Fact check: False claim about Ukraine, Clinton Foundation resurfaces amid Russian invasion

The claim: Ukraine was the largest donor to the Clinton Foundation for 15 years

© Seth Wenig, AP Then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and her husband former President Bill Clinton, greet supporters after voting in Chappaqua, N.Y. on Nov. 8, 2016.

McKenzie Sadeghi, USA TODAY 

While unrelated footage purporting to show the Russian invasion of Ukraine runs rampant online, some social media users have resurfaced an old narrative about foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation.

“Ukraine largest donor to the Clinton Foundation 1999-2014,” reads text in a Feb. 26 meme on Facebook.

Similar rumors about Ukrainian financial donations to the Clinton Foundation have gained traction on Twitter. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., promoted an iteration of the claim during a Feb. 19 rally in Texas, according to PolitiFact.

“Fact: Ukraine was the single largest donor to the Clinton Foundation,” reads a Feb. 24 tweet that generated more than 100 likes. As evidence, some users cited a graph purportedly showing the foundation's top foreign donors.

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But the posts misrepresent a chart from 2015, which ranks individual contributions to the foundation based on nationality. As FactCheck.org reported in 2019, the Clinton Foundation hasn't received donations from the Ukrainian government.

USA TODAY reached out to the social media users who shared the claim for comment.
Posts misuse report on individual donations

The Wall Street Journal published a report in 2015 on individual donations over $50,000 made to the Clinton Foundation between 1999 and 2014. The article included a chart listing the top foreign donors.

Ukraine tops the list, but the graph doesn't support the claim in the social media posts.

That's because the graph doesn't reflect donations from governments, as the posts assert. The Journal's analysis looked at individual contributions and ranked them “by nationality of donor.”

Ukrainians contributed $10 million to the Clinton Foundation – more than any other nationality, according to the report. Most of that money came from Ukrainian businessman and philanthropist Victor Pinchuk.

Pinchuk’s foundation, based in Kyiv, donated $8.6 million to the foundation between 2009 and 2013, the Journal reported. He and his wife started contributing to Clinton charities in 2006.

Fact check roundup: What's true and what's false about the Russian invasion of Ukraine

The article notes that Pinchuk has close government ties, as he served as a member of the Ukrainian Parliament from 1998-2006 and is the son-in-law of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. Pinchuk's contributions – both to the Clinton Foundation and the Trump Foundation – have come under scrutiny and faced criticism, but they didn't stem from the Ukrainian government.

Pinchuk also wasn’t the largest donor to the Clintons' charity between 1999-2014.

A 2015 analysis from The Washington Post found several donors had given more than $25 million to the Clinton Foundation since its creation. Among them: Canadian mining magnate Frank Giustra’s foundation, Democratic supporter Fred Eychaner and a major lottery based in the Netherlands.

The Clinton Foundation reports all contributors on its site. The Ukrainian government is not listed as a donor.

Other governments are, though. Australia, Saudi Arabia and Norway have all donated between $10 million and $25 million through grants, memberships, sponsorships and conference fees.

USA TODAY reached out to the Clinton Foundation for comment.
Our rating: False

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that Ukraine was the largest donor to the Clinton Foundation for 15 years. While some foreign governments have contributed to the Clinton Foundation, Ukraine has not.

The claim misrepresents a 2015 report on individual donations made between 1999 and 2014. According to the report, which lists the Clinton Foundation's top donors by nationality, Ukrainians contributed $10 million during that time period. Most of the money came from Pinchuk's foundation.
Our fact-check sources:
Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2015, Clinton Charity Tapped Foreign Friends
FactCheck.org, Oct. 25, 2019, Headlines Spin Ukrainian Donations to Clinton Charity
Victor Pinchuk Foundation, accessed Feb. 25, Biography of Victor Pinchuk
Forbes, accessed Feb. 25, #1249 Victor Pinchuk
ABC News, Nov. 23, 2016, Trump Foundation Took Donations From Controversial Ukrainian Clinton Donor
The New York Times, Aug 20, 2016, Foundation Ties Bedevil Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Campaign
Open Secrets, Nov. 18, 2019, Clinton Foundation cash flow continues to drop years after 2016 election loss
The Washington Post, Feb. 18, 2015, Clintons' foundation has raised nearly $2 billion - and some key questions
The Clinton Foundation, accessed Feb. 25, Reports and Financials
The Clinton Foundation, June 30, 2019, Recognizing Our Generous Supporters (archived)

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app, or electronic newspaper replica here.

Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

Lithium Americas considers spinning off U.S. operations

(Reuters) - Canada-based miner Lithium Americas Corp said on Monday it was exploring a separation of its U.S. and Argentinian operations by creating an independent public company focused on the Thacker Pass lithium project in Nevada.

The Thacker Pass project, approved by former U.S. President Donald Trump's administration in January last year, could become the largest U.S. source of lithium - a metal that has surged in demand globally due to its use in electric vehicles.

But the project faces opposition in a federal court from some indigenous tribes who ask for the approval to be overturned. Lithium Americas said last week it expects the final court decision on the matter by September end.

The company's main operations in Argentina are centered around the Caucharí-Olaroz lithium brine project that it jointly owns with China's Ganfeng Lithium. The operation is set to complete construction this year.

With both the assets progressing towards production, the company said it had begun studying the viability of a spinoff.

"While no final decision has been made, we believe a separation could enable each of our businesses to maximize and accelerate their strategic objectives, with dedicated focus and increased financial flexibility," Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Evans said in a statement.

(Reporting by Ruhi Soni in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni)

Ukraine Ambassador: Zelensky has expectations from Israel because he’s Jewish

By LAHAV HARKOV

© (photo credit: GLEB GARANICH/REUTERS) PRESIDENT ISAAC Herzog is welcomed to Kyiv at a ceremony by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in October.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has sought more help from Israel because he is Jewish, Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevgen Korniychuk said on Monday.

“As an ambassador of a country with a Jewish president, I can say Zelensky has higher expectations from Israel than Israel can deliver,” he said.

Korniychuk also speculated that Bennett is in a difficult situation balancing between Israel’s relations with Ukraine and Russia because Zelensky is Jewish. He also pointed out that many Ukrainians qualify to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return – 180,000 by Israel’s estimation.

“Our leadership believes Israel is the only democratic nation that has a good relation with both leaders,” Korniychuk said, referring to Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Our president believes that Jerusalem could probably be one of the best venues for negotiations.”

Bennett offering Putin to serve as an intermediary when they spoke on Sunday “was a miracle,” Korniychuk said, and followed major efforts to pressure Israel on that front, which included enlisting senior Ukrainian rabbis.

© Provided by The Jerusalem Post Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevgen Korniychuk. (credit: Lahav Harkov)

“I am glad the Israeli government took the correct position in terms of the mediation process,” he added.

Zelensky has asked Israel to take on the role of mediator several times over the past year, including during his phone call with Bennett on Friday.

Korniychuk said his message to Israel was, “Thank you, we appreciate all of your effort, but we need more.

“Decisions are being made slower than we need but we are happy about yesterday’s move and we hope for greater support,” he stated.

Israel is sending about 100 tons of humanitarian aid, including medicine, sleeping bags, water purification kits and other items.

Ukraine asked Israel to send teams of paramedics, but the government declined the request.

However, Israeli authorities told the ambassador they would not stop volunteers if Ukraine organizes them, and that efforts are underway for both medical and military volunteers.

Ukraine also asked for defensive weapons and protective gear, but Israel has declined those requests.

Kornichuk reiterated his country’s requests in a meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office on Monday.

“When Israel wants our help we are there for them,” Korniychuk said, referring to the UN, consular requests and other matters.

Korniychuk took umbrage with Israeli border control officers continuing to reject Ukrainians who they believe will overstay their tourist visas, saying the standards should be updated because of the war.

A spokesperson for Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked said, “We are not deporting Ukrainians. Whoever wants to enter with a tourist visa is welcome. Whoever reaches Israel and, in accordance with the Population, Immigration and Border Authority’s questioning, is found to be someone who wants to be here for a month, as a tourist, can enter. Europe is absorbing all Ukrainian citizens for three years.”

The Interior Ministry also automatically extended the tourist visas of Ukrainians already in Israel for 60 days.

Korniychuk also expressed appreciation for Israel offering him and his embassy extra security at this time.

'Atlas of Human Suffering': New UN Climate Report Is Shockingly Grim

Molly Taft 

Climate change is already altering the planet, and the world will see catastrophic and unavoidable impacts over the coming decades, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in a wide-reaching report released Monday. The warming we’ve already seen has pushed many of the planet’s ecosystems toward points that scientists on a press call Sunday repeatedly called the “hard limits” of human adaptation—the physical inability for society to adjust any further to oncoming changes in our world

.

