UK crowning fuels calls to return royal gems to S.Africa

THE coronation of King Charles III has rekindled calls for Britain to return to South Africa the world’s largest diamond, the centrepiece of the sceptre he will hold at Saturday’s ceremony.

The 530-carat First Star of Africa was unearthed in 1905, when South Africa was under British rule, and donated two years later by the colonial government to King Edward VII for his 66th birthday.