From carats to peanuts: how a pandemic upended the global diamond industry

Helen Reid, Tanisha Heiberg, Rajendra Jadhav

JOHANNESBURG/MUMBAI - As the coronavirus pandemic upended the global diamond industry, shuttering mines from Lesotho to Canada and disrupting supply chains, Rajen Patel swapped diamond polishing for peanut farming.
FILE PHOTO: Diamonds are seen at the diamond exchange, on the first day of easing of lockdown measures during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Antwerp, Belgium, May 4, 2020. REUTERS/Johanna Geron/File Photo

Patel, who worked for a decade in India’s Surat where about 80% of the world’s diamonds are polished, joined the exodus of gem workers leaving the city as cases of the virus shot up. After taking up farming in his home village, he has no plans to return in the coming months.

“I won’t earn as much I was earning in Surat, but I won’t starve and there is no fear of getting infected with coronavirus,” he said.

Demand for diamonds has plummeted during the pandemic, freezing sales and squeezing prices. With temporary mine closures at risk of becoming permanent, diamond miners are seeking ways to extract more value from their stones.

The lone bright spot has been steady demand for large, high-quality diamonds from affluent investors, according to financiers and sales data.

“There are a lot more enquiries from people seeking to buy these luxury stones as a hedge,” said Chris Del Gatto, CEO of the DelGatto Diamond Finance Fund, the largest non-bank lender to the diamond, jewellery and watch industries.

Prices for high quality one-carat diamonds are rising steadily and are currently around 12% higher than at the start of the year, in contrast to still-depressed prices for lower-quality stones of the same size, data from trading platform RapNet shows.

For an interactive graphic, click: tmsnrt.rs/2Pqtl74


(GRAPHIC: High-quality diamonds are rallying - here)


“If you are in that top end, the demand is still there because the people who go for these type of goods feel the pressure of the market downturn less,” said Gus Simbanegavi, CEO of Bluerock Diamonds.

But only a few miners are lucky enough to have deposits of large, high-quality diamonds, leaving some producers at risk.
GRIM YEAR

COVID-19 has forced miners to cancel or delay sales, with major diamond shows scrapped due to health and travel restrictions. The few sales that have taken place showed rough diamond prices down between 15% and 27%.

“What has happened in the second quarter, I have never seen in my life,” De Beers Chief Executive Bruce Cleaver told Reuters. “There was no really properly functioning rough market.”

Indian imports of rough diamonds plunged from $1.5 billion in February to just $1 million (766,049 pounds) in April, data from the Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council shows.


For an interactive graphic click here: tmsnrt.rs/2XxZuhs

(GRAPHIC: India's rough diamond imports come to a standstill - here)


Antwerp, another diamond hub, saw rough imports drop 20% year-on-year in the first half, according to data from Antwerp World Diamond Centre. The city's exports of polished diamonds fell 46%. tmsnrt.rs/2DEez9P
REAL OPPORTUNITY

In a bid to survive, some miners are trying to change the traditional pricing game by securing a cut of onward polished diamond sales, and miners may eventually have direct tie-ups with luxury jewellery brands, RCC Diamond Consultants managing director Richard Chetwode predicts. Australia’s Lucapa Diamond Co inked a deal with an unnamed “high-end diamantaire” to sell some of its high-value diamonds from the Mothae mine in Lesotho for $505 per carat plus a 50% share of the margin on the future polished diamond sale.

Lucara Diamond Corp,, which mines in Botswana, struck a deal in July with Antwerp manufacturer HB Group under which the miner’s diamonds larger than 10.8 carats are sold for a portion of the estimated polished price.

“There is real opportunity within the diamond business as a whole to modernise the sales system,” said Lucara CEO Eira Thomas. Lucara has also set up an online diamond sales platform.

In the meantime, miners are hoping production cuts will help prices recover. With Rio Tinto’s massive Argyle diamond mine in Australia among those coming offstream soon, global diamond production will likely be reined in until 2025, independent analyst Paul Zimnisky forecasts.


For an interactive graphic, click here: tmsnrt.rs/3icmNFm

(GRAPHIC: Global diamond production to remain suppressed - here)


Several diamond mines shuttered due to the pandemic have also yet to reopen, including Stornoway Diamonds’ Renard mine in Canada, Petra Diamonds’ Williamson mine in Tanzania, and Firestone Diamonds’ Liqhobong mine in Lesotho, which the company said would likely stay closed until April to preserve cash.

Meanwhile, Africa-focused Petra Diamonds is in restructuring talks with creditors, while in Canada’s Northwest Territories, Rio Tinto’s Diavik mine partner has sought creditor protection, saying it cannot afford the miner’s cash calls.

Even De Beers is feeling the pain, saying job cuts are likely, as it remains unclear whether supply will shrink enough to meet plunging demand in the global diamond jewellery market, which Bain estimated was worth $80 billion in 2019.

Industry hopes that the pandemic would boost sales of engagement rings as people reassessed life priorities and more made plans to get married have not borne out.

In retailer Tiffany & Co’s February-April quarter, engagement jewellery was the worst-performing category, with sales almost halving.

Overall, fine jewellery sales are expected to drop 19% this year, compared to a 3% rise last year, according to Euromonitor.

(GRAPHIC: Fine jewellery sales to drop 19% this year - here)

Additional reporting by Zandi Shabalala in London; Jeff Lewis in Toronto, Silvia Aloisi in Milan, Melissa Fares in New York, Polina Devitt in Moscow, Sophie Yu in Beijing; Editing by Amran Abocar and Kirsten Donovan

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER

 THEME SUSAN BASSEY 

FOSSIL FOOLS
Exclusive: Shell eyes stake in Nayara's $9 billion Indian petchem project - source

Nidhi Verma, Vladimir Soldatkin

NEW DELHI/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Oil major Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) plans to buy a 50% stake in Indian-based Nayara Energy’s up to $9 billion (6.9 billion pounds) planned petrochemical project, a source familiar with the matter said.
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Royal Dutch Shell is seen at a petrol station in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw, Belgium January 30, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

Global oil majors are looking at expanding foothold in the vast Indian market, where local refiners are investing billions of dollars to boost their petrochemical capacities.

They are looking to meet an expected surge in demand for goods ranging from plastics to paints as the country seeks to promote durable, cheaper materials in industries such as farming and food packaging.

Shell and Nayara - which is part-owned by Russian oil major Rosneft (ROSN.MM) - signed a memorandum of understanding in early June, the source said, adding an equal joint venture will be created for building the project.

“The petrochemical joint venture between Nayara and Shell was discussed at board of directors meetings of Nayara in November and December last year,” another source said.


The 1.8 million tonnes a year full steam ethylene cracker and linked downstream units to be build at Vadinar in western Gujarat state would cost $8 billion-$9 billion and would be completed in five years, the first source said.

The project will also have an aromatic complex and capacity to produce 10.75 million tonnes of a variety of petrochemicals, according to Nayara’s proposal to the environment ministry.

Shell declined to comment on the project while Nayara did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Along with the petrochemical complex, Nayara also aims to expand its current 400,000 barrels per day Vadinar refinery to 920,000 bpd. The refinery expansion and petrochemical project are estimated to cost nearly 1.3 trillion Indian rupees (13 billion pounds).

India’s environment ministry would hold a meeting on the expansion project on Aug 29-30, the first source said.

In India, Shell operates a liquefied natural gas import terminal, a port, fuel stations and a plant to turn waste into petrol or diesel. Last year it signed an equity investment deal with an Indian company specialising in biomass aggregation and processing for energy production.