© Photo: Noah Berger (AP) Bruce McDougal watches embers fly over his property as the Bond Fire burns through the Silverado community in Orange County, Calif., on Dec. 3, 2020.

“I have seen many scientific reports in my time, but nothing like this,” António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said. “Today’s IPCC report is an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.”

The world has already warmed 1.09 degrees Celsius (1.96 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, thanks to our addiction to fossil fuels. Some of the things we’re already seeing with our current levels of warming, the report finds, include:

diseases migrating into new areas
extinctions of species across the world
local populations of plants and animals dying off or moving, which irrevocably alters local ecosystems
mass die-offs of trees, plants, and mammals thanks to droughts and heat waves
the beginning of the collapse of major food systems
the transformation of former carbon sinks, like the Amazon rainforest and permafrost in the Arctic, into greenhouse gas emitters.

“We’re seeing adverse impacts being much more widespread and being much more negative than expected in prior reports,” said Camille Parmesan, an ecologist at the University of Texas at Austin and one of the lead authors of one of the report’s chapters, during a press briefing Sunday.

The Paris Agreement set out goals of keeping warming under 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and a stricter goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). The world is already on track to meet the 1.5 degree target, which will bring with it an enormous amount of change. And while humans can still turn the tide and bring warming back down, even overshooting these targets by just a little will bring “irreversible” impacts to the world, as permafrost melts, heatwaves and droughts increase, and ecosystems are forever altered. The small 0.5 degrees Celsius difference between the 1.5 and 2 degree targets, for instance, means that another 65 million people would experience “exceptionally” extreme heatwaves each year.

“If regions are not prepared, then people die that don’t need to.”

“This [report] has opened up a whole new realm of understanding of what the impacts of overshoot might entail,” Parmesan said.

This more than 2,000-page report, written by 270 scientists who reviewed tens of thousands of separate studies, comes on the heels of another IPCC report released last summer. Both are exhaustive and comprehensive overviews of the body of science around climate change. Last summer’s report dealt with the physics of climate change—how warming is altering the world and increasing the risks of droughts, fires, storms and floods—while this report focuses on the impacts of that change on ecosystems, wildlife, and human society. Think of this update as the next installment in a thorough scientific series: the Empire Strikes Back of just how serious the planetary situation is.

The news from this sequel isn’t good, and there are all sorts of terrible examples of what is happening and what’s projected to happen as the planet keeps warming. Half of the world’s living organisms are currently moving habitat as a result of climate change, disrupting ecosystems around the world. Half of the world’s human population also faces water scarcity at least part of the year. Food systems are at major risk: Reaching that 1.5-degree target, which is increasingly likely under current trajectories, would render about 8% of the world’s farmland unusable. And in a worse-case scenario, up to 9 million additional people could die from exposure to climate-related illness by the end of the century.

The IPCC last released a set of reports like these in 2014. Since then, the attribution science behind climate change has made leaps and bounds, meaning that we now know a lot more about how specifically climate change is tied to these impacts than the last time it was released. Timing matters, too: The next time a comprehensive review will come out will likely be in another five to seven years. We’re on such a tight schedule that it may be too late to influence policy the next time a report like this is released.

But there’s still a chance of preventing the worst impacts, the report finds. Mitigation is going to be especially important in the coming decades, and leaders need to be increasingly aware of how climate change will affect their regions and understand that things are going to only get worse—especially for vulnerable populations.

“If regions are not prepared, then people die that don’t need to,” Kristie Ebi, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington and one of the lead authors of one of the report’s chapters, said during the press briefing, referencing the heat wave that hit the Pacific Northwest last year and killed hundreds of people. “Nobody needs to die in a heat wave. And it’s critically important to start looking at these increases in extreme weather and climate events, looking at the people in harm’s way, mostly the poor and the marginalized, and making sure that efforts are undertaken to protect and promote health and wellbeing in those communities. If we don’t, then you saw what the risks look like into the future.”

Throwing our all at reversing our fossil fuel use—something the world looks less and less likely to get on track to do—will be crucial.

“There isn’t a silver bullet that’s gonna solve our greenhouse gas emissions,” said Ebi. “It’s important to understand that every action matters.”

Majority of Americans Polled Say Jackson Qualified to Be on Supreme Court

Most Americans who have an opinion on President Joe Biden's Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson believe that she is qualified to sit on the nation's highest court, according to a new poll.

© Drew Angerer/Getty

 Although many Americans remained undecided, polling indicated that most who had an opinion believed Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson was qualified to serve on the court. Jackson is pictured after her nomination was announced by President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington, D.C. on February 25, 2022.

