World

The Fortune Pink diamond, an exceptionally rare giant gemstone, sold for more than $28.5 million at auction in Geneva on Tuesday to a private Asian customer.

At 18.18 carats, the jewel is the largest pear-shaped “fancy vivid pink” diamond ever sold under the hammer, Christie’s auction house said.

The dazzling diamond fetched a hammer price of 24.5 million Swiss francs ($24,615,150), rising to 28,436,500 Swiss francs ($28,570,150) with the buyer’s premium added on.

The bidding, which lasted for a tense four minutes, started at 17 million Swiss francs and was a three-way battle between telephone bidders, with the winner eventually claiming the gem by upping the bid by half a million.

“The buyer is happy. It’s a dream come true,” the Christie’s employee taking the winning telephone bid told AFP, while maintaining the buyer’s anonymity.

The Fortune Pink, mined in Brazil, had been estimated to fetch between $25 million and $35 million.

Christie’s noted that the carat weight, 18.18, was considered a lucky number in Asia, where it signifies “definite prosperity”, and gave the diamond its name.

“Very aptly it was purchased by an Asian private customer,” Rahul Kadakia, Christie’s international head of jewellery, told reporters after conducting the sale.

“It’s a very select group of customers who are buying at this level.

“I’m very happy that it’s gone to a new family who will enjoy it, who will wear it, and I hope it brings them good fortune.”

– Rare gems –

Pink diamonds are only found in a few places and fewer than 10 percent weigh more than one fifth of a carat.

Big jewels like the Fortune Pink are therefore among the rarest diamonds and are some of the most in-demand on the global market.

On Friday, the 11.15-carat Williamson Pink Star pink diamond sold in Hong Kong for HK$453.2 million ($57.7 million), setting a record for price per carat paid at auction for any diamond or gemstone, according to Sotheby’s.

It was fetched the second-highest price paid at auction for any jewel.

Tobias Kormind, managing director of online diamond jeweller 77 Diamonds, said the Fortune Pink price was disappointing in comparison.

“Hong Kong has trumped Geneva and whether we like it or not, the centre of gravity of wealth creation is moving towards Asia,” he said.

The world record for a pink diamond was set in 2017, when a stone known as the CTF Pink Star was sold in Hong Kong for $71.2 million.

– Standing room only –

The Fortune Pink was auctioned in the Magnificent Jewels sale at the Hotel des Bergues, part of Christie’s Luxury Week of sales in Geneva.

The jewels sale of 71 lots fetched nearly 56.6 million Swiss francs. Five other diamond lots went for more than a million Swiss francs.

“It was an exciting night,” said Kadakia.

“There is appetite, people want to pay the prices.

“I have not, since Covid, seen the room packed all the way to the end of the ballroom where there was standing room only.

“It gives you a sense of how the market is feeling so much more buoyant.”

Sotheby’s Geneva Luxury Week is also under way, with a fancy vivid blue cushion-shaped diamond weighing 5.53 carats estimated to fetch 11 to 15 million Swiss francs on Wednesday.

It is part of the De Beers Exceptional Blue Collection — a group of eight rare fancy blue diamonds with a total value of more than $70 million, being sold in Geneva, New York and Hong Kong.

The Fortune Pink diamond, an exceptionally rare giant gemstone, sold for more than $28.5 million at auction in Geneva on Tuesday to a private Asian collector.

At 18.18 carats, the gem is the largest pear-shaped “fancy vivid pink” diamond ever sold under the hammer, Christie’s auction house said.

The dazzling diamond fetched a hammer price of 24.5 million Swiss francs ($24,615,150), rising to 28,436,500 Swiss francs ($28,570,150) with the buyer’s premium added on.

The bidding, which lasted for a tense four minutes, started at 17 million Swiss francs and was a three-way battle between telephone bidders, with the winner eventually claiming the gem by upping the bid by half a million.

The diamond was exhibited in Geneva then headed to New York, Shanghai, Taiwan and Singapore in October before returning to Switzerland.

It was auctioned in the Magnificent Jewels sale at the Hotel des Bergues, part of Christie’s Luxury Week of sales in Geneva.

