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As long as pearl jewelry have been known to people, they have been a highly sought commodity for their beauty. It's only in recent times however that the industry has taken the hunt for the perfect pearl to a whole different level. Today, the shiny orbs that we see on in display in jewelry stores have actually almost always been grown in farms. That's a far cry from the dangerous extraction and collection methods used before the invention of modern technology. In the past, not more than 100 years ago, the only way to retrieve pearls was by diving in lakes, floods and the ocean to pick them up, one at the time. The unfortunate divers who'se job it was to do this, were often poor and lured by the relative large sums they could get. The diver would sometimes have to dive as deep as 100 feet on one single breath of air. In order to preserve air and to stay submerged the longest, the divers would hold on to heavy stones on the way down. Naturally, this dangerous activity was reserved for the desperate or the powerless - in many cases slaves or extremely poor peasents. Today, this method is all but obsolete in most places of the world. The cheaper cultured pearls have become popular and are many times the only pearls available to the consumer. There are however still a few isolated areas that practice this old art of pearl diving. Some of the finest natural pearl speciments come from the gulf of Bahrain. Here, divers still risk their health to retrieve what are considered the top of the crop in the world. In fact, Bahrain wants no part of the sale of cultured pearls, banned from trade. Bahrain is one of the few places on earth that does an active job in trying to preserve the natural habitat and waters from pollution. It's an interesting story and one that continues to fascinate buyers around the world. Somehow, the beauty of the pearl grows when it's been retrieved from the depth of the ocean.

Buying pearl jewelry can be fun, exciting and confusing. Whether you're considering a gift of pearl jewelry for someone special or as a treat for yourself, take some time to learn the terms used in the industry. Here's some information to help you get the best quality pearl jewelry for your money, whether you're shopping in a traditional brick and mortar store or online. Pearls Natural or real pearls are made by oysters and other mollusks. Cultured pearls also are grown by mollusks, but with human intervention; that is, an irritant introduced into the shells causes a pearl to grow. Imitation pearls are man-made with glass, plastic, or organic materials. Because natural pearls are very rare, most pearls used in jewelry are either cultured or imitation pearls. Cultured pearls, because they are made by oysters or mollusks, usually are more expensive than imitation pears. A cultured pearl's value is largely based on its size, usually stated in millimeters, and the quality of its nacre coating, which give it luster. Jewelers should tell your if the pearls are cultured or imitation. Some black, bronze, gold, purple, blue and orange pearls, whether natural or cultured, occur that way in nature; some, however, are dyed through various processes. Jewelers should tell you whether the colored pearls are naturally colored, dyed or irradiated. Clams, oysters, mussels and many other mollusks with limy shells are known to produce pearls. But very few kinds yield gem pearls of jeweler's quality. The pearl is an abnormal growth of mother-of-pearl, or nacre, imbedded in the soft bodies of these shellfish. It is built up, layer upon layer, in the same way as nacre is added to the lining of the growing shell and always has the same color and luster. For example, over the country, hundreds of good-sized pearls are found each year in the oysters we eat. Unfortunately these have no commercial value regardless of whether they have been cooked or not because they are dull opaque white or purple like the shell of the parent oyster. In recent times almost all pearls of gem quality come from the oriental pearl oyster which has a bright shimmering translucent nacre. A pearl starts growing when some irritating foreign substance such as a sand grain, bit of mud, parasite or other object becomes lodged in the shell-producing gland called the mantle. Pearls formed in the soft flesh where nacre can be added on all sides are most likely to be spherical and the most highly prized. By far the great majority are flattened or variously distorted and have little value. Size, color, luster and freedom from flaws are other essential qualities. Unlike other gems, such as diamonds, pearls have an average life of only about 50 years. In time the small amount of water in a pearl's make-up is lost and its surface cracks. Because they are mostly lime, necklaces which are worn often are injured by the acid secretions of the human skin.

