The background chatter behind the main news is that the EU is preparing to stall the Brexit talks as the UK seems unprepared for discussions on divorce payments to the EU. Looking at the news trail after a Google search, the following time sequence of making this point was:
- The Express - 16 h before blog
- The Telegraph 9 h bb
- Politico 6 h bb
- The Independent 5 h bb
The main news was obviously from across the pond, where the current attempt to repeal Obamacare is currently stalled, possibly dead. Now President Trump says on Twitter,
"As I have always said, let ObamaCare fail and then come together and do a great healthcare plan. Stay tuned!"
A wonderful political strategy, if it works - wait until problems with Obamacare become so great that another solution is needed - and most importantly, avoid any blame being linked to the Republican Party. Only, one element of doubt - isn't the President supposed to be acting in all the people's interests and finding a solution that will be acceptable to at least a majority.
On the home front, I was tempted to thin out the carrots growing in one of our containers and finding some perfectly formed, though diminutive specimens. Practically bite sized, they tasted good, if slightly peppery.
There was an interesting article on illegal mining for sapphires in Madagascar, with the throwaway line that once gems entered the trade, their origin could not be determined. Remembering that Diamonds can be traced to geographical regions, I googled for similar information in sapphires.
The international Gem Society gives some basic information on geographic sources of rubies and sapphires, which are both different types of of the mineral corundum https://www.gemsociety.org/article/ruby-sapphire-identifying-origin-understanding-value-rarity-gem-corundum/. There was a lot more detail on internet stones.com site on 'Gemstone Geographic Origin Determination with special reference to Blue Sapphires' http://www.internetstones.com/gemstone-geographic-origin-determination-with-reference-to-blue-sapphires.html.
Madagascan sapphires are generally from metamorphic regions, as are those from Kashmir and Sri Lanka, for example. Sapphires from Australia and Cambodia are from magmatic or basaltic sources. Further characteristics of Madagascan sapphires often contain tight optical growth patterns, have detectable levels of tin and tantalum at dozens of parts per million. Madagascan sapphires from the province of Antsiranana Province often display blue-violet, greenish-blue and greenish-yellow bands within the same crystal. However, the situation my be complicated by two facts, one, that banding in sapphires can be reduced by heat treatment and two, that if these are new illegal mines, then sufficient reference samples have o be collected first for characterisation before future sapphires can be assigned to that region in the future.
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