EDWARD ZWICK - DIRECTOR ZWICK CRITICISES DIAMOND CAMPAIGN

LATEST: BLOOD DIAMOND director EDWARD ZWICK has slammed a campaign to get stars to wear diamond-encrusted jewellery to promote the gemstone industry during the current awards season. Celebrities have been asked to brandish the jewels as part of the Raise Your Right Hand campaign - the industry's attempt at combating the negative publicity brought on by the release of Blood Diamond, starring LEONARDO DiCAPRIO - in exchange for a $10,000 (GBP5,550) donation to an African charity of the stars' choice. But Zwick, who believes charity is "best done in private", maintains the campaign is a "charitable bribe". He says, "The cruel irony that the raising of one's hand and the using of one's hand to vote was the prompt for the Revolutionary United Front to chop off hands in Sierra Leone. "It's either some colossal cluelessness or remarkable indifference to that reality that would somehow try to equate raising one's hand with a diamond on it as a promotional counter-measure to the effect of the film. "I find that rather distasteful, I have to say." BEYONCE KNOWLES and JENNIFER LOPEZ were criticised by human rights campaigners last week (15JAN07) for supporting the campaign by wearing diamonds to the Golden Globes.