Next Lebanon government to face $30 billion reform test

Tom Arnold, Ghaida Ghantous

LONDON/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon may be in line for $298 million in emergency aid after the Beirut port blast, but the more than $30 billion (23 billion pounds) that some estimate it may need to rebuild its shattered economy will not be forthcoming without reform.
FILE PHOTO: Demonstrators wave Lebanese flags during protests near the site of a blast at Beirut's port area, Lebanon August 11, 2020. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic/File Photo

Such change could be stalled by the resignation of Lebanon’s government, while a financial rescue plan drawn up in April is likely to have to be reviewed and possibly even ditched by a new administration, two financial sources close to the plan said.

Forecasts for financial metrics such as debt-to-GDP and the parallel exchange rate contained in the rescue plan, which had already struggled for support before last week’s deadly explosion, now look unrealistic, one of the sources added.

That is likely to push back creditor talks to restructure Lebanon’s international sovereign debt.

Lebanon had begun International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout talks in May after defaulting on its foreign currency debt. But these were put on hold due to a lack of progress on reforms and differences over the size of financial losses.

While Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s cabinet remains as a caretaker government after its resignation, Lebanon’s already diminishing foreign reserves are set to be eroded faster to pay for the rebuilding of Beirut’s port and other infrastructure.

So devising a credible economic plan will be the main test for whoever ends up running Lebanon, which faces tumbling net capital flows amid an intensifying scramble for hard currency.

“The best gauge of the government’s sovereignty will be the economic plan they draft,” Carlos Abadi, an adviser to the Association of Banks in Lebanon, told Reuters.

In the wake of the Aug. 4 explosion, Lebanon’s external financing needs for the next four years swelled to more than $30 billion from $24 billion, Garbis Iradian at the Institute of International Finance (IIF) estimated.

“In order to overcome the U.S. veto at the IMF, the next government will have to produce a plan which is premised on the positioning of the economy for future growth, without the possibility of billions being diverted for nefarious purposes,” Abadi said.

The IMF reaffirmed its support for Lebanon on Sunday, before the government’s resignation, but also the need for reforms, a point stressed by French President Emmanuel Macron last week.

With the number of Lebanese living in poverty nearing half its population, these reforms range from setting up social safety nets to protect the most vulnerable to ensuring Lebanon’s wealthy elite share the burden of financial losses from bank recapitalisations.

Macron also called for an audit of the central bank and the banking system, a comment that has triggered wariness among some bankers fearful that the government may use the data to spare “family and friends”.

French MP Loïc Kervran, chair of the France-Lebanon committee, told Reuters such an audit would aim to uncover “unorthodox” practices which could have led to losses.

SWORD OF DAMOCLES

Foreign donors have made it clear that apart from humanitarian aid, no money would be given to Lebanon without reforms.

President Michel Aoun pledged on Wednesday that the government’s resignation would not hold up the process of a forensic central bank audit.

Some countries are particularly concerned about the influence of Iran through Hezbollah, a Shi’ite Muslim political group and guerrilla army designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States. Hezbollah helped form Diab’s government.

Economist Toufic Gaspard said that as long as Hezbollah controlled the levers of power, economic recovery would be hampered as the group would not accept reforms such as border and customs controls.

“This is the sword of Damocles hanging above everybody’s head...If this situation is not addressed, I don’t see how we can have a sustainable solution,” added Gaspard, who has advised the IMF and the Lebanese finance ministry.

Meanwhile, with limited external funding support, surging inflation and the parallel exchange rate plummeting to 9,290 pounds per U.S. dollar by 2021 under a worst-case scenario, Lebanon will continue to sink, said the IIF’s Iradian.

Lebanon’s central bank has told local banks to extend zero-interest U.S. dollar loans to those impacted by the blast for repairs, which analysts say will come from official reserves.

These could fall by $6 to $7 billion by the end of 2020 from around $18 billion, said Nafez Zouk at Oxford Economics.

“Lebanon would be running out of usable reserves”.

