As a reminder to all, KRY owns absolutely nothing by way of any VZ assets and only have a contract to extract the ore on behalf of the CVG, which is state owned. The recent annoucement from Ortega not only punishes foreign investment and will make it difficult to further raise funds to build a mine (why the probablity of a major jumping in after the fact will likely occur), but it also punishes the small guy on the street - poor ordinary Venezuelian's. I still cannot get my head around the "no open pit mining" comment and how this comment plays into whatever the strategy is on the behalf of the government agencies regardless of the fued between Ortega and Sanz. Just does not make any sense to me. Now we hear the concept of "Negotiated clarification" and will no doubt learn what this means shortly and perhaps it is a new contract between CVG and KRY or other where more $$ are going back to the government in exchange for a permit. Let me be clear, I have no idea if this is or will happen, but we will no doubt learn soon what a "negotiation clarification" will be and hopefully soon. Whatever happens lets just get a decision on either to mine Las Cristinas or not and let's not continue to drag this on any longer. GT was in fact correct when he said the permit was political, which also tells me he knows more as to what is going on whereas some believe otherwise. The CVG (aka Sanz) needs to push Chavez for a decision to move Las Cristinas forward and KRY is poised as a easy decision for Chavez as KRY has done more then its fair share of good corporate citizenry and owns nothing but a contract to extract ore....nothing more and how Chavez likes it. Below is a cut and paste of an article commenting on " negotiated clarification." Link: http://vheadlinevenezuelanews.blogsp...

"There is, however, the possibility of a "negotiated clarification" to be announced by President Hugo Chavez himself after two weeks of embittered wrangling between environment Minister Yubiri Ortega de Carrizales and Mining Minister Rodolfo Sanz."