“The week that comes we are going to introduce before the Office of the public prosecutor to begin an inquiry by the disappearance of 430 million dollars during the management of Sanz. We are arranged to demand accounts”, asserted to him.

Looks like the "take charge" guy may have simply been the "take it" guy. Add in a healthy dose of stupidity (you have to admit....Sanz looks like the poster child for 'you can't fix stupid' http://primicias24.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/rodolfo_sanz_1481.jpg ) and you end up with an abysmal failure for anything touched by Mibam\CVG.

So the music has stopped yet again in the ministerial game of Venezuelan musical clown chairs and we are left with:

1. A man of hispanic descent (I forget his name) to replace Gorilla Face at Minamb

2. A man of Chinese descent (Kahn) in charge of Mibam\CVG.

I'm not sure I agree with the premis that Kahn is there primarily to cover up the state sponsored corruption prevalent during Sanz' tenure, although that might be an ancillary job function. I get the impression that Venezuela really wants to get down to brass tacks and begin mining gold ASAP for obvious financial and political reasons.

The fact that Kahn received the verbal endorsement of Doug B at the most recent GRZ conference call is telling.

I don't think anyone can argue with the fact that the past few years under Sanz & Ortega have been a waste. However, we are still in good standing with Minamb and are still in compliance the MOC.

In no way do I think we've heard the last of GRZ in this whole mess. Venezuela made a large blunder when they stole Las Brisas from GRZ after the failed, criminal stink bid offer made by Rusoro. These clowns are used to stealing built, productive infrastucture. They initially look like heroes of the working man when they steal an operational bauxite mine, gold mine or oil refinery. The mine or refinery still employs people and produces revenue while they haggle over how little they will pay for the stolen asset. The destruction of productivity and resentment by employees to the inept state management develops over time. It is surprising how quickly expropriated industry has been driven into disarray....as evidenced by the total disillusionment of 'Jose six pack'. As a wise man once said: "Socialism works until you run out of other peoples money".

These idiots failed to comprehend (until now IMO) that stealing an undeveloped asset (i.e. Las Brisas) is a lose-lose proposition. Venezuela is left with the undeveloped asset that is effectively frozen pending resolution of the ISCID action.....which they will most probably ultimately lose. Of course they can go ahead and make a deal with someone else (I like to describe it as selling the same horse twice) if they can find someone dumb enough to invest hundreds of millions into a project with this type of legal encumbrance hanging over it. Of course, the beauty part, from the perspective of GRZ, is that they would have the perfect vehicle for justification\payment of their ISCID claim via the revenue stream of the mine built with other peoples money on Las Brisas....if this mine were to be built during the course of the ISCID action. It is clear, therefore, that any resolution to the Las Cristinas\Las Brisas saga will require the agreement\acceptance of GRZ. Doug Ballinger is as dumb as a fox. He will get his pound of flesh one way or the other when this whole thing is resolved.

Between the "Return of Khan" and the secret 'potential' investor that has delayed bankruptcy (there...I said it!) for one more quarter (according to KRY management's latest public financial disclosure) along with the most recent runup in shareprice, I expected a deal (already done behind the scenes) to be announced in time to be voted upon and ratified at the upcoming AGM. I no longer believe this to be the case. I do believe that the stage has finally been set for productive, intelligent dialogue between all of the players involved....including Venezuela, GRZ, KRY and your favorite commie of choice. Of course now that Venezuela, thru it's actions, has destroyed the capitalization of KRY and severely hampered our ablity to raise capital going forward, the situation is unnecessarily complicated by talk of issuing 'gold bonds' to finance mine construction. Between, the unresolved issue of 'gold bonds' and how they would work, the need to resolve the situation with GRZ along wth additional potential complications unknown to us (i.e. is there any truth to the rumor that Venezuela wants to develop Las Cristinas\Las Brisas as a single project...as much as this doesn't appear to make any logical sense) I have to believe that this could take awhile. So hurry up and wait.

Where does this leave us? I believe that the intact Las Cristinas MOC is too valuable for KRY to go bankrupt....especially with majors on the prowl to replenish their dwindling reserves and with gold ready to go ballistic once it finally dawns on the world that all currencies are flawed and that a crime has been committed for 40 years in the gold bullion market. I believe the secret 'potential' investor will continue to finance us on a quarter-by-quarter basis as long as productive talks are ongoing. This should burst Hugo's bubble if his plan was to bankrupt us. Unless Fung is lying...someone is apparently waiting in the wings to finance us thru arbitration if this becomes necessary. Hmmmm....filing for arbitraton with gold at (pick a number).....say....$2,500.00\ounce has to have some type of reasonable payoff. Can Venezuela be that stupid? Again, bear in mind, they are stealing an asset that has not yet been built. IT WON'T F'N WORK! As I said before....I think the appointment of Kahn shows that even Venezuela is now cognizant of that concept and is ready to bargain in earnest.

How long will the bargaining process take? Your guess is as good as mine.