Aila Slisco 1 hour ago

A YouGov poll conducted on Friday, the same day that Biden announced the nomination, found that 39 percent of Americans were confident that Jackson was qualified to serve on the court, while 13 percent said that she was not qualified and a 48 percent plurality were undecided. A 66 percent majority of Democrats said that she was qualified. Although most Republicans and independents were undecided, 32 percent of independents and 20 percent of Republicans agreed.

Jackson was confirmed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last year, where she succeeded current Attorney General Merrick Garland. She previously served for over eight years as a federal district court judge and also has experience as a public defender and as assistant special counsel on the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Jackson is the first Black woman to be nominated to the Supreme Court. The poll found that a 56 percent majority of Black Americans believed Jackson was qualified to serve on the court, with 38 percent being undecided and 6 percent saying she was not qualified. Only 35 percent of white Americans agreed that she was qualified, while 50 percent said they were not decided and 15 percent said she was not qualified.

The poll also found that a 46 percent plurality said they were "not sure" whether Jackson would be confirmed to the court, with 41 percent saying she would be confirmed and 13 percent insisting she would not. A 56 percent majority of Democrats said that she would be confirmed, while Republicans were the most likely to say she would not at 16 percent.

Republican Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine joined every member of the Democratic caucus to confirm Jackson to the Court of Appeals last year. Barring any opposition from Senate Democrats, Jackson could be confirmed to the Supreme Court without any Republican support.

Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued a statement to "congratulate" Jackson on her nomination last Friday, while vowing that she would "receive the most thorough and rigorous vetting."

During a Monday Fox News appearance, Grassley promised the Republicans were "going to be polite" during the confirmation process. He made the remarks while taking shots at Democrats for getting "down in the gutter" during confirmation hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Other Republicans offered immediate opposition. Graham denounced Jackson as a member of the "radical left" following the nomination, despite having voted to confirm her to the appeals court last year. The Republican National Committee (RNC) warned that Jackson was "a Democrat partisan who will put far-left special interests ahead of defending the liberties of Americans."

Weeks before the nomination was announced, a YouGov / Yahoo News poll that included details of Jackson's educational background and judicial experience found that most believed she was either "very" or "somewhat" qualified to serve on the court.

After being presented with details like Jackson graduating from Harvard Law School and her serving as a clerk to Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who she may replace, 69 percent of Americans agreed that she was qualified—including 57 percent of Republicans.

The most recent poll was conducted online on February 25 among 2,092 U.S. adults. No margin of error was listed. The earlier poll was conducted online among 1,625 U.S. adults between February 3 and February 7, with a 3 percent margin of error.

Newsweek reached out to the RNC for comment.

Nebrija University And ArcelorMittal Make 3D-Printed Steel Frame

Dustin Wheelen


Lighter than its aluminum and titanium counterparts.

Manufacturers typically construct production model frames from steel or aluminum. While steel weighs more than aluminum, the material delivers cost benefits for the producer and a more rigid chassis for the rider. However, if brands could negate the weight gain that comes with steel, they could have the best of both worlds.

© RideApart.com 3D-Printed Steel Frame

That’s exactly what Madrid’s Nebrija University set out to do when it partnered with multinational iron and steel company ArcelorMittal. By pairing Nebrija University’s intelligent design developments and competition vehicle experience with ArcelorMittal’s R&D might and additive manufacturing technology, the project established a new method for fabricating a tubular steel trellis frame: 3D printing.

"We had more or less achieved the new shape with our algorithms,” admitted Nebrija University Mechanical Engineer Sergio Corbera. “The possibility of generating hollow parts was the main unknown in metal 3D printing. We are talking about wall thicknesses of between 0.8 and 1 millimeter in the chassis.”

© Provided by RideApart external_image

Producing those 0.8-1mm hollow steel tubes was the first hurdle of the partnership, but steel presents the perfect material for such a lightweight construction, as aluminum and titanium don’t maintain the same structural integrity at such a reduced thickness. When the engineers determined that the 3D-printed tubes were structurally sound, the team integrated the data into the algorithm, allowing the system to automatically create stable geometric shapes.

