Zimbabwe will sell its diamond stockpile, worth perhaps $1.7bn, without waiting for approval from the Kimberley Process, the government has said. Obert Mpofu, the mines minister, pledged that the sale of 4.5m carats of diamonds would go ahead regardless of the views of the industry regulator…Mr Mpofu said [Zimbabwe’s voluntary] suspension would now be lifted and diamonds sold by the state-owned Minerals Marketing Corporation. He told the official media that “hostile nations” such as the US, Canada and Australia had failed to persuade the Kimberley Process governments to withdraw their certification from Zimbabwe’s exports....The World Diamond Council said that only the Kimberley Process itself could give Zimbabwe permission to export its diamonds.