injured by the acid secretions of the human skin.
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| Tuesday, 3-Nov-2009 02:58 |
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Eurasia ueber alles
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Entering a new millennium has set off countless discussions on the theme of "Russia at the crossroads of history." The crossroads motif is of perennial importance for Russia, more so than for any other country, and has been so for at least three centuries.
This particular crossroads is an endless, ongoing one at which the perpetual adolescent that is Russia stands painfully working through the question of geographical, historical and metaphysical self-identification. Put more simply, is Russia a part of Europe or not?
The resulting adolescent love-hate complex – an archetype of the Russian political consciousness – has re-emerged in dozens of Russian foreign-policy publications on Russia and NATO and Russia and the West.
NATO's eastward expansion, or to dancing pearl be more exact, Eastern and Central Europe's rush toward the West, has struck chords in deep-seated layers of our political consciousness, reanimating the undying cultural debate about whether Russia is part of Europe and reminding us that in some respects, the answer is no.
That is not because anyone is trying to push us out of Europe, but because due to the specific features of our history, geography and national psychology, we haven't yet been able to answer this tortuous question for ourselves.
This dispute, which has never really stopped, is just as acute as ever in Russia today. It merges foreign and domestic policy issues into one indivisible whole. Whether the subject under discussion is the fate of democratic institutions at home or Russia's relations with the outside world, the question in both cases involves the fundamental values of Russian society. In "turning its Asian grimace" to the West, Russian authorities inevitably end up showing the same unpleasant face to their own people.
The centuries-old conflict between "Westerners" and "Eurasians" continues in Russian culture today, only it is aggravated by the gnawing hurt of having been defeated by the West in the Cold War. With the coming to power of a new president, the pendulum has swung back toward the Eurasian view, but this shouldn't be put down to Vladimir Putin's personal merits.
More likely is that the arrival in power of a man with Putin's biography and mentality objectively reflects the dominant mood among the Russian "political elite."
Putin's vision of "managed democracy," "information security," "the administrative vertical" and other addled nonsense would stand a chance of success if its aim were to force a destitute and ignorant population to gemstone necklace dig as many canals as possible and build "industrial giants." This was how the Industrial Revolution took place in the 19th century in the West; it was how the Stalin regime modernized Russia in the first half of the last century; and how Southeast Asia made its leap forward in the second half of the last century.
This time, the pendulum's Eurasian swing could prove fatal. The figment of confrontation with the West and attempts to form a "strategic partnership" and essentially a military coalition with China will put Russia on the international sidelines and make it subject to China's strategic interests. In the long term, this course could lead to first de facto and then de jure loss of control over the Far East and Siberia.
In his recent ambitious manifesto "Eurasia above all," one of our most prominent Eurasians, always ready to feed the authorities with his advice, proudly said of Russian history: "In the 16th century, Moscow took the baton of Eurasian empire-building from the Tatars."
The Eurasians of old Muscovy carefully handed this baton on down the centuries. But if they are honest and consistent in their thinking and really do believe in Eurasia ueber Alles, then they should realize that the baton that is empire-building is not only received, it is also handed on. Five centuries is a perfectly decent length of time to have carried it, and with the change of millennium, perhaps it's time to freshwater pearl necklace pass it on to a historically more-promising empire-builder – the Middle Kingdom. The process has already begun.
(Andrei Piontkovsky is director of the Center for Strategic Studies.)
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| Tuesday, 3-Nov-2009 02:56 |
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EU, UN, Russia sign peacemaking venture
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MADRID - Officials from the United Nations, the European Union and Russia endorsed U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's peacemaking venture in the Middle East on Wednesday and urged Israel and the Palestinians to freshwater pearl jewlelry cooperate with him.
"There is no military solution to the conflict," said a joint statement issued by four leaders and Powell after their meeting.
They called for an immediate cease-fire and Israel's immediate withdrawal from Palestinian-held cities on the West Bank, including Ramallah, where Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is under confinement.
At the same time, the officials said, "Terrorism, including suicide bombing, is illegal and immoral."
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, appearing at a news conference after the meeting, said Syrian and Lebanese leaders had assured him they would try to curb guerrilla attacks on Israel from Lebanon.
"They will do everything they can," Annan said he was told.
A senior U.S. official called the situation serious and said Israel was being urged to act with restraint in response to attacks by Hezbollah guerrillas.
Powell reiterated his position that a political solution must be pressed hand-in-hand with efforts for a cease-fire.
"Violence of whatever form ... at this point is counterproductive," Powell said. "It is totally destabilizing the region."
Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique and other European officials have begun to consider imposing trade sanctions against Israel if Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon does not reverse his military foray on the West Bank, but Powell said the trade issue did not come up at the talks Wednesday.
Joining Powell in the session were Pique and Javier Solana, the EU's foreign and security chief, Annan and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.
Meanwhile, a senior U.S. official said details have not been worked out for Powell's weekend meeting with Arafat, but that Powell still intends to see the Palestinian leader. Sharon said Wednesday that meeting would be a "tragic mistake."