Additional reporting by Michel Rose in Paris, Pamela Barbaglia in London and Rodrigo Campos in New York; Editing by Alexander Smith/Mark Heinrich

DEEP DIVE
Episode 59: Hiroshima, 75 years after the atomic bomb
BY OSCAR BOYD AND PETER CHORDAS
STAFF WRITERS
AUG 6, 2020

At 8:15 a.m. on Aug. 6, 1945, some 350,000 people in Hiroshima were just beginning their day when an atomic bomb, nicknamed “Little Boy,” detonated 580 meters above the city, quickly killing an estimated 70,000 people.

The people alive today who survived the bombing of Hiroshima, and the subsequent destruction of Nagasaki, are known in Japanese as hibakusha. But 75 years on from the bombing, the number of survivors able to tell their stories is dwindling as they grow old and die.

Japan Times contributor and Hiroshima resident Peter Chordas joins to discuss the effects of the bomb on the city, and how those survivors’ legacies are being preserved. Hosted by Oscar Boyd.

Read more:Is time running out to preserve Japan’s A-bomb legacy? (Peter Chordas, The Japan Times)Sharing Hiroshima’s legacy in the age of COVID-19 (Peter Chordas, The Japan Times)Shinzo Hamai’s Peace Declaration for the City of Hiroshima (City of Hiroshima)Hiroshima marks 75th atomic bomb anniversary, calls for unity amid pandemic (Kyodo, The Japan Times)Nearly 80% of A-bomb survivors struggle to pass on experiences (Kyodo, The Japan Times)

Hong Kong activist Agnes Chow arrested under national security law

Pro-democracy activist Agnes Chow (left), alongside Joshua Wong, then of the Demosisto political party, give a news conference in 2019. | BLOOMBERG

AFP-JIJI, REUTERS, STAFF REPORT
AUG 10, 2020

HONG KONG – Prominent Hong Kong democracy activist Agnes Chow was arrested late Monday under China’s new national security law, a police source and a statement on her verified Facebook account said.

“It’s now confirmed that Agnes Chow has been arrested for ‘inciting secession’ under the national security law,” her Facebook account said.

A police source confirmed that Chow was among 10 people arrested on Monday in a national security investigation.

The national security operation saw media mogul Jimmy Lai and other senior executives at his Apple Daily newspaper detained. Police said they arrested nine men and one woman, aged between 23 and 72.

Chow, who speaks fluent Japanese and is popular in Japan, was among a group of prominent pro-democracy activists who earlier this year urged Tokyo to rethink a planned visit to the country by Chinese President Xi Jinping. The visit was originally set for March and has been delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The comments came amid international criticism of the national security law, which was then still in the planning stages.

“We … hope that Prime Minister (Shinzo) Abe … and the Japanese government can think twice about whether they really need to invite President Xi to Japan,” Chow said at the June news conference.

Thousands stage flower protest in Belarus as EU weighs sanctions

Andrei Makhovsky

MINSK (Reuters) - Protesters formed human chains and marched through the streets of Belarus carrying flowers on Wednesday in anger at a crackdown by strongman President Alexander Lukashenko that has prompted the European Union to consider new sanctions against Minsk.
Women take part in a demonstration against police violence during the recent rallies of opposition supporters following the presidential election in Minsk, Belarus August 12, 2020. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko

Security forces have clashed with protesters for three consecutive nights after Lukashenko claimed a landslide re-election victory in a vote on Sunday that his opponents say was rigged. Police have detained around 6,000 people.

Lukashenko has sought better relations with the West amid strained relations with traditional ally Russia. Brussels lifted sanctions, imposed over Lukashenko’s human rights record, in 2016, but will weigh new measures this week.

Lithuania, Poland and Latvia jointly offered to mediate between Lukashenko and the protesters, and threatened sanctions at a European or national level if the offer was declined.

A former Soviet collective farm manager, the 65-year-old Lukashenko has ruled Belarus for more than a quarter of a century but faces increasing anger over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, a sluggish economy and human rights.