As long as pearl jewelry have been known to people, they have been a highly sought commodity for their beauty. It's only in recent times however that the industry has taken the hunt for the perfect pearl to a whole different level. Today, the shiny orbs that we see on in display in jewelry stores have actually almost always been grown in farms. That's a far cry from the dangerous extraction and collection methods used before the invention of modern technology. In the past, not more than 100 years ago, the only way to retrieve pearls was by diving in lakes, floods and the ocean to pick them up, one at the time. The unfortunate divers who'se job it was to do this, were often poor and lured by the relative large sums they could get. The diver would sometimes have to dive as deep as 100 feet on one single breath of air. In order to preserve air and to stay submerged the longest, the divers would hold on to heavy stones on the way down. Naturally, this dangerous activity was reserved for the desperate or the powerless - in many cases slaves or extremely poor peasents. Today, this method is all but obsolete in most places of the world. The cheaper cultured pearls have become popular and are many times the only pearls available to the consumer. There are however still a few isolated areas that practice this old art of pearl diving. Some of the finest natural pearl speciments come from the gulf of Bahrain. Here, divers still risk their health to retrieve what are considered the top of the crop in the world. In fact, Bahrain wants no part of the sale of cultured pearls, banned from trade. Bahrain is one of the few places on earth that does an active job in trying to preserve the natural habitat and waters from pollution. It's an interesting story and one that continues to fascinate buyers around the world. Somehow, the beauty of the pearl grows when it's been retrieved from the depth of the ocean.

Buying pearl jewelry can be fun, exciting and confusing. Whether you're considering a gift of pearl jewelry for someone special or as a treat for yourself, take some time to learn the terms used in the industry. Here's some information to help you get the best quality pearl jewelry for your money, whether you're shopping in a traditional brick and mortar store or online. Pearls Natural or real pearls are made by oysters and other mollusks. Cultured pearls also are grown by mollusks, but with human intervention; that is, an irritant introduced into the shells causes a pearl to grow. Imitation pearls are man-made with glass, plastic, or organic materials. Because natural pearls are very rare, most pearls used in jewelry are either cultured or imitation pearls. Cultured pearls, because they are made by oysters or mollusks, usually are more expensive than imitation pears. A cultured pearl's value is largely based on its size, usually stated in millimeters, and the quality of its nacre coating, which give it luster. Jewelers should tell your if the pearls are cultured or imitation. Some black, bronze, gold, purple, blue and orange pearls, whether natural or cultured, occur that way in nature; some, however, are dyed through various processes. Jewelers should tell you whether the colored pearls are naturally colored, dyed or irradiated. Clams, oysters, mussels and many other mollusks with limy shells are known to produce pearls. But very few kinds yield gem pearls of jeweler's quality. The pearl is an abnormal growth of mother-of-pearl, or nacre, imbedded in the soft bodies of these shellfish. It is built up, layer upon layer, in the same way as nacre is added to the lining of the growing shell and always has the same color and luster. For example, over the country, hundreds of good-sized pearls are found each year in the oysters we eat. Unfortunately these have no commercial value regardless of whether they have been cooked or not because they are dull opaque white or purple like the shell of the parent oyster. In recent times almost all pearls of gem quality come from the oriental pearl oyster which has a bright shimmering translucent nacre. A pearl starts growing when some irritating foreign substance such as a sand grain, bit of mud, parasite or other object becomes lodged in the shell-producing gland called the mantle. Pearls formed in the soft flesh where nacre can be added on all sides are most likely to be spherical and the most highly prized. By far the great majority are flattened or variously distorted and have little value. Size, color, luster and freedom from flaws are other essential qualities. Unlike other gems, such as diamonds, pearls have an average life of only about 50 years. In time the small amount of water in a pearl's make-up is lost and its surface cracks. Because they are mostly lime, necklaces which are worn often are injured by the acid secretions of the human skin.

David Miliband has become a surprise contender for the new post of EU foreign minister as an anti-Blair bandwagon gathers pace.

While the possibility of Tony Blair becoming the new president of Europe has dominated debate in Britain, a growing number of EU capitals have been quietly focusing on the merits of Mr Miliband.

No one in Europe believes that both of the prestigious new posts created in the Lisbon treaty could be filled by one country and Mr Miliband’s case has not been pushed by Britain. But around the EU there is a feeling that the Foreign Secretary is more acceptable than his old boss, who is hampered by his association with former President George Bush and his enthusiasm for the pearl jewelry Iraq war.

“We have a very favourable impression of Mr Miliband because he has good European credentials,” one Belgian diplomat told The Times.
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The more federalist countries such as Belgium and Luxembourg, which strongly oppose Mr Blair because he failed to take Britain into the single currency, were impressed at Mr Miliband’s participation in the Laeken Declaration of 2001, a statement of purpose that set the EU on the path to the Lisbon treaty.

