The E/W road will happen IMO, and soon. I think all the parties involved (FN, Noront, Cliffs,KWG and other mysterious unknown parties) all know this already and have been told by the prov. / feds that this is the start of things to come. Along side of this road will be the power lines from Pickle Lake to the ROF, not to mention the communications network. This will satisfy the two sides of the coin being that the FN on the one side will get out of the dark ages and improve their access to the outside world and the other being the mining operations and all their power, transport, and mining necessities. At best this will allow things to move foward, not permanently, but temporarily, till the mines become established and show significant resource extraction. The EA will no doubt go thru as expected and the proposed road scenario will solve the human aspects of development first as outlined by Bob Rae, make the whole FN factor very happy. Secondary to this are the mining companies, which will have to make due with the road until the rail is put in; we all know this is a must. My guess is that the rail will happen shortly after the road, or possibly in concert with the road once it shows significant progress on its way to the ROF. My guess is that the current state of both KWG and Noront sp is as many have stated, due to something big that is about to happen, and I believe a Noront / KWG merger is close at hand since sp movement on both fronts is barely fluctuating; IMO. How everyone else fits in to this is beyond me at present, unless Xstrata or Baosteel have been secretly positioning themselves for the kill. Cliffs could also be holding a poison pill against KWG, the question is will the government allow them to use it; I think NOT.