The Fortune Pink had been estimated to fetch between $25 million and $35 million.

The world record for a pink diamond was set in 2017, when a stone known as the CTF Pink Star was sold in Hong Kong for $71.2 million.

The presidents of Colombia and Venezuela, Gustavo Petro and Nicolas Maduro, launched a call Tuesday at the COP27 climate summit for a wide-ranging alliance to protect the Amazon, the planet’s biggest tropical forest.

“We are determined to revitalise the Amazon rainforest… (in order) to offer humanity a significant victory in the battle against climate change,” Petro said at the UN summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. 

“If we, in the South Americas, carry a responsibility, it is to stop the destruction of the Amazon and put in place a coordinated process of recovery,” Maduro said, speaking alongside Petro and the president of Suriname, Chan Santokhi.

Key to any such revival plan will be the newly elected Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, widely known as Lula, who will take up his post on January 1 and is expected to attend COP27 next week. 

The participation of Brazil in such a planned alliance will be “absolutely strategic”, Petro said. 

Leftist Lula faces an immense challenge in putting a brake on Amazon deforestation, a phenomenon that rapidly proliferated under his right-wing predecessor Jair Bolsonaro. 

Petro, architect of the proposed new alliance, has called for the US to collaborate, noting that it is “the country that pollutes the most” on the American continent, while the south of the landmass is “the sponge that absorbs the most carbon dioxide on the continent”.

He advocated “the opening of a fund” fed by “the contribution of private companies and world nations”.

Petro had announced the previous day that his country intends to set aside $200 million per year over the next two decades to protect the Amazon. 

He urged solidarity from international organisations, at a time when the COP has put the issue of compensation for damage caused by global warming on its agenda, despite resistance from developed nations. 

“One of the subjects which could bring consensus between us, Africa and part of Asia is (a mechanism for) forgiveness of (national) debt as a means of financing action” against climate change, Petro said. 

The International Monetary Fund would have “a role to play” in working with developing countries on this issue, he added.  

– ‘Buried reserves’ –

The “political message (is) very important”, but the question “is to know how these intentions will materialise,” said Harol Rincon Ipuchima, a representative of Indigenous people in Colombia. 

Ipuchima, who is also the co-chair of the Indigenous caucus at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, took President Petro to task for not having spoken more with his community, whom he described as “the masters of the territory”.

According to Amazon Conservation, which tracks deforestation in the region, around 13 percent of the original biomass of the Amazon rainforest has already disappeared.  

The Amazon basin, which stretches over 7.4 million square kilometres, covers nearly 40 percent of South America and takes in nine countries, with around 34 million — mostly Indigenous people — living across this area.

Petro, the first leftist president of Colombia, took office on August 7, with an ambitious environmental plan that targets converting his nation to clean energy and halting exploration for new oil deposits, among other measures. 

He has however recognised that the presence of sub-soil hydrocarbon reserves in the Amazon region, beginning with Venezuela, could thwart this plan, but emphasised he is determined to eventually abandon fossil fuels. 

Colombia’s Environment Minister Susana Muhamad Gonzalez has advocated a “diversification” of economies of countries that possess such resources, urging them to “leave the reserves in the soil”.

Ipuchima recalled that “entire territories of the Indigenous people of the Amazon have been destroyed.”

“Not only Venezuela, but Colombia too has many oil companies in these territories. Likewise Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador,” he added. 

President Petro hopes to organise a meeting with the other regional countries in early 2023 to discuss his proposed alliance. 

Climate change is outpacing the capacity of developing nations to cope with its devastating impacts, the Pakistani premier told COP27 on Tuesday, as his country reels from historic floods.

Talks at the UN climate conference in Egypt have been dominated by calls for wealthier nations to fulfil pledges to financially help poorer nations green their economies and build resilience.

“The world is burning up faster than our capacity for recovery,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif warned in his speech before the summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

“The current financing gap is too high to sustain any real recovery needs of those on the frontlines of climate catastrophe.”

Sharif argued Pakistan exemplifies the extreme vulnerability of nations in the developing world struggling to grow their economies while confronting a perfect storm of inflation, soaring debt and energy shortages — all compounded by global warming.