"The simulations seem to indicate that we have achieved a very balanced chassis that allows a very good behavior of the bike on the circuit,” revealed Corbera. “We have applied a new manufacturing technology (3D printing) for this sector with a material that could look like prior relegated to that industry and with geometric shapes that break with the usual",

Project leads also stressed that the team didn’t need to develop a new steel alloy for the 3D printing process to achieve success. The partners used standard powdered steel for the additive manufacturing technique, which should allow manufacturers to produce 3D-printed frames without having to develop a proprietary blend of metals. On the other hand, brands like Honda already have 3D-printing initiatives and can further develop the alloy to gain even more structural or cost advantages.

“Our steel frame weighs around 3.8 kilos," noted ArcelorMittal R&D Engineer Paula Rodriguez. "A high-grade aluminum frame from the major motorcycle manufacturers doesn't drop below 5 kilos, while the other steel frames are around 6/7 kilos. It seems like a small difference, but on a piece like this it's a huge saving.”

POSTMODERN ALCHEMY
Are Lab-Grown Diamonds The Gemstone Of The Future?
Frances Solá-Santiago 

For more than 50 years, diamonds have been the ultimate symbol of love and the go-to gemstone for engagement rings. From songs proclaiming them “a girl’s best friend” to ad campaigns highlighting their eternal power, diamonds are firmly embedded in our culture. But as the lab-grown diamond industry continues to rise in popularity and produce cheaper and more sustainable alternatives to mined diamonds, is the gemstone really forever?

First things first: What is a lab-grown diamond? “A lab-grown diamond is optically, chemically, and physically identical to a natural diamond,” explains Melissa Cirvillaro, chief marketing officer of Lightbox, a subsidiary of De Beers Group that creates lab-grown diamonds, via email. “It is grown in a laboratory over a period of weeks rather than mined from the earth.” The process involves a diamond seed — a thin wafer of existing gemstone — as well as raw carbon and energy, which are then put under conditions that mimic the natural environment where a traditional diamond flourishes. Over the past few years, it’s becoming a popular choice among consumers.

According to Vogue Business, six to seven million carats of lab-grown diamonds were produced in 2020. While mined diamond production still outpaces the lab-grown industry — in comparison, over 110 million carats of diamonds were mined in 2020 — this sector is growing: According to Aether, a lab-grown diamond jewelry brand, the market has grown from 1% to 5% in the past three years alone. Since then, not only have new lab-grown brands launched, but heritage and mainstream brands like De Beers Group and Pandora have adopted lab-grown options into their offering as well.

© Provided by Refinery29

Why are people foregoing diamonds?

While the earliest descriptions of diamonds were found in a Sanskrit manuscript dated to 320-296 BCE, the reason many people today own diamonds is thanks to modern-day marketing. Thanks to the legendary “A Diamond Is Forever” campaign launched in 1948, the De Beers company — one of the world’s biggest diamond miners, cutters, and sellers — successfully convinced the world that the only proper way to get engaged was with a diamond ring. This gave birth to the engagement ring industry as we know it today: From 1939 to 1979, wholesale diamond sales climbed in the country from $23 million to $2.1 billion.

Yet, as consumers have become more aware of the environmental and social impact of their fashion and shopping choices, the question of ethics surrounding diamonds has also been raised. Some argue that this industry has a severe environmental, economic, and social impact on communities where natural diamonds are mined, fueling armed conflicts. Two decades since governments worldwide signed the Kimberley Process, a certification created in 2003 with a mission to reduce the mining and exporting of “blood diamonds,” human rights violations are still being documented in countries where diamond mining occurs. Yet, many still argue that the economic and social benefits are bigger than it seems: the Natural Diamond Council says that over 80% of the net economic benefits of diamond production are retained within their originating countries.

Are lab-grown diamonds more sustainable?

There are also concerns when it comes to the environmental consequences of mining diamonds. While mined, diamonds require over 120 gallons of water for each carat, according to The Diamond Foundry, a company that produces synthetic diamonds, some lab-grown diamond companies use electricity and fossil fuels for production.

But many lab-grown-diamond companies are trying to extract energy and carbon from resources they claim are more sustainable. Marketed as the first-ever diamond made from air, Aether uses technology that captures carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to produce its diamonds. “We’re effectively reducing the carbon footprints of our customers and offsetting their impact,” the company’s CEO, Ryan Shearman, tells Refinery29. Aside from turning air into diamonds, Shearman says the company’s facilities and production also rely on clean energy from solar and wind power. Aether is also foregoing the use of other lab-grown diamonds for their seeds (ie. those thin diamond wafers) obtaining them instead from their own products, which they claim are “carbon negative.”