Another EU diplomat said: “He is effective and well liked. He has an ability to combine tactics with an understanding of the political big picture and people find that very impressive.”

A senior German diplomat also waxed lyrical about Mr Miliband, saying that he had a brilliant mind whichthat would suit him well for the tough job of presenting a common EU foreign policy.

Speculation will be fuelled by a biwa pearl keynote speech on the future of the EU under the Lisbon treaty that Mr Miliband is due to give on Monday. The Times understands that he will set out a detailed vision for what the High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy — the long-winded title that many in Brussels openly refer to as EU foreign minister — should do.

Aged 44, the Foreign Secretary faces the prospect of life on the back benches after next May if Labour loses the general election. The highly-paid job in Brussels would give him a high-profile role on the world stage, while the dramatic return of Lord Mandelson from the EU has shown that it would not mean the end of his British political ambitions.

The list of other possible candidates is thin on star names. Front runners include Olli Rehn of Finland, currently the EU’s Commissioner for Enlargement, Carl Bildt, the Swedish Foreign Minister, and Ursula Plassnik and Dora Bakoyannis, former foreign ministers of Austria and Greece respectively.

Mr Miliband’s appointment would wreck Mr Blair’s chances of becoming president, which several countries, including Belgium and Luxembourg, seem keen to do — not least because their own Prime Ministers fancy their chances.

The leaders of the 27 EU countries are likely to discuss the candidates for both foreign minister and president at their summit in Brussels next week but the actual appointments have been delayed by the refusal of Vaclav Klaus, the Czech President, to ratify the Lisbon treaty until his country gets an opt-out from the akoya pearl Charter of Fundamental Rights.

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said: “I’m afraid we have no comment at all.”

For a while, she says, she moved on in her career without properly thinking

about it. The first time it sank in was when she was on Parkinson. “My mum

was just staring at me,” she says. “With her mouth open. And I was like, ‘

Mum, why are you looking at me like that?’ And she said: ‘How did this

happen? You’re my daughter and you’re an international superstar!’ She

really freaked out.” Accusations of pearl jewelry diva behaviour enrage her. “That’s the

thing that bugs me the most,” she says. “I do do stairs. You just saw me

come up here. I could easily be a diva, but that is not the way I’ve been

brought up. My mum would kill me.”

Her mother prefers not to know when she’s off to a warzone. She’s had scary

times. On one flight into Basra she was in a helicopter and was woken by a

voice saying, “Missile alert rear”. The helicopter, she says, “dropped

like a stone”. Another time, when she stayed at a base overnight, they were

expecting a mortar attack and she was instructed to hide under her bed. “And

then I got to my room”, she says, “and my bed was flat on the floor.”

On her first trip to Afghanistan, she was worrying about the flight out — an

uncomfortable military plane and no food. Then, in the airport lavatory, she

met a woman who had taken the biwa pearl same flight back. “She’d come in with the

wounded,” she says. “She’d heard them cry all the way back. I didn’t need

a wake-up call after that.” She takes her role as a forces sweetheart — the

new Vera Lynn — very seriously. “I wish more artists would do it,” she

says of her trips to Afghanistan and Iraq. “I suppose maybe they think there

’s a political thing attached and they don’t want to get involved. But the

troops don’t decide where they go.”

Unsurprisingly, she is studiously nonpolitical. She was asked to sing at the

Labour Party conference this year, but she couldn’t because she was busy.

And if she hadn’t been busy? “I’d rather not say.” She met David Cameron

the other week, when she sang on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC One. Afterwards

he told her that, right through his interview, he’d been able to hear her

singing next door.

Ask Katherine Jenkins for her heroes and she’ll reel them off: Marilyn

Monroe, Maria Callas, Edith Piaf, Barbra Streisand, Doris Day, Whitney

Houston, Madonna. That’s probably why people often think there’s something

slightly fake about Katherine Jenkins. Unusually in the classical world, she

sees herself as a star, not a akoya pearl musician. When I ask if she ever writes music,

rather than just sing it, she’s baffled. “I never have,” she says. Not

even a wee tune, fiddling on the piano? “I don’t know if I’m capable.

Maybe when I was a child ... but nothing that sticks out.”

More than pop stars, in truth, she reminds me of sports stars. If there was

an Olympic gold for singing, she’d win it. Although not for this new album.

