Rob Bates usually rounds up all the jewelry and gem news from around the Web, but he is off this week, and as far as I can tell, there is only one story that must be on your reading list this weekend: Time’s new cover story on blood diamonds.

“Blood Diamonds,” which covers the Sept. 7 issue and was released online Thursday, looks at the industry’s progress since the 2000 meeting in Kimberley, South Africa, that birthed the Kimberley Process.

The piece was written by Aryn Baker, with images by renowned war photographer Lynsey Addario, and the basic thesis is: The industry is doing really good work, but there is still work to be done.

Among the organizations and brands quoted in the piece are Brilliant Earth, Vale Jewelry, De Beers, GIA, and several NGOs.

One thing to note about the article: It gets the numbers right, eschewing the oft-quoted figure that 25 percent of diamonds are blood diamonds. (“Ian Smillie, one of the early architects of the process and an authority on conflict diamonds, estimates that only 5% to 10% of the world’s diamonds are traded illegally now compared with 25% before 2003,” writes Baker.)

The Time cover

JCK