http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a70e0dcc-0149-11de-8f6e-000077b07658.html

The world's biggest and most valuable diamond mines have been mothballed since the start of the year when De Beers put its Botswana production on hold as sales of the stones slumped.

Global sales of the precious stones, which trade through auction houses and private placements rather than commodity markets, have fallen to a standstill.

She said the challenge was to retain the "agility" to start up once demand returned.

Last week, Standard and Poor's, the credit rating agency, warned that it might downgrade its opinion of Botswana's creditworthiness in light of the turmoil in the diamond market.

mothball 使わないものを保存しておく

standstill 停止

retain 保つ

agility 軽快さ

in light of …の観点から

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/front/Swiss_must_be_creative_with_banking_secrecy.html?siteSect=105&sid=10358472&cKey=1235294066000&ty=st

On Wednesday UBS paid nearly SFr1 billion ($850 million) in fines and agreed to hand over details of 250-300 customers to avert criminal proceedings relating to a tax evasion investigation.

On Thursday US tax collectors issued UBS with a civil lawsuit seeking the identities of about 52,000 US clients who allegedly kept billions of dollars at the bank to dodge the Internal Revenue Service. UBS has said it will fight the case.

The Department of Justice had initiated criminal proceedings against UBS and the Swiss authorities obviously felt this could have serious consequences for the liquidity and existence of UBS.

The problem is that our neighbours are being denied the means they need to maintain their welfare states. That is the point that we have to understand. I don't really buy the argument that Switzerland should grant asylum to tax refugees because they are being pursued by high tax countries.

avert 避ける

evasion 回避

dodge 巧みに回避する，ごまかす

proceeding 訴訟手続き

grant 与える

asylum 保護施設