Women dressed in white formed a human chain outside a covered food market in the capital Minsk, holding flowers in the air and chanting slogans, while a crowd also gathered outside a prison where protesters were being kept.

“I cannot leave my children at night but I can come during the daytime and say my piece,” said Minsk resident Yelena. “They have stolen not just my vote but 26 years of my life. Yes, I think so, and this regime must go away.”

CLASHES

The Belarusian interior ministry said 51 protesters and 14 police officers had been injured in clashes on Tuesday night.

In Brest, a city in southwestern Belarus on the Polish border, police fired live rounds after some protesters it said were armed with metal bars ignored warning shots fired in the air, the ministry said. One person was injured.

Lukashenko has accused the protesters of being in cahoots with foreign backers from Russia and elsewhere to topple his government, and compared them to criminal gangs.

“The core of all these so-called protesters today comprises people with a criminal history and the unemployed,” he said at a government meeting on Wednesday.
Belarusian authorities earlier tied opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s husband to a plot by suspected Russian mercenaries to destabilise the country ahead of the election. She denied the allegation in an interview with Reuters.

In Tuesday night’s clashes, security forces beat some of the protesters, sometimes dragging people out of cars before attacking them.

United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet condemned the detention of 6,000 people, “including bystanders, as well as minors, suggesting a trend of massive arrests in clear violation of international human rights standards”.

Some of the detainees were lined up in a row on state television this week, looking subdued and promising not to engage in revolutionary activities.

State media also broadcast footage of a van in Minsk with Russian number plates saying it was packed with ammunition and tents.

Tracked down by Reuters, Valdemar Grubov, the van’s owner, said he was a film producer and that the vehicle contained only his own personal effects.

He said he had been unable to retrieve the van due to COVID-19 restrictions and was not involved in any alleged foreign plot.

Tsikhanouskaya, a 37-year-old former English teacher who took on Lukashenko in the vote, has fled to neighbouring Lithuania to join her children there. She urged her compatriots not to oppose the police and to avoid putting their lives in danger.

But the protests continued into the evening on Wednesday as thousands took to the streets of the capital.

“We are scared but what else can we do? We are not being aggressive. We are women standing here who also have a voice,” said Minsk resident Zhenya. “We are scared of being arrested but we want to be heard.”

Additional reporting by Anton Zverev and Rinat Sagdiev in Moscow, Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Anna Ringstrom in Stockholm; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Mark Heinrich

29 Years Ago, The First Web Page Went Live. This Is What It Looked Like

By James Felton

06 AUG 2020, 12:50

In the 1980s, Tim Berners-Lee became frustrated with how information was shared and stored at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).

He noticed that, as well as being distributed inefficiently, information was being lost at the organization, largely due to a high turnover of staff. Technical details of old projects could sometimes be lost forever, or else had to be recovered through lengthy investigations in the event of an emergency. Different divisions of CERN used software written in a variety of programming languages, on different operating systems, making the transfer of knowledge cumbersome and time-consuming.

In response to these annoyances, he made a suggestion in 1989 that would go on to change the world, titled with some lackluster: Information Management: A Proposal. It described a system where all the different divisions of CERN could publish their own part of the experiment, and everyone else could access it. The system would use hypertext to allow people to publish and read the information on any kind of computer. This was the beginning of the World Wide Web.

The first web page went live 29 years ago today, on August 6, 1991. As such you've probably seen people online today linking to the "first-ever" web page.

29 years ago today, Tim Berners-Lee posted the first ever web page.
This is it https://t.co/MSxAZ2cMZK— Russ (@RussInCheshire) August 5, 2020

If you click the link, this is what you will be greeted with. You'll probably be instantly confused by the date, as well as the lack of memes and people being incredibly aggressive in the comment section.

CERN archive.