“Our goal is to be able to not just act as a source of diamond jewelry and have a positive impact for our customers, but also from a business-to-business standpoint to be able to offer diamond seeds out there in the marketplace,” Shearman says.

Los Angeles-based VRAI is also attempting to reduce the environmental impact of mined diamonds and its own lab-grown production. “We’ve been really focused on showing the beauty and the opportunity that lab-grown diamonds have by showcasing that you can have a luxury product that doesn’t compromise your ethics,” says Mona Akhavi, CEO of VRAI.

The brand, which is owned by The Diamond Foundry, uses hydropower from the Columbia River in Washington to extract the energy needed to grow their diamonds. (While hydropower can help offset the carbon footprint, the practice has received criticism from environmentalist groups, who have called out the construction of large dams for their harm to wild rivers and fish populations.)

While many lab-grown-diamond companies claim to be more sustainable than mined diamonds, there is no clear consensus on just how much energy lab-grown diamonds require: A 2011 report by the University of Virginia found that making lab-grown diamonds can use an estimated 20 kilowatt-hours per carat, while numbers provided to the trade publication JCK from “a veteran [diamond] grower” show that a single-stone high-pressure, high-temperature press — one of two types of machines used to grow diamonds — requires 175 to 225 kilowatt hours per rough carat (a similar amount of energy to what the average American household uses to power a home for seven days).

© Provided by Refinery29

Are mined diamonds over?

Beyond ethics and sustainability, multiple reports conclude that diamonds have lost relevance with millennials and Gen Z who are less interested in engagement and marriage than generations before them. As society moves away from the idea of the nuclear family as its bedrock, so do the symbols that used to hold it together. In turn, diamond companies are adapting to fit changing social tides, turning to lab-grown diamonds for cheaper and more sustainable offerings. For proof, see Lightbox, which was founded by De Beers Group in 2018.

Then, there is the generational economic factor — millennials own just 5% of the wealth in the United States — which is makes the cheaper prices of lab-grown diamonds appealing to the demographic. For example, the cheapest available diamond stud earrings at De Beers are sold for $1,150 for a .14 carat diamond, while Lightbox offers a similar pair for $250 including a .25 carat diamond.

But while lab-grown diamonds are more economical, many argue that they won’t retain their value as much as mined diamonds, which are becoming more rare: Global supply of mined diamonds peaked in 2006 with 176 million carats mined, a level that, according to Bloomberg, will never be reached again. “Natural diamonds are a finite natural resource: the earth is not making any more. So, this rarity makes them a long-term store of value,” Sally Morrison, public relations director at Lightbox, wrote via email. Experts envisioned that, in 2021, there would be a 15 million carat deficit in the supply of mined diamonds, which could lead to a demand in lab-grown diamonds.

“Fewer and fewer mined diamonds will be available that are coming out of the ground, that means that the gap there can only be filled by lab-grown,” says Shearman.

Are mined diamonds forever? Maybe not. But thanks to the lab-grown, they will remain eternal.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Are Lab-Grown Diamonds The Same As Natural Stones?

Ukraine envoy to U.S. says Russia used a vacuum bomb in its invasion

By Patricia Zengerle 

© Reuters/Stringer . FILE PHOTO: Smoke rising after shelling on the outskirts of the city is pictured from Kyiv

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Human rights groups and Ukraine's ambassador to the United States on Monday accused Russia of attacking Ukrainians with cluster bombs and vacuum bombs, weapons that have been condemned by a variety of international organizations.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both said that Russian forces appeared to have used widely banned cluster munitions, with Amnesty accusing them of attacking a preschool in northeastern Ukraine while civilians took shelter inside.

Oksana Markarova, Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, told reporters after meeting with members of the U.S. Congress that Russia had used a thermobaric weapon, known as a vacuum bomb, in its invasion of her country.

"They used the vacuum bomb today," Markarova said after a meeting with lawmakers. "...The devastation that Russia is trying to inflict on Ukraine is large."

A vacuum bomb, or thermobaric weapon, sucks in oxygen from the surrounding air to generate a high-temperature explosion, typically producing a blast wave of a significantly longer duration than that of a conventional explosive and is capable of vaporizing human bodies.

There has been no official confirmation that thermobaric weapons have been used in the conflict in Ukraine. CNN reported that one of its teams had spotted a Russian thermobaric multiple rocket launcher near the Ukrainian border early on Saturday afternoon.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said she had seen reports but did not have confirmation that Russia had used such weapons. "If that were true, it would potentially be a war crime," she told a press briefing, noting that there are international organizations that would assess that and President Joe Biden's administration "would look to be a part of that conversation."

