The sparkly iPad 64 GB, covered in solid Platinum and set with 173 precious diamonds, weighs an impressive 2,700 grams.

Designer Stuart Hughes is offering the glitzy limited edition for the cool price of £299,995. For technology-lovers, the iPad is the Wi-Fi & 3G, 64GB version.

Only five pieces will be made and set with 85.5 carats of ‘I’F’ Flawless diamonds embedded in the solid platinum frame.

The Apple-designed tablet computer is a platform for audio and visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, and games, and online content. Apple first released the iPad in April 2010, and sold 3 million in 80 days!

“People are loving iPad as it becomes a part of their daily lives,” Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO commented at the time. “We’re working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more people around the world, including those in nine more countries next month.”

Weighing just 700 grams, it rivals the size and weight of today’s smartphones and laptops, and runs the same operating system as the iPhone.

Designer Stuart Hughes is renowned for his luxury designs and products, which include gold and diamond television sets, diamond encrusted suits, and solid gold ipods.

Hughes was also behind the MacBook Air Supreme Ice Edition, a solid platinum laptop encrusted with 53, 25.5 carats, Flawless diamonds, set in a solid Platinum Apple logo! Only 10 pieces were created.

IDEX Online News reported on the controversial decision that will enable the Kimberley Process’ review mission to take place in September.

KP Monitor Abbey Chikane will supervise the review and then again to certify the second supervised export. His report and future exports will then be reviewed by the Kimberley Process Monitoring Committee.

‘Although we can regard this as progress, there remains much to do,’ said World Diamond Council President Eli Izhakoff. ‘We need to build on this and to continue the hard work of the past several months.’

Delegates from Zimbabwe, headed by Minister of Mining Obert Moses Mpofu and
Attorney General Johanne Tomama, and from the U.S. led by Susan Page, Assistant U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, attended the Meet.

Also on the agenda was the issue of refining the Kimberley Process’ process steps. Industry representatives including government officials, members of banking communities, and media figures attended the Meet.

The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (Kimberley Process) is an international governmental certification scheme that was set up seven years ago to prevent the trade in diamonds that fund conflict. The scheme requires governments to certify that shipments of rough diamonds are free from blood diamonds.

Global Witness has recommended steps of ‘strengthening government controls, increasing government oversight of the industry, the publication of the statistics, and financing of the scheme by NGOs.’

Three of the world’s most expensive suits have been designed and decorated with 480 delicate diamonds.

The Sun newspaper reported the £599,000 hand-stitched two-piece suits are designed by tailor Richard Jewels and made from a cashmere, wool and silk blend.

Mr Jewels told the newspaper: “I hope to establish a luxury brand that will not only capture the eyes but the hearts of the consumers.

“The Jewels brand for men and women will offer unrivalled customer service…emphasis on our products is to solidify one’s individuality.”

600 hours of work are behind each garment. Each precious stone is 0.5-carats and total 240 carats of diamonds.

Ten percent of each suit sold will go to the Haiti relief fund. The first suit has already been sold to a buyer in France.

The Eternal Borgezie Diamond Stiletto shoes are valued to be £100,000 (Dh558,000) and are sculpted from a few hundred grams of gold with more than 2,200 brilliant-cut diamonds totalling 30 carats.

The House of Borgezie designer said: “It’s a combination of a number of factors. It’s the glamour and it’s obviously the spending power as well.”

The company claims the shoes are the first to ever be made with a gold sole and heel. Seven gold wires in a cone shape form the stiletto spike and the stamen-fluted heel is modelled on a lily. Each pair needs 150 hours of craftsmanship with the design alone taking four years.

Diamond set stiletto shoes

100 pairs can be made by the company every year and the designer has already received five orders so far, mainly from the UK and Europe.

The Birmingham-based jeweller anticipates high interest from clients in the Middle East after research he personally carried out in Dubai last year.

“They really do attract a lot of attention,” he told The National. “Women tend to spot them.”