While it gives you an idea of what the first web page looked like, we may never know what the actual web page displayed on that day in August, 1991. There are no screenshots, instead what you are seeing is the earliest record we have of that first web page taken in 1992. While we know that when the World Wide Web first launched it contained an explanation of the project itself, hypertext and how to create web pages, the first page of the system designed to prevent the loss of information has ironically been lost, perhaps forever.

Though in retrospect what Berners-Lee had invented was world-changing, at the time its creators were too pre-occupied with trying to convince their colleagues to realize its value and adopt it to think about archiving their invention for future historians to gawp at.

"I mean the team at the time didn't know how special this was, so they didn't think to keep copies, right?" Dan Noyes, who ran the much larger CERN website in 2013 told NPR. He believes the first incarnation of the world's first web page is still out there somewhere, probably on a floppy disk or hard drive hanging around in somebody's house.

That was how the 1992 version was found.

"I took a copy of the entire website in a floppy disk on my machine so that I could demonstrate it locally just to show people what it was like. And I ended up keeping a copy of that floppy disk," Tim Berners-Lee told NPR.

Unfortunately, despite CERN's best efforts, the first page itself has not been found. It may never be.

I HAVE BEEN ON THE NET SINCE 1995

US Authorities Have Identified The Mystery Seeds Sent To Strangers Around The World

By James Felton 04 AUG 2020, 12:27

In an already packed weird year, you may have missed that people around the US, and indeed the world, have been receiving packs of mystery seeds.

The seeds, which appear to have been sent from China, prompted warnings from at least 27 states along the lines of "do not plant the mystery seeds," sometimes all in caps for a bit of extra "What are these, triffids?" intrigue.

Too late I planted them and now my backyard is emitting a strange glow what should I do— non podhoretz (NOT the guy from commentary) (@crookedroads770) July 25, 2020

The warnings were designed, not to protect you from man-eating triffids (though it's always best to be on the safe side), but because pathogens, contaminates, or insects could be hidden within the packaging, or the seeds themselves could belong to invasive species. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) urged anyone who receives a mysterious unsolicited bag of seeds to contact their state regulator and hold onto the package until they are given further instructions.

After further investigation by the USDA, we now know what the mystery seeds are. Brace yourselves for a lack of resolution, because it does nothing to illuminate the motive of the sender.

"We have identified 14 different species of seeds, including mustard, cabbage, morning glory, and some herbs like mint, sage, rosemary, lavender, then other seeds like hibiscus and roses," Osama El-Lissy from the Plant Protection program of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said in a radio interview. "This is just a subset of the samples we've collected so far."

So far, so innocuous. Who doesn't like to be sent a lovely bit of mint? So what's in it for the senders?

"At this time, we don’t have any evidence indicating this is something other than a 'brushing scam' where people receive unsolicited items from a seller who then posts false customer reviews to boost sales," the USDA said in a statement.

Essentially, people send out the packages to random people and then review the product under a false name on sites like Amazon. This then boosts their seller rating, and their actual products (probably not seeds) start showing up in more people's search results while they shop.

In the meantime, the USDA is still collecting samples to try and determine if they contain anything that could be "of concern to US agriculture or the environment". It urges anyone who receives a mysterious unsolicited bag of seeds to contact their state regulator and hold onto the package until they are given further instructions.

Commissioner Andy Gipson

July 26 at 7:16 PM · 

Mysterious seeds from China! Things are getting stranger all the time in 2020. Several states in the southeast have reported the arrival of unwanted seeds and other goods from a China source. Our office has received contact from a few Mississippians reporting the arrival of unidentified seeds. If you receive seeds from China, DO NOT PLANT THEM. And don’t throw them in the trash. Please contact our Bureau of Plant Industry Office and report the seeds at 662-325-3390. We are developing a protocol for the best way to deal with them. Thanks! AG

Against All Warnings, People Have Planted The Forbidden Seeds. Here's What Grew

By James Felton 07 AUG 2020


Over the last few weeks, people around the world have been receiving mystery seeds in the post from China. Nobody ordered them, nobody wanted them, but nonetheless the mystery seeds keep coming, usually arriving in packets labeled as jewelry.

The US Authorities have been particularly stern in their warnings that people should not plant the forbidden seeds – for multiple reasons – with 27 states putting out warnings, sometimes in all caps just to make you think there's something seriously dangerous going on here.

whoever had Triffids on their 2020 nightmare bingo cards please mark your square! https://t.co/EHTLRqNZKy— OneWordLong (@OneWordLong) July 30, 2020



Flash forward to people all over the US planting the forbidden seeds. 

"We brought them down here and planted the seeds just to see what would happen," Doyle Crenshaw, from Booneville, Arkansas told local news network 5NewsOnline. They had arrived in a package labeled as studded earrings and he was too curious not to plant them. "Every two weeks I'd come by and put miracle grow on it and they just started growing like crazy."

Some of the plants have orange blossoms and long white fruits, which could mean it's a squash. So far, there are no signs of the plants attempting to eat people as Internet memes would suggest is next.

Crenshaw is far from alone in his curiosity.

The seeds are a mixed bag, but so far have been fairly innocuous. An investigation by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) found that they were pretty ordinary varieties you'd be able to buy at a store.

"We have identified 14 different species of seeds, including mustard, cabbage, morning glory, and some herbs like mint, sage, rosemary, lavender, then other seeds like hibiscus and roses," Osama El-Lissy from the Plant Protection program of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said in a radio interview. "This is just a subset of the samples we've collected so far."

You probably still shouldn't plant them though, as they could contain pathogens or contaminates, insects could be hidden within the packaging, or the seeds themselves could belong to invasive species. The USDA urged anyone who receives an unsolicited bag of seeds to contact their state regulator and hold onto the package until they are given further instructions.



As for an explanation why China appears to be gifting the world mysterious seeds, so far an online scam is the most likely scenario.

"At this time, we don’t have any evidence indicating this is something other than a 'brushing scam' where people receive unsolicited items from a seller who then posts false customer reviews to boost sales," the USDA said in a statement. 

Essentially, people send out the packages to random people and then review the product under a false name on sites like Amazon or Etsy. This then boosts their seller rating, and their actual products (probably not seeds) start showing up in more people's search results while they shop.

CRIMINAL CAPITALISM 

German prosecutors appeal for public help in tracing Wirecard boss


FILE PHOTO: The headquarters of Wirecard AG, an independent provider of outsourcing and white label solutions for electronic payment transactions is seen in Aschheim near Munich, Germany, July 22, 2020. REUTERS/Michael Dalder

BERLIN (Reuters) - German prosecutors appealed on television on Wednesday for help in tracking down Jan Marsalek, a former boss of collapsed payments company Wirecard, and issued a wanted notice for a manager they suspect of embezzling billions of euros.

Charges were first brought against Marsalek in June 22, and his status as a suspect was widely known, but under Germany’s extremely strict privacy laws, formally announcing he is a suspect and soliciting public help is a major step. Prosecutors said they believed he was outside Germany.

Munich-based Wirecard collapsed in June after auditors EY refused to sign off on its 2019 accounts because it could not verify 1.9 billion euros (£1.46 billion) supposedly held abroad in escrow by third-party partners.

The company subsequently filed for insolvency owing debts of 3.2 billion euros. Three former top managers have been arrested on suspicion of fraud and racketeering in Germany’s biggest accounting scandal.

The wanted notice, issued in English and German versions and illustrated with two pictures of the 40-year-old Austrian, one from 2017 in which he sports a beard, and one from last year in which he is cleanshaven, is headlined “Fraud in the billions”.

“Jan MARSALEK, ex board member of Wirecard AG, is strongly suspected of having committed billions in commercial gang fraud, the particularly serious case of embezzlement and other property and economic offences,” the notice issued jointly by Munich prosecutors and federal police reads. “He is currently on the run.”

The collapse of the financial technology company was widely seen as an embarrassment for German regulators, who for years ignored warnings from investigative journalists and market sceptics that Wirecard was inflating revenues and profit.

Former chief executive Markus Braun and former finance head Burkhard Ley have been in detention since July 22. They too are suspected of involvement in the alleged fraud.

Reporting by Thomas Escritt; editing by Grant McCool


Deutsche Boerse expels Wirecard from Germany's blue-chip index DAX

Ludwig Burger


FILE PHOTO: The logo of Wirecard AG, an independent provider of outsourcing and white label solutions for electronic payment transactions, is pictured at its headquarters in Aschheim near Munich, Germany, July 1, 2020. REUTERS/Andreas Gebert/File Photo

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Exchange operator Deutsche Boerse (DB1Gn.DE) will remove Wirecard (WDIG.DE), the payments company that folded after an accounting scandal, from the DAX index of Germany’s leading blue-chip stocks this month following an index rule change.

The exchange operator on Wednesday said it had opted for new rules - which were proposed last month - to allow for a DAX removal within two days in the case of an insolvency.

It said the new composition of the DAX would be published on Aug. 19 at 2000 GMT and take effect after market close on Aug. 21, effectively making it Wirecard’s last day in the index.

A regular review of the index makeup would have taken until September.

In 2018 Wirecard, at the time a rising technology star, was promoted to the DAX index of 30 leading companies, displacing Commerzbank (CBKG.DE).

But in a dramatic fall from grace, it filed for insolvency in June after disclosing a 1.9 billion euro hole in its accounts that auditor EY said stemmed from a sophisticated global fraud.

German prosecutors on Wednesday issued a wanted notice and appealed on television for help in tracking down Jan Marsalek, the former head of operations at Wirecard, for suspected embezzlement.

Additional reporting by Hans Seidenstuecker; editing by Richard Pullin

German prosecutors probe possible death of suspended VW employee

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Prosecutors in Braunschweig, Germany, on Wednesday said they were investigating the death of a man found in a burned-out car on Monday to determine whether there were any links to a dispute between Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) and Bosnian supplier group Prevent.

A body was found in a field in Lower Saxony on Monday, a spokeswoman for the Braunschweig prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday.

Local newspaper Helmstedter Nachrichten, citing sources, said the dead person was a Volkswagen employee who had done business with the Bosnian supplier group, who was also being probed for potentially illegal recordings of conversations.

A spokesman for police in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany, where Volkswagen is based, confirmed a body had been found in Rottorf, Helmstedt, but referred further queries to the Braunschweig prosecutor’s office.

The Braunschweig prosecutor’s office declined to comment on whether the dead person was a Volkswagen employee, adding that it had not yet been possible to formally confirm the identity of the deceased.

The Braunschweig prosecutor’s office however said its staff were now looking at whether the death was linked to the staffer at the centre of the VW eavesdropping probe, and whether there were links to an arson attack on the VW staff member’s house in May.


Preliminary findings by forensic staff, who examined the body on Tuesday, had shown no obvious signs of “outside interference” which may have caused the death, the prosecutor’s office said.

Volkswagen on Wednesday said it would be inappropriate to speculate on the matter given that the carmaker had not received official notification about a possible death of one of its employees, and could not comment on an ongoing investigation.

Volkswagen earlier this month said one of its employees had been suspended pending the outcome of an investigation into eavesdropping.

Volkswagen and the Bosnian supplier group fell out in 2016 in a disagreement over pricing, prompting Car Trim and ES Automobilguss, both part of Bosnia’s Prevent Group, to halt deliveries of seat covers and cast iron parts for gear boxes, causing production losses at six of VW’s factories.

VW and Prevent have since been involved in claims and counterclaims for damages caused by the dispute.

A spokesman for Prevent Group on Wednesday declined to comment on the death. “It is a tragic event. There is nothing more to be said about it,” he said.