Powell was meeting later Wednesday in Madrid with King Juan Carlos of Spain and then having dinner with Ivanov, to discuss the Middle East as well as U.S.-Russian affairs including a planned arms-control summit in Moscow.
Powell was to fly to Jordan for discussions with the Jordanian king on Thursday and then on to Israel later in the day.
"We are going to have to gemstone necklace act more quickly," Powell said Tuesday after a round of talks with Arab leaders and an announcement that he would meet with Arafat.
Powell said he expected Israel to withdraw its troops from the West Bank, and all nations are obliged to do what they can to stop the fighting. He said he urged Syria and, through intermediaries, Iran to clamp down on militant groups.
Powell is pressing for accelerated negotiations to establish a Palestinian state and said the United States would seek a swift end to violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
Setting no deadline to complete his mission, Powell said he would meet Arafat as well as Sharon in an effort to broker a truce. "I haven't set any departure date," the secretary said. "I am prepared to stay for some while."
Powell said the United States was willing to contribute a small detachment of State Department or other civilian U.S. government employees to monitor any cease-fire agreement. He said the Americans would not "prevent people from shooting each other."
For the Bush administration, Powell's strategy marks a shift in tactics. For more than a year, as a Palestinian intefadeh, or uprising, grew from Palestinian stone-throwing and rioting, to firing on both sides, to suicide bombs and tanks and helicopter gunships, the administration had focused on a cease-fire as a condition to peacemaking.
Powell said all the Arab leaders with whom he met underscored the urgency of getting started on an accord, and doing it through Arafat as representative of the Palestinians.
Powell said he talked to Sharon on Tuesday and was told Israel would expedite its withdrawal of troops from the West Bank, where they're pursuing Palestinian militants. "The sooner the better," Powell said.
"Time is of the essence" for ending Middle East violence, he said after meeting with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. Powell is seeking greater Arab participation in the peace process as well as an immediate end to dancing pearl Israel's military offensive.
Tuesday's announcement was the first time Powell had said expressly that he would meet Arafat. Although Arafat remains in Israeli-imposed isolation, Israel said it wouldn't try to stop a Powell-Arafat meeting.
Powell said Sharon, in their conversation Tuesday, reiterated "his commitment to bring this to an end as quick as he can." Powell praised Israel for beginning to withdraw its troops from Palestinian areas but noted that fierce fighting persisted.
After 13 Israeli soldiers were killed in an ambush during heavy fighting in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin, Sharon said in a nationally broadcast address that the Israeli offensive would continue.
That was before a suicide bomber blew up a commuter bus during the morning rush hour Wednesday near the northern city of Haifa. Authorities said at least eight Israelis were killed and 20 wounded.
In Washington, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Tuesday that President George W. Bush expects Israel "to withdraw and to do so now. ... The president believes all parties still have responsibilities. He's looking for results."
Working to fill in the details of a U.S. vision for a permanent peace, Powell said political objectives must be pursued alongside talks to end the current violence. He told the Arabs they must acknowledge Israel's rights.
As for the American observers to monitor any cease-fire, Powell said "that would help with the confidence building, the restoring of trust between the two sides, get us back to where we were a few years ago."
Both sides would have to agree to freshwater pearl earrings such a team. U.S. forces already serve on the Sinai Peninsula in an international team monitoring enforcement of the 1969 Egyptian-Israeli peace accord.
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| Tuesday, 3-Nov-2009 02:56 |
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EU, Russia support US peace plan
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LUXEMBOURG - The European Union and Russia on Tuesday called an Israeli pledge to pull its forces from parts of the West Bank "insufficient" and reaffirmed their support for a U.S. peace mission to pearl jewelry wholesale the Middle East.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Monday his forces would be out of Jenin refugee camp within a "couple of days" and would leave the West Bank town of Nablus in "not more than a week".
"(It is) progress in the right direction, but from the European Union's perspective and as I understand from the Russian Federation's perspective this is insufficient," Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique told a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov.
Ivanov was in Luxembourg for talks on boosting economic and political ties between Russia and the 15-nation EU, but the Middle East crisis dominated much of the meeting.
Israel moved into the West Bank on March 29 after a wave of suicide bombings which killed scores of Israelis.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, on a peace mission now in its sixth day, was expected to meet Sharon again later on Tuesday and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on Wednesday.
"We are both actively supporting Secretary Powell's mission...which opens up a real possibility of stopping the violence and renewing a peace dialogue," Ivanov said.
"We appeal to both sides in the conflict to seize this opportunity," he said.
Asked about Sharon's idea for a regional peace conference, Ivanov said: "In principle we are not against this idea, but...it should not divert attention away from the need to fulfil U.N. resolutions (calling for an end to terrorist attacks and for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank)."
Ivanov said the close cooperation between the EU and Russia in the current crisis underscored efforts to freshwater pearl necklace build a "strategic partnership" on the world stage, including in Afghanistan.