The Russian embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.

Markarova said Ukraine was working actively with the Biden administration and Congress to obtain more weapons and tougher sanctions.

"They should pay, they should pay a heavy price," she told reporters after leaving the meeting.

One lawmaker who attended the meeting, Democratic Representative Brad Sherman, said the Ukrainians had asked for a U.S.-enforced no-fly zone over Ukraine but that he felt that was too dangerous because it could provoke conflict with Russia.

Amnesty International said international humanitarian law prohibits the use of inherently indiscriminate weapons such as cluster munitions. Launching indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians constitutes a war crime.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, additional reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Leslie Adler, Rosalba O'Brien, Mary Milliken and Sandra Maler)

Opinion: Bury it? Shoot it into space? Why scientists still can't find a place for nuclear waste

Opinion by Paul Hockenos 

A major Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, to be released Monday, is expected to warn that humans are wrecking the planet so profoundly that we may run out of ways to survive the crisis. The report speaks of a "rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all."

© RWE Germany

This might make it tempting to rush to nuclear energy as a quick, low-carbon fix.


But its faults are numerous, not least that there is still no answer to the 80-year-old question: Where to store the burgeoning tons of highly radioactive spent fuel?

Propositions abound: from catapulting it into space, ditching it between tectonic plates, or burying it deep underground on remote islands.

But try as they have, scientists can't find a safe, long-term, cost-effective way to dispose of nuclear waste.

Even as new countries like Poland, Egypt, Bangladesh, and Indonesia line up to start nuclear programs -- on the face of it, a low-carbon energy source that could cut emissions -- every nation in the world with nuclear power struggles with the same dilemma.

Thus far, the determined hunt for a secure nuclear graveyard has been unsuccessful -- and there's no fix in sight. While the search goes on, ever more of the highly toxic refuse -- a lethal by-product of the plutonium and uranium used in nuclear energy and weaponry production -- piles up on top of the 370,000 tons of fission residue that languishes in stockpiles worldwide. Experts say that could jump by 1.1 million tons in a century.

Germany is shutting down its last nuclear power plant at the end of this year. France, on the other hand, just announced a massive build-out of its already prodigious nuclear fleet. The US is betting on nuclear to help hit climate goals.

Like most nations with nuclear power, they store the toxic spent fuel in steel cannisters at temporary locations, usually at nuclear plant facilities and military stations -- often incurring the wrath of local residents who want nothing to do with the hazardous material that remains radioactive for a million years.

Indeed, proponents and adversaries of nuclear power agree these interim solutions are untenable: we can't just dump this toxic mess on subsequent generations, and then they on others. Moreover, spent fuel, though no longer usable for energy production, remains radioactive and thus poses health, security, and proliferation risks.

At the moment, the Finns are putting deep geological disposal on the table as a solution -- currently the least objectionable of the options under discussion. But the Nordics' claim to have finally cracked this headache from hell is riddled with uncertainties.

This summer, on a tiny, sparsely populated island in the Baltic Sea, the first of hundreds of tightly sealed volcanic-clay-and-copper-clad drums of spent nuclear fuel will be lowered into a 500-meter deep granite vault and, eventually, cemented shut -- not for a million but, presumably, for about 100,000 years.

Yet this geological tomb is only another, ultimately temporary, fix. As nuclear waste expert Andrew Blowers, author of "The Legacy of Nuclear Power" and a former member of the UK's Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, says, "Currently no options have been able to demonstrate that waste will remain isolated from the environment over the tens to hundreds of thousands of years."

Copper and cement will eventually corrode and decay, while nuclear waste remains radioactive and highly toxic for millennia. Some experts though say the risk of leaks, and water contamination, is higher than Finnish authorities acknowledge.

Moreover, earthquakes or other dramatic shifts in geological conditions could set the poisonous elements free. And then there's the cost: Finland will spend €3.5 billion ($3.9 billion) on the facility, which will in the course of the next 100 years house 6,500 tons -- of their own -- spent fuel.

Other countries, such as the US, Britain, and Sweden say they will also, one day, bury their nuclear refuse in similar vaults. But even where the unique geological conditions exist, the same obstacle always arises: opposition from locals. Nobody but nobody wants radioactive waste anywhere near their families.

