Jackals,

The MOA was signed off by the respective parties in May 2002 at which time the approval process began.

In Canada the process to mine a gold property usually takes about 5 years for the approval process to be completed ie. from the application stage to pushing the dirt/mining the property.

To date in Ven the process has taken 6.5 years, but I hear things move a little slower the closer you get to the equator. I presume it must be a heat thing?

I believe we are very close to getting the green light for startup operations. I could be wrong but it appears the market is recognizing that fact as well, with the recent increase in KRY's share price.

My understanding is 85% of the people in Ven live in poverty and alot of the gold mining in the vicinity of Las Cristinas to date has been done illegally by local groups of small miners. Some of the small miners claim they have illegally mined gold for 15-20 years so I don't believe they have held down a structured mining job for a Company in their life time. My understanding is when Chavez sent in the troops to remove the small miners from the Las Cristinas Property, the entrance area to the property was fenced to eliminate access, and armed security guards were mobilized to eliminate the illegal, small mining activities.

Hopefully, this answers your questions.