Like I said, it’s horrible.

Believe is released by Warner Bros on Oct 26. Katherine Jenkins is

interviewed in Piers Morgan’s Life Stories tomorrow (ITV1, 10pm). Also that

night, she appears at G-A-Y@Heaven, London WC2, from 10.30pm (www.g-a-

y.co.uk)

Katherine Jenkins is lovely. Welsh songbird, international artiste, voice of an angel (Mark II), forces sweetheart, startlingly pretty blonde — what's not to like? And yet, I spend our evening together feeling incredibly guilty, because I know that pretty soon I'm going to get back to my desk, sit down, and type the words “but her new album is horrible”.

But her new album is horrible. Or, at least, very much not to my tastes. Believe is “crossover”, that curious, nay abhorrent form of music that takes ordinary, inoffensive pop songs and re-jigs them to make them sound like part of an opera. Weird thing to want to buy, in my view. Weird thing to want to do.

“What I really didn't want it to sound like,” Jenkins says sweetly over flickering candlelight in a West London restaurant, “is that French and Saunders sketch. Did you see it? They are in a recording studio, and she is singing ‘I SHOULD BE SO LUCKY, LUCKY, LUCKY LUCKY’ and it just sounds ... . ridiculous.”

Oh dear. That’s exactly what it sounds like. Not all of it, perhaps, but quite a lot. Certainly track eight, which is, no really, a cover of Bob Marley’s No Woman No Cry. When Georgie first made dat fy-er light, I’m thinking this probably wasn’t quite what he pearl jewelry had in mind.

Look, it’ll sell. They always do. Jenkins is not the 13th richest musician in Britain under 30 for nothing. The point of this album, as she freely admits, is America. Jenkins, 29, has her eye on transatlantic success. Accordingly, she has signed up Madonna’s famed PR Liz Rosenberg, she has recorded a Christmas special with Andrea Bocelli for the Public Broadcasting Service and she has this album.

“Usually we’d have a big meeting at the record company and I’d put forward the songs I wanted to do,” she says. “This time, I went to LA to work with David Foster [the producer] and I had no idea what I was going to do. We’d call up songs on iTunes and then I’d try them at the piano.”

The average American listener, Jenkins concedes, might not have the same classical awareness as a Brit. “You mix in the classical themes,” she says, “or what people would deem classical, like The Godfather, and you make people feel they have had a classical experience, even with pop pieces.”

Jenkins liked Los Angeles, wouldn’t mind moving there one day, but not any time soon because she’s got a house in North London and she’s quite happy, thanks. All bases covered there, you’ll notice — not offending the Americans, but keeping the Brits sweet, too. There’s a lot of this. Often it feels as though she’s taking too much care not to put a foot wrong. She’ll say she was swiftly adopted by the resident Welsh crowd in LA, and invited to the house of somebody very famous to watch the Wales v Ireland rugby match, but she won’t say who the person was. When I say it must have been a Jones — Tom, Catherine Zeta or, at a push Vinnie — she just smiles and very sweetly waits for me to ask something else.

Presswise, she’s had a scarring year. “Yes. I’ve started to read more and more things that just aren’t true. And there are things I just don’t think should be public knowledge. I recently found out that I had half-sisters, which I didn’t know about. I can biwa pearl deal with that, but they shouldn’t have to.”

The stupidest thing she’s read was that she and her boyfriend Gethin Jones (Blue Peter, Strictly Come Dancing) were bidding against Tony Blair for a house in Gloucestershire with its own dance hall. “I was not,” she says, “even house hunting.”

Until last year she was starting to find her own depiction in the press a little stifling. “They talk about this saintly Katherine who had never made a mistake,” she says. “And that’s really hard to deal with.” The niceness of Katherine reached its most unbearable during an interview with Piers Morgan for GQ. He asked if she had taken drugs. She said that she hadn’t. After it had run, she called him up and said that, actually, she used to take drugs quite a bit. He wrote about that, too, in the Mail on Sunday. The next week there were pictures — Jenkins wide-eyed, coke around the nostrils — with testimony from “friends” about how she used to bake hash cookies. “It’s a difficult question for anybody in the public eye,” she says. “Because if you say you have, are you saying its OK to do this? But look, I’ve made tons of mistakes, and actually, people amazed me. They said: ‘We’ve all done stupid things, we’ve all got skeletons in our closets. At least you were honest about it’.”

