A word on how rumours work in South America

I got several mails this week after posting this little line on Wednesday........

Expect Ecuador's new mining law to be published next week. That's good jungle drum juice. Don't put the cart before the horse, boyz.

.....and basically the mail enquiries were a variation on the same tunes of "is that true?", "how do you know?" and "is that reliable?". So a word on how rumours work down here, and here are three bullet points on the subject (in no particular order).

• When it's politics involved there are no dead certainties. Delays happen, last minutes changes to Presidential schedules a hundred other things.
  

• More important is the quality of the intel. After a few years in the region you get inside an information circuit (or maybe better said two or three of the thousand circuits), and after a while inside that circuit you get to know which source is totally trustworthy, which is a bit of a BS merchant who sometimes comes up with the goods, which needs to be double-checked, and all flavours in between.

• A lot of info which ranges from open secