Are you ready for the media barrage, the hugs and kisses, the UpCloseAndPersonal stories, the tales of true courage, the overblown media circus bullshit? According to this morning's wires, the hole that they're drilling to rescue the 33 trapped Chilean miners is now just 40 metres from breaking through, that the miners have made a list and know their order of appearance up the pipe, that President Piñera is going to get his mega photo-op before jetting off to Europe on the 15th and it could well all go down this weekend. Meanwhile, your humble scribe notes that there are no less than 600 journalists on site at "Camp Hope", split roughly equally between national and foreign hacks, which means each miner gets 18 reporters to talk to each. Jeesh, the queue for the cocktail bar must be terrible, guys....
In unrelated news, Chile's congressional committee has agreed on the terms for the new royalty law being re-pushed through parliament by Piñera on the back of the trapped miners palarver and will likely get voted through in full parliament next week. The law means royalties on mining of between 4% and 15% til 2017. But like I say, totally unrelated, that one.
UPDATE: Latest latest is 1) breakthrough today and 2) miners get to come out Tuesday October 12th once the steel linings are fixed and ready in the tunnel. So now you know.
UPDATE: Latest latest is 1) breakthrough today and 2) miners get to come out Tuesday October 12th once the steel linings are fixed and ready in the tunnel. So now you know.