I agree that recent reports, even though sketchy, look positive. It does seem almost comical though that Ortega could first approve GRZ's permit, and then revoke it, quoting conditions at the site as a reason when it turns out she has never even visited the region!

In KRY's case there were initial reasons stated for not issuing their permit at the same time as GRZs but to me they all seemed to be relatively easy to overcome. However from that point onwards it seems the channels of communication dried up.

Obviously something happened in MinAmb soon after the time GRZ got their permit. GRZ management reported that the cordial and open relationships they had previously had with MinAmb staff suddenly became very format and restricted.

It seems that an instruction from higher up was issued to stop the process and GRZ suddenly found themselves with permit but no "Initiation Act", a one page formal letter actually allowing construction to start, and apparently normally a routine administrative issue.

Later events seem to indicate that Ortega was converted to "the green religion" about that time but it still took her a year to reverse her previous permissions and even then the action of refusal for KRY and revocation for GRZ was obviously very poorly thought through and executed.

In a normally functioning bureaucracy such actions are carefully planned and the documents throughly checked by the government legal experts, because they know that there will be legal challenges which they will latter be called on to defend.

It is quite apparent by the factual inaccuracies and the misquoted law that these documents did not go through the normal process and are actually very amateurish.

We can but wonder exactly what sort of operation Ortega actually conducted and just how much support she had both from within and without the MinAmb.

Fortunately she now seems to be sidelined somewhat, but until we see anther minister formally appointed to the post I wonder what influence and power she has within the Chavez insiders.