This really sound encouraging!

(excerpt)

<< VHeadline Venezuela News reports: Marlene Vargas, the Mayor of the gold-mining settlement of Sifontes in southeastern Bolivar State says she expects a meeting this week with senior government officials will finally clear up a series of long-term difficulties experienced by the area's small-scale and artesanal miners.

"We're waiting for news about what is to happen with several large mining projects in the area and Basic Industries & Mines (Mibam) Minister Rodolfo Sanz has promised to tell us how far he has got with negotiations to get the projects started once and for all," she says. "We want to facilitate industrial-scale mining and to get additional areas assigned to small miners who have traditionally worked for gold to survive.>>