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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Tuesday was an anemic 82-71-157 as the TSX Venture Exchange rose five points to 626. Ewan Mason's Star Diamond Corp. (DIAM) was among those in retreat, as it lost one cent to 8.5 cents on 163,000 shares.

Star sputters along while investors await an end to an impasse between the company and Rio Tinto Exploration Canada Inc. (RTEC), its soon-to-be-former co-venturer on the FalCon diamond project in central Saskatchewan. RTEC shocked Star, analysts, pundits and the market at large, with word it was putting FalCon on care and maintenance while it plotted a way to quit the project.

A year later, Star, now led by Mr. Mason, its chairman and for the past six months its interim chief executive officer, is still working to arrange a fair way for RTEC to leave. Mr. Mason had been expecting to settle the matter before Star Diamond's annual general meeting in late May, but when the meeting convened, not only did he not have a blockbuster announcement to make, but he said he had been "gagged" by his company's lawyers, who said he was "not allowed to say anything."

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