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- <text id=90TT2067>
- <title>
- Aug. 06, 1990: Business Notes:Trade
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Aug. 06, 1990 Just Who Is David Souter?
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 53
- Business Notes
- TRADE
- Hard Rocks For Hard Cash
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> How strapped for cash is the Soviet Union? So strapped that
- Moscow bent its long-standing opposition to apartheid last week
- by agreeing to sell $5 billion of diamonds over the next five
- years through an international cartel controlled by South
- Africa's De Beers Consolidated Mines. A Swiss subsidiary of De
- Beers will handle the sales and thus permit Moscow to deny that
- it is dealing directly with South Africa.
- </p>
- <p> The agreement boosted De Beers' efforts to strengthen its
- domination of the worldwide market for uncut diamonds. De Beers
- already controls 80% of the global trade, and the deal could
- pressure any restive members to remain within the cartel. The
- pact with the Soviet Union, which competes with Botswana for
- the title of No. 1 diamond producer, will raise De Beers'
- market share to at least 90%.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
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