Too much regret, I say. It’s not like you were Whitney Houston. Can’t you just say, “Yes, I went clubbing a bit”, and leave the fake self-loathing to politicians? “Image is important to any person in the music industry,” she says, slowly, then she just sort of stops, and waits for the question to go away.

Some have called Katherine Jenkins a control freak, perhaps with good reason. She signs off every aspect of her “product”, from album covers to photographs to the smallest leaflet. At times like this, when she’s on the edge of what she can control, it very obviously bothers her. She’s much the same when we talk about her father.

Selwyn Jenkins was 55 when Katherine was born 29 years ago, and a retired factory worker. She’s often willingly told interviewers about how he died when she was 15. This time, she’s obviously worried I’ll ask about her newly discovered half-sisters (a pair of middle-aged twins from Neath) and, perhaps as a result, barely mentions him. How calculated this is, I have no idea. She has akoya pearl another bout with Piers Morgan this weekend on ITV1 in which — it was revealed yesterday — she breaks down while talking about an attempted rape she suffered as a 19-year-old student.

Morgan’s show will also provide the first public outing of a video of Jenkins’s first performance, on stage at Alderman Davies Primary School in Neath, aged 4, singing Going Down the Garden to Eat Worms. “My mum taught me the actions. It was all very cutesy and everybody was laughing and it was just, from then on, what I wanted to do.” The interest in classical music came through singing lessons and choirs. Her parents owned almost no classical records. “When I look back,” she says, “I didn’t do much of the going out and playing in the street, like my friends did. I’d be in until eight o’clock having piano lessons and all that. It was what I wanted to do.”

The plight of battered wives and other incidences of violence are being ignored by police, a report said yesterday. A third of the violent offences which were not recorded as crimes should have been.

An inspection of how police forces record violence showed that officers are deciding that thousands of violent incidents are not crimes.

Denis O’Connor, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, suggested that the drive to meet government targets could be one reason why officers were failing to record offences.

If the findings of the inspectorate, based on a sample of 479 cases, are repeated across all forces, it would mean that at least 5,000 offences of violence and their victims are pearl jewelry being ignored.
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Mr O’Connor said that the findings were a “matter of concern” and David Hanson, the policing minister, described such decisions by police as unacceptable.

Among the cases was that of one force which recorded that “no crime” had taken place when a woman’s partner slapped her, grabbed her by the neck and threw her on the floor, leaving her battered and bruised.

The officers wrote that the victim would say that she had injured herself and that her partner’s account was “more accurate”.

Mr O’Connor’s report said that the incident should have been recorded as actual bodily harm.

The decision to categorise some violent offences as “no crime” is said to disguise the real extent of violence in England and Wales. It also affects the assistance given to victims of attacks.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of biwa pearl Constabulary is to begin a wider investigation next year to establish whether the findings have wider national implications.

Mr O’Connor said it was possible that government targets were giving police forces incentives not to record crimes fully.

“There are some fairly well rehearsed perverse incentives around targets and ‘no crimes’ is one of those potentially,” he said.

He added: “It’s a very high error rate on a small sample. For us as the regulator, it’s a matter of concern.”

In another incident, a man was knocked to the ground by a blow behind his ear. He was then kicked in the body. He needed six stitches in his head. The officer said he found the circumstances unusual and that the man might have been under the influence of alcohol when he fell. Mr O’Connor’s report said the incident should have been recorded as grievous bodily harm.

The report found that 36 per cent of 479 “no crime” decisions were wrong. One in 20 should have been recorded as a serious violent crime and and a third as a less serious assault.

Mr Hanson said the Government was committed to the integrity of crime statistics and that ministers expected crime to be tackled.

“The report shows the majority of forces are performing well when classifying violent crime, but there are some issues that give cause for concern, especially around the way the police handle incidents which are reported as crimes, but later downgraded to ‘no crime’,” he said.

Chris Grayling, Shadow Home Secretary, said: “All of this just further undermines confidence in the crime figures and in the criminal justice system.”

The report also called for ministers to akoya pearl review the 150-year-old Offences Against the Person Act, under which assault is prosecuted.

The current division of assault into many categories, such as grievous bodily harm and actual bodily harm, is difficult for both officers and the public to understand, it said. Inspectors said it could be redrawn to include simple assault and assault with injury, which would be better understood by the public.