From PRI, Public Radio International and KCRW Santa Monica, this is To the Point.

At the height of the holiday season, renewed questions about diamonds.

Hello again, I'm Mormon-Aulny, and this is To the Point from Public Radio International,

a daily look at the issues Americans care about most.

By the time it gets to a jewelry store, there's no way to identify a diamond that's been used to finance brutal conflict in Africa.

Bad publicity has driven a $60 billion industry to reduce diamond smuggling and try to improve the appalling conditions of diamond miners.

But the new Hollywood film Blood Diamond is raising disturbing questions. On to the point, what are the human costs of diamond production?

How much smuggling is still going on?

How important are diamonds to the economies of many African countries?

On reporter's notebook later on, the death of Chile's Augusto Pinochet.

First, here's the news.

Support for To the Point comes from subscribers of KCRW Santa Monica

and from the Public Radio International Program Fund,

whose contributors include the Ford Foundation

and the John D. and

Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Hello again, Mormon-Aulney, back with To the Point. At the height of

the holiday season, the Hollywood film Blood Diamond is raising questions about a $60 billion

industry. On To the Point, what are the human costs of diamond production? Are diamond profits

still used to fund

brutal conflicts? How important are diamonds to the economies of many African countries?

On reporter's notebook, Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet is dead. We'll talk with an American

journalist, all too familiar with Pinochet's brutal reign and how he came to power.

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