Kinross leaves Ecuador Kinross is walking away from their Ecuadorian project and in the process taking a substantial write down. As the Ecuadorian gov`t is drafting new legislation to promote their countries mining interests Kinross is pulling the pin on Fruta del Norte citing an inability to find common ground with the Federalies. Royalty taxes and restrictive advancement of the project seem to be the problem....Kinross to take all the risk and the government to book the majority of the profits This is a wake up call for all the miners trying to do business in an ever increasing authoritive juristiction that both Central and South America seem to be trending towards. In Mexico EPZ.V has been denied key permitting aswell and is in the process of being pumelled. Meanwhile back in Guatemala GDX continues to wait, and wait, and wait. I think all these "banana republics" will become increasingly difficult to develop any resources in. How long has GDX been waiting for the exploitation license to actually go in there and get the goods...no problems with the exploration phase of things as we spent all our money dilineating their deposit....THEIR DEPOSIT !! If only we could generate a bit of dough, pay down the accumulated costs and then go explore the Northern part of the concession that holds so much promise.....it almost seems like things are being orchestrated against the company so that we fall intio default and are prone to expropriation ( speculation) . Management has no intention of giving up on this property but in the end what can anyone do. Kinross is a big fish to have swim away and may set the precedent for more to follow. If this infact comes to be the case in a weak gold environment perhaps homegrown projects ie: Yukon, Alaska, Quebec may be the place to deploy our speculative dollars. In a recent chat with IR I am of the opinion not expect much of anything on El Pato this summer as GDX lies in wait trying not to attract any attention from the strong anti-mining faction that is present through out the country. Best to watch Tahoe as their Escobal project nears production and the pro-mining versus anti-mining sides bring their conflict to a head. GDX remains a day trader here but it`s looking more and more unlikely that you can get in for a penny and out for 2.