My thoughts are you are correct about Balanger he is being very candid about his plans. The quote from his statement, "To be blunt, while we are always looking for an amicable conclusion...this is no longer a rescue operation, it's more a recovery of the body - which is dead.” Says it all.

The only difference is Balanger sold all of his mining eqipment ordered for Brisas long ago, while Fung has elected to hang onto ours. Therefore the candid statement about arbitration from Belanger is no suprise as he telegraphed his intentions long ago.

So even though we have Belanger's solution availiable to us, we still have opportunities for a few other solutions.

Balanger is talking about $5B So at arbitration. He makes it clear that he wants to recoup expenditures and the value of lost potential mining revenue. This is good because most of the 5B he is talking about is just about what the GRZ agreement is / was worth. That confirms our agreement is very valuable also. I could easily imagine and agree to arguments that a KRY arbitration suit / settlement is worth 1.5 or 2 times a GRZ arbitration suit / settlement, but it might be 2012 before a settlement if we go down the same path. At this point if we as shareholders got a buyout offer for anything around $2 dollars PPS, I think it would be a done deal, because too many people want out. I would be very leary of any talk of settlement or buyout arangement or a JV with the Venezuelan Government, because I vehemently do not trust them nor do I think they have the ability to pay.

I wonder what we as shareholders would have to see as a buyout to settlement ratio?

What would it have to be? 2 dollars now vs 6 dollars in 2012? 8 dollars? 10 dollars?

The comments made in other posts about the condition of the Venezuelan economy and infrastructure failure and Chavez complete failure as a leader are totaly correct. One would expect he would be overthrown immediately. I think our prospects of getting permission to mine is dependent on Chavez being replaced by a more moderate Venezuelan Government. But as each day passes he is still there and you have to look at Cuba and the Castro regieme as a good history lesson, also N. Korea , Iran etc. What makes perfect sense to most of us is 180 degrees from what is actualy occuring.

So I think Belanger is trying to maximize benefit for his shareholders and has decided the arbitration route is the best. Whether we go this way may be determined by bird in the hand a fair offer now vs. 3,4, or 5X that in the bush. I imagine Fung's timeline for a decision on how to proceed is probably close to Belanger's schedule even though it is unannounced at this time.

Good luck everyone.

It makes more sense to me to take a complete loss for tax purposes than to sell for less than a fair offer.

Hondo.