About the changing price of gold increasing the retail price of the shoes in current economic climate, Shellis noted: “It’s not mass-market. There is only so many of these we will sell globally and it will be very, very high echelon.”

The diamond mine, which opened in November 2008, and is located 30 km north-east of Kroonstad in South Africa, now has 305 permanent employees, with over half from the local area in Fezile Dabi.

De Beers Voorspoed mine GM Mpumi Zikalala says that the mine’s staff comprises about 86% historically disadvantaged South Africans, and just under half of the workforce are women, 26% of which make up the the mine’s technically skilled workforce. 1.9% of employees are disabled persons and the mine also employs local suppliers (22% of its spend) and makes full use of local services, including transportation of employees, building maintenance, general officee cleaning and events management.

Mining Weekly reported that one half of the spend on local suppliers is firmly focused on regional black empowerment. The diamond mine is currently involved in establishing a multipurpose brick and paving manufacturing facility, due to open in September, and is supporting 25 schools and 39 educators in mathematics and science.

The diamond mine has also supported the creation of the Rearebetswe (meaning ‘we are answered’) papermaking group, in Viljoenskroon, which uses available agricultural waste including corn hushs and milkweed fibre to make container boxes,c ards, and creative packaging, and other projects as part of its corporate social investment initiatives.

The £20 Million display of precious jewels loaned by Bond Street Store Leviev including a £3.2 million flawless blue diamond set in a daisy-shaped ring made the garden worth three times more than all the other gardens at the Flower Show altogether, according to the newspaper. The stones were then replaced with fake stones for public viewing.

Garden designer David Domoney described the garden, which also features Chiltern marble, Roman plinths and backlit walls with semi-precious stones such as quartz and amethyst, as more ‘bling’ than Paris Hilton.

Diamonds Garden worth more than the whole of Chelsea Flower Show

‘Because of the safety aspect the jewellery will not be there during the open days,’ he said. ‘The value of the garden will be worth more than the whole of Chelsea Flower Show this year, last year and the year before that.’

‘This is a feel-good garden,’ he told the BBC. ‘When you wear jewellery – you feel good. This garden has the same effect.’

Along with the precious gems, the garden is planted with flowers like thistles and peonies that have inspired jewellery along with plants named after jewels like the hosta diamond tiara and thuja emerald conifer.

Domoney has courted controversy before with his use of piranhas in a display last year and for using Viagra to perk up plants.

Bob Sweet, Royal Horticultural Society Show director, has confirmed the garden will get extra security.

Diamond encrusted headphones

Along with a request for a helicopter ‘on stand-by’ she wants a pair of £3,000 diamond-encrusted headphones “to keep the noise of the boat’s motor down,” reported the Daily Mirror.

The American actress, singer, record producer, designer and television producer also wants a custom-fitted speedboat with a love seat, faux leather seats and champagne fridge,.

 Lopez has also demanded an entire hotel floor to herself, a piece of the beach roped off for privacy,
an on-call masseuse and a 12-strong hair and make-up team.

“Jennifer was partying on Sir Philip Green’s yacht in Cannes before being transferred to Monaco for the World Music Awards (WMA) by a speed boat,” the newspaper quoted a source as saying.

The paper also  reported that when asked if  she  needed a private butler, the offer was refused with the pop star known as J.Lo insisting she was more than capable of doing things for herself.

 According to Forbes, the 40-year-old  is the richest person of Latin American descent in Hollywood. J.Lo is also the most influential Hispanic entertainer in the U.S. according to People en Espanol’ss list of ‘100 Most Influential Hispanics’.

 Married to long-time pal and work colleague, Marc Anthony, the couple have 2-year-old twins, a boy and girl, Emme Maribel Muñiz, and Maximilian ‘Max’ David Muñiz.

 In 2007, Lopez received the Artists for Amnesty International award “in recognition of her work as producer and star of Bordertown, a film exposing the ongoing murders of hundreds of women in the border city of Juarez, Mexico”.