This is why another option, tectonic burial, looks appealing -- until one looks more closely. The idea is to send nuclear waste plummeting into the earth's core, basically hitching a ride on a geological plate on the ocean floor that is in the process of diving beneath an adjacent plate. The further the downward plate submerges beneath the earth's skin, the further away the nuclear waste is carried from our natural world.

But geologists pour scorn on the notion: the movement of tectonic plates is much too slow, the volume of nuclear refuse too great, and then there's the threat of subterranean volcanos or quakes that could send the mess spewing back into the ocean.

Hurtling nuclear waste in the other direction, namely into space, is also a nonstarter. There, the risk of rocket failure, the issue of space debris, and the wildly prohibitive cost stop this ploy dead in its tracks.

The exorbitant cost of the ongoing search -- and then of the "solution" itself -- illustrate why we don't want ever more of this menacing debris. Thus far, the US has spent $13 billion of taxpayer money in its unsuccessful effort to rid the country of its 90,000 tons of radioactive waste.

In Finland, at least, the nuclear industry picks up the bill. At the Finns' rate, disposing of all of the world's current nuclear waste could total €135 billion ($153 billion) and another €6 billion ($6.8 billion) a year for the estimated 10,500 more metric tons produced annually.

Yet, since no long-term secure repository is in sight, says Blowers, "on-site storage of spent fuel is likely to remain for several generations, at least until mid to end of next century. As the volume grows, they will have to cope with ever more complex, difficult management issues."



And we can't just cut and run.

Until scientists find a secure, long-term, cost-effective way to dispose of the already generated nuclear waste on planet Earth, we must stop generating yet more of it. Genuinely renewable energy is cheaper, safer, faster, and cleaner. Nuclear power is the opposite of a quick fix.

Container lines suspend shipments to Russia, Maersk considering

Container ship in Suez Canal

LONDON/COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Container shipping company Ocean Network Express (ONE) on Monday suspended bookings to and from Russia while Maersk said it was considering doing the same in response to Western sanctions on Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine.

Russia's assault on its neighbour, which Moscow says is a "special operation", is the biggest state-to-state invasion in Europe since World War Two.

"Booking acceptance to and from St Petersburg, Russia is suspended with immediate effect until further notice whilst we evaluate the operational feasibility,” Singapore-headquartered ONE said in a customer advisory on Monday.


ONE added that it had also suspended bookings for the Russian port of Novorossiisk as well as the Ukrainian container port of Odessa.

Germany’s Hapag Lloyd said on Feb. 24 it had issued a temporary suspension on bookings for Russia and halted sailings for Ukraine. A Hapag spokesperson said on Monday it was “due to the developments we have seen last week and to ensure we comply with any sanctions imposed”.

MSC, the world's biggest container line by capacity, said as of Monday it was maintaining shipping and inland services to and from Russia "in full compliance with international sanctions measures".

"Bookings for permitted Russia-related cargo will be accepted only with a thorough screening process by MSC with prepayment required for all imports to Russia," the company said in a statement.

"We expect Russia-related cargo shipments to be impacted by an increasing number of inspections and controls at European and other international ports."

Meanwhile, Maersk said on Monday it was closely monitoring the fast-evolving sanctions and restrictions imposed against Russia, and making preparations to comply with them.

"Our preparations include a possible suspension of Maersk bookings to and from Russia on ocean and inland," it said in a statement.

In a coordinated response, the United States, European countries and others have made the unusual move of targeting Russia's central bank with financial sanctions and put limits on cross-border transactions by the country's largest lenders.

Maersk, which handles roughly one in six containers shipped worldwide, said it was focusing on safeguarding types of containers and cold chain operations that "include important goods such as groceries and pharmaceuticals".

Maersk said limitations to operations over Russian air space would impact its air services.

A spokesperson declined to elaborate on the possible measures and said the company expects to provide further information later on Monday.

The company last year generated roughly 2.5% of its total revenue from Russia. It operates container shipping routes to St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad in the Baltic Sea, Novorossiysk in the Black Sea, and to Vladivostok and Vostochny on Russia's east coast.

Maersk has been active in Russia since 1992.

Last week, the company halted all port calls in Ukraine until the end of February and has shut its main office in Odessa on the Black Sea coast.

MSC said it has been unable to serve Ukrainian ports since Feb. 24.

Russia says its actions in Ukraine are designed not to occupy territory but to destroy its southern neighbour's military capabilities and capture what it regards as dangerous nationalists.

(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen and Jonathan Saul in London; Editing by David Goodman, Frank Jack Daniel, Andrew Heavens and Toby Chopra)