Last week in Madrid, Russia joined the United States, the EU and the United Nations in calling for an immediate Middle East ceasefire, an Israeli withdrawal, a third-party security mechanism and a political process to build peace.
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| Tuesday, 3-Nov-2009 02:50 |
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EU warns Russia over actions against media freedom
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BRUSSELS - The European Union warned Moscow on Monday that recent actions against the news media could make neighborly relations difficult.
The statement calling for "measures to freshwater pearl jewlelry support and strengthen the plurality and independence of the media" was issued on behalf of more than 30 countries by Italy, which just took over the rotating EU presidency.
The EU statement expressed "concern" about the June 22 closure of the private Russian TV station TVS.
Russia's Press Ministry said it pulled the plug due to the station's "financial, personnel and management crisis," but opponents of the Russian government charge TVS was shut down for political reasons.
Also last month, Russia's parliament passed a bill that would give authorities the right to shut down any news outlet during an election campaign if it violates election laws. The bill must be signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin to become law.
Supporters say it will help limit unethical campaign tactics, such as the distribution of anonymous smear sheets. But media freedom groups say officials could use the law to attack any newspaper that criticizes them.
The EU said it "understands that commercial considerations played a role" in the decision to close TVS, but warned that "regardless of the reasons ... it will have a negative impact on the plurality of the media, which is a key part of the values upon which the EU/Russia partnership is built."
It also expressed "hopes" that any changes to Russia's media law "will not constrain the ability of journalists to report fully and accurately on the upcoming Duma and presidential elections."
The impact of the EU statement, however, may be blunted by the fact that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has himself faced accusations of conflict of interest for holding on to his vast media empire while in office.
The EU is Russia's largest trading partner and foreign investor, and Putin has been keen to strengthen ties and cooperation with his expanding neighbor.
In addition to the 15 EU nations and the 10 set to wholesale pearl jewelry join next year, the statement was joined by Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
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| Tuesday, 3-Nov-2009 02:50 |
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EU told no nukes in Kaliningrad
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KALININGRAD - Top European Union officials working out a development plan for Russia's Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad said on Thursday they had received top-level assurances that no nuclear arms were deployed here.
Russia angrily denied a report in the Washington Times that U.S. intelligence had pinpointed missiles in the impoverished region wedged between EU aspirants Poland and Lithuania.
''I raised the (missiles) issue with (Foreign Minister) Igor Ivanov and he denied it,'' Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh told reporters in Kaliningrad, where the EU delegation spent half a day after meeting senior Russian officials in Moscow.
The report, the second in two months to suggest missile deployment in Kaliningrad, was dismissed by Russian Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev as ''absolute and complete nonsense.''
Kaliningrad Governor Vladimir Yegorov said it was an attempt to pearl jewelry scuttle cooperation between the EU and Russia and keep Kaliningrad in limbo as the EU moves towards eastward expansion.
''When active talks between the EU and Russia started (the Americans) invented this devil with horns,'' he said at Kaliningrad airport, where he met Lindh and EU External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten.
The talks focused on how Kaliningrad's one million residents will cope with changes once Poland and Lithuania join the EU.
The area's problems include widespread poverty, high crime and drug use rates and Soviet-era industry dumping pollution into the Baltic. Residents fear losing their visa-free travel rights to neighbouring states.
The Washington Times cited anonymous U.S. intelligence sources as saying satellite photographs refuted Russian denials about the transfer of nuclear arms to the enclave.
The paper originally reported in January that the missiles had been deployed and Kaliningrad's profile was raised further by reports that Germany planned to take economic control of the region in return for some of Russia's Soviet-era debt to Berlin.
Both Moscow and Berlin have rejected any suggestion of a transfer of powers over the region and on Thursday Patten was at pains to stress Russia's leading role in Kaliningrad's future.
''We recognise without any reservations that decisions on the main problems facing Kaliningrad have to be made in Russia and Kaliningrad, but we also recognise that we should help,'' Patten said in talks with Yegorov attended by reporters.
Yegorov is seeking Western investment and special status for the region known as Koenigsburg when it was part of East Prussia and captured by Soviet troops at the end of World War Two.
Local officials talk about turning the region, half the size of Belgium, into a Hong Kong of the Baltic, but Lindh and Patten laid no such deal on the table on Thursday.
''I don't think there willl be special status, but it is important to get together with Russia and work to solve all the existing problems as well of those of EU accession,'' Lindt said while touring a water treatment plant built by the Germans 120 years ago and now being rebuilt with Russian and Western funds.
Yegorov offered talks on securing visa-free travel to Poland and Lithuania to dispel EU fears that Kaliningrad will leak illegal immigrants and contraband into member states.
Patten said the EU was also interested in the impact of its expansion on Kaliningrad's fishing and transport sectors.
But Russia's role was also paramount, the ex-governor of Hong Kong stressed, if Kaliningrad was ever to pearl jewelry be transformed.
''This is a chance for the EU and Russia to cooperate in very concrete terms,'' he said. ''We have lots of summits and meetings, but this is a chance to put real meat in the sandwich.''
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