Steinmetz Diamonds, one of the official partners of the McLaren-Mercedes team, supplied its British drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton with the glittery helmets

In past years the McLaren drivers have had their initials inlaid into their helmets with the precious gems but this year Steinmetz decided to celebrate the team’s victorious history (15 wins) and that of the drivers: Button had the number ‘09′ for his win last year at Monaco, and Hamilton the number ‘08′ for his win in 2008.

Hamilton told Motorsport.com: ‘They look absolutely incredible and add a real bit of bling to the cars’. ‘I won in 2008 wearing a Steinmetz diamond-studded helmet, so I’m hoping it will bring me luck again this year’.

Australian driver Mark Webber won the Formula One world championship on Sunday. The only other Australian to have won the race in Monaco is racing legend Sir Jack Brabham, in 1959.

Jenson Button came in 4th with 70 points followed by Lewis Hamilton in 7th place with 59 points.

Formula one is the world’s most expensive sport. Cars race at speeds up to 360 km/h (220 mph) with engines revving up to a formula imposed limit of 18,000 rpm.

Grand Prixs are now held all over the world with more than half held in Europe. Formula One race attracts a global audience of 600 million people for each race.

‘The vigour seen in the US and Asia was equalled here in Europe, with strong prices achieved for fine jewellery, watches and wine. Demand for stellar examples rivalled that seen at the height of the market, which very much seems to have returned ‘en force’,’ Francois Curiel, President of Christie’s Switzerland, said in a statement.

A flawless white 40.21-carat diamond originally estimated at $4.5 million-$5.5 million was sold for 5.69 million Swiss francs ($5.14 million) at Wednesday’s auction.

The auction house’s sum jewellery sales totalled $33.9 million, above the high end of its pre-auction estimate. It stated 89 % of the 220 lots were won by new owners.

Jean-Marc Lunel, head of Christie’s jewellery department in Geneva noted: ‘Once again diamonds dominated the total, although signed period jewels proved the most popular pieces in the sale.

‘Two private collections of fine vintage jewellery virtually sold out for $9.9 million, while every lot in the special ‘Cartier section’ found a buyer, achieving a total of $4.2 million.’

Key rival Sotheby’s netted 60 million Swiss francs ($54.10 million) at its jewellery sales in Geneva on Tuesday. Sparkly highlights included a Cartier piece, an Art Deco ‘Tutti Frutti’ set with rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and emerald and onyx beads, which sold for more than five times its pre-sale estimate.

‘White Light’, a 41-carat diamond and enamel brooch mounted in white gold with 13 pear-shaped diamonds and pave diamonds, designed by award-winning British jeweller Shaun Leane, sold for 1.1 million Swiss francs.

Garden expert David Domoney is designing the ‘Ace of Diamonds’ display, which will feature £20 million worth of the precious stones.

“This year it is high-end and extreme but with a strong horticultural message,” Domoney said. “We want to show how jewellery has been inspired by plants throughout history, such as use of the thistle in Celtic designs. Many varieties of plants and flowers have been named after jewels and gems.”

Peony-shaped Ring set with Pink Diamonds

The display deal struck with the Bond Street jeweller Leviev will feature a £1 million, peony-shaped ring set with pink diamonds and a central green diamond, and a rare fancy vivid blue diamond flower ring set amid eight pear-shaped diamonds, worth a cool £3.2 million.

Bob Sweet, director of the show, said: “There are security issues to address but we support the novel approach from the designer. David Domoney always seeks to bring an extra thrill to his gardens. We have had valuable sculptures and works of art at Chelsea before, but I think this will be the highest value garden ever to be shown.”

Visitors to the garden expo can stroll along the garden’s pathway, designed to represent the loop of a chain (and when viewed aerially, the layout resembles a necklace with the central diamond-shaped patio forming a pendant.)

The Ace of Diamonds display will be the most expensive garden design in the event’s 88-year history, with a value of approximately $30 million.

The Chelsea Flower Show begins on May 25, 2010 and closes on May 29.