Conflict-free minerals sought in semiconductor manufacturing

The Kimberley Process could collapse, experts warn, after the group meant to prevent diamonds from financing conflicts decided to allow Zimbabwe to sell gems tainted by army killings.Kimberley approval was meant to guarantee that stones often given as a symbol of love are not "blood diamonds" used to fund some of Africa's most brutal civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia.Since 2003, Kimberley has gathered governments, industry and activists into a global regulator that makes decisions by consensus.

Zimbabwe's political and military elite are using violence and their links to companies to exploit the country's diamond wealth, a new report from campaign group Global Witness said Monday.The campaigners also criticised the Kimberley Process (KP) certification scheme, created to prevent the sale of "blood diamonds," for what they said was its weak response to Zimbabwe's diamond industry problems.The report, released in London, came ahead of a Kimberley meeting next week in Israel where Zimbabwe is set to dominate talks.

A major international environmental group is pulling out of the process to guarantee that diamonds do not come from conflict zones, saying the Kimberley Process had refused "to evolve and address the clear links between diamonds, violence and tyranny."

The Kimberley Process against "blood diamonds" will allow Zimbabwe to sell some diamonds from its controversial Marange fields, in a decision that left the watchdog sharply divided Friday.Right groups walked out of the Kimberley meeting Thursday in Kinshasa, where African countries, China and India supported the decision that was opposed by Western nations, rights groups and industry."We have made a breakthrough," Zimbabwe mines minister Obert Mpofu told the state-run Herald newspaper in Harare.

The campaign group Global Witness says it is leaving the Kimberley Process, saying the scheme has failed in its aim of stopping the trade in blood diamonds.

The Kimberley Process scheme, which aims to stem the use of diamonds to fund conflict, is failing, a campaign group warns.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe on Wednesday threatened to defy the Kimberley Process to sell diamonds from a field where the global regulator accuses the military of forced labour and other abuses.The Kimberley Process (KP) has given Zimbabwe until June to rectify abuses by its army against civilians at the eastern Marange diamond fields, but Mugabe threatened to sell the diamonds without the watchdog's permission."We are trying to play it their own way, that is following the KP, but we can do it otherwise," Mugabe told reporters in the capital.