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by Will Purcell

The critical and specialty minerals stocks box score for Thursday was a mediocre 83-89-138 as the TSX Venture Exchange jumped 20 points to 1,017. Jean Raymond Boulle's Star Diamond Corp. (DIAM) continues to tread water in silence -- akin to the last few survivors of the Titanic, chilled to the bone and unable to utter a sound. Star has clung to its 3.5-cent flotsam since fall, keeping within one-half cent of that mark over the past five months -- save for just a few hours on one mid-November day.

The silence bodes ill for Star's still loyal retail shareholders, a few of whom still hold a candle of hope that a coming prefeasibility study will wow the market and perhaps entice Rio Tinto to launch a big reacquisition bid. Beyond the land of fantasy, however, lies the growing possibility that Star Diamond may miss its fourth quarter target for completing that study -- and potentially by years, not mere months.

That target is still regulatory gospel -- unamended material news -- as Star Diamond has not uttered an official peep to investors since Ewan Mason retired in mid-November and two of his old guard resigned as directors. The new crew -- led by United Kingdom-based Lester Kemp as interim chief executive officer, Texas-based Wayne Malouf as chairman and Saskatoon-based Mark Shimell as chief operating officer -- have been as quiet as the crew of a nuclear submarine drifting beneath a flotilla of enemy destroyers.

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