RUBY LAND

A girl pans in a stream near Mogok, Myanmar, which is estimated to produce 90% of the world's rubies. The area, 450 km north of the capital Napyidaw, also hosts sapphire and semi-precious lapis lazuli, garnet, moonstone, peridot and chrysoberyl. This ‘Valley of Rubies’, in the former Burma, is a source of ‘pigeon's blood’ rubies, a 25.59 carat variety of which last year sold for a staggering £19.3-million at a Sotheby's auction in Geneva. In Singapore this month, the London Aim-listed Gemfields will be auctioning rough ruby mined at its 75%-owned Montepuez ruby deposit in Mozambique.