Hard as diamonds

Hard times lie ahead for the people of Jwaneng, a town of 15,000 in southern Botswana. The world’s richest diamond mine, a mainstay of the local economy, will be mothballed until mid-April at least following a collapse in global demand.

Even for Botswana, for long the model of how a poor country can use its minerals to build a path from poverty, there is no escape from the the financial crisis.

“There is no doubt we are facing a huge challenge,” Ian Khama, Botswana’s president, told the Financial Times in his first wide-ranging interview with a foreign newspaper since taking office in April.

“The main reason is because we have been very dependent on revenues from minerals, especially diamonds, ever since they were found in the seventies.”

Find out more about the mine and the town with this slideshow.