Catastrophic floods in Pakistan in August coming on the heels of a crippling two-month heat wave earlier in the year upended the lives of 33 million people and inundated a third of the country, he said.

“Raging torrents” from melting glaciers in northern Pakistan ripped up thousands of kilometres (miles) of roads and railway tracks, Sharif added.

The floods, which also swamped vast areas of key farmland, incurred damages exceeding $30 billion, according to the World Bank.

– ‘Gigantic task’ –

Pakistan, already facing a cost-of-living crisis, a nose-diving rupee and dwindling foreign exchange reserves, saw inflation surge after the floods.

“We have redirected our meagre resources to meet basic needs of millions of households affected by these devastating floods,” Sharif said. “And this all happened despite our very low carbon footprint.”

Rich nations historically responsible for rising temperatures have fallen short on delivering climate finance on several fronts, the prime minister said.

A 12-year old pledge made at COP15 to provide $100 billion a year to poorer countries by 2020 has still not been met and is $17 billion short.

A lightening-rod issue at COP27 is whether or not wealthy nations should commit to a separate financial facility for unavoidable impacts — from storms, heat waves and sea level rise, for example — known as “loss and damage”.  

“How on earth can one expect from us that we will undertake this gigantic task on our own?” Sharif said.

At a Monday meeting with Sharif, UN chief Antonio Guterres said the world needs to rethink the international financial system to provide debt relief to countries battered by climate impacts.

“Pakistan deserves massive support directly from the international community,” Guterres said.

Hundreds of migrants aboard rescue ships waited Tuesday at a Sicilian port for permission to come ashore, as another charity vessel gave up hope of a welcome in Italy and appealed to France for safe harbour.

Nearly 500 migrants are in limbo after being rescued by three different charity ships during their perilous crossing from North Africa to Italy’s shores. 

Two of the ships — the Geo Barents and Humanity 1 — docked at the weekend at Sicily’s eastern port of Catania, disembarking about 500 of the most vulnerable migrants.

But Italian authorities told them to keep approximately 250 others and head back to sea.

After appealing to Italy since October 27 for a secure port, a third ship, the Ocean Viking, said Tuesday it was leaving Sicilian waters and heading towards France with 234 migrants onboard.

“Facing the silence of Italy and the exceptionality of the situation, the Ocean Viking has now escalated her request for a Place of Safety in France,” said the group, run by European charity SOS Mediterranee under a Norwegian flag.

“We expect the Ocean Viking to arrive in international waters close to Corsica the 10th of November,” it said in a statement.

The handling of the migrant ships is a first test for Italy’s new far-right government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has vowed to stop the tens of thousands of migrants who land on the country’s shores every year.  

Earlier Tuesday, a fourth boat successfully disembarked all its 89 migrants at the port of Reggio Calabria at the toe of Italy.

The migrants from the Rise Above, operated by German humanitarian group Mission Lifeline, were “almost all minors”, a government source explained to AFP.

– ‘Selective and discriminatory’ –

Rights groups have challenged an Italian decree that permitted the Geo Barents and Humanity 1 — operated by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and SOS Humanity, respectively — to dock only for the time it took to help emergency migrant cases, calling it illegal.

SOS Mediterranee said on Tuesday the choice of which migrants to allow to disembark those ships was “selective and discriminatory”. 

The psychological strain of waiting was taking its toll on the remaining migrants, MSF’s chief of mission, Juan Matias Gil, told reporters at the Catania port.

“No one can deal with this, at any level,” Gil said. “They can really feel it and their anxiety grows every day.”

On Monday, migrants held an impromptu protest from the stern of the Geo Barents, holding up signs and chanting “Help us”!

Two Syrians who subsequently jumped into the water before being pulled out spent the night on the dock.

“They spent the entire night in the open on the pier refusing water and food this morning,” said MSF in a statement. 

– Exhaustion and worse –

Migrants allowed to disembark from the Rise Above Tuesday were suffering from seasickness and exhaustion, Mission Lifeline said, while six people had been evacuated earlier after being deemed medical emergencies. 

Ships chartered by non-government organisations regularly pick up migrants from overcrowded boats seeking to cross from North Africa to Europe.

However, their passengers accounted for only 14 percent of the more than 87,000 people who have landed in Italy so far this year, according to the interior ministry.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said Monday the government is acting “with humanity but firmly based on our principles”.

Piantedosi said he was working at a national and European Union level to reduce the burden on Italy after years of complaints from Rome that the bloc was not doing enough.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said another meeting on Sweden’s NATO membership bid would be held later this month after hosting Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in Ankara on Tuesday.

Kristersson was hoping to persuade Turkey to drop its opposition to Sweden joining the US-led military alliance, with Ankara accusing Stockholm and Finland of harbouring outlawed Kurdish militants.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the Nordic neighbours abandoned their long-held policy of non-alignment and applied to join NATO.

Erdogan — who is seeking re-election next year — is in a position of strength, having persuaded Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to stop blockading Ukraine’s grain exports.

After meeting Kristersson at the presidential palace in the Turkish capital, Erdogan said a joint meeting would be organised in Stockholm later this month, without specifying the date.

The Turkish leader said he “sincerely wished” for Stockholm to join NATO, but added: “We understand their security concerns, and we want Sweden to respond to ours.”

Kristersson described his meeting with Erdogan as “very productive”.

“Sweden will live up to all the obligations made to Turkey in countering the terrorist threat,” he said.

The Swedish parliament on Tuesday said it would vote next week on a constitutional amendment that would make it possible to strengthen anti-terror laws, a key demand from Turkey.

The amendment will make it possible to introduce new laws to “limit freedom of association of groups involved in terrorism”, the parliament said in a statement, adding that the vote was scheduled for November 16.

– ‘Cautious optimism’ –

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg visited Ankara last week to press the case for Sweden and Finland, saying their accession would “send a clear message to Russia”.

Stoltenberg stressed the two had agreed on concessions to Turkey in June, which included addressing its request for “terror suspects” to be deported or extradited.

Writing in Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet on Monday, Erdogan’s advisor Fahrettin Altun voiced “cautious optimism” that the new right-wing government in Stockholm would take “concrete measures” to meet Ankara’s concerns.

Turkey accuses Sweden in particularly of leniency towards the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its Syrian offshoot, the People’s Protection Units (YPG).

Ankara says it provided Sweden and Finland in June with a list of people it wanted extradited. 

Since then, Sweden has authorised one extradition for fraud. Both Stockholm and Helsinki say that extradition decisions are made by the courts.

The PKK is blacklisted by Ankara and most of its Western allies. But the YPG has been a key player in the US-led military alliance combatting the Islamic State group in Syria.

While Sweden has in the past voiced support for the YPG and its political wing, Kristersson’s government appears to be distancing itself.

– Cashing the NATO enlargement card –

Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom told AFP in October he was convinced Sweden could satisfy Turkey’s demands.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto told journalists on Monday he expected joining NATO would “happen in reasonable time”.

Some analysts nevertheless believe Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections in June 2023 could delay the Nordic bids. 

“The Turkish side will ratify their membership when it feels it is the best moment to cash that card,” said Ilke Toygur, professor of European geopolitics at the University Carlos III in Madrid.

“I sense that many countries in NATO already assume that enlargement will be next year, maybe even in the second half of next year,” she told AFP.

“It is widely assumed that Turkey is also trying to negotiate for other things. It could be the F16s. It could be about its overall relationship with Russia.”

Leading US senators have threatened to block the sale to Ankara of US F16 fighter jets unless Turkey ends a maritime border dispute with Greece. 

Turkey, which seeks to maintain good relations with Ukraine and Russia, has not joined Western sanctions on Moscow and has acquired a Russian missile defence system while also supplying Kyiv with combat drones.

“It remains to be seen if Erdogan thinks he’s got enough signs of goodwill from Sweden and it’s therefore in his political and military interest to declare victory, or if he thinks sticking to the current line will serve his re-election campaign,” said a European diplomatic source.

There was still a “reasonable chance” Turkey would ratify the NATO bids before the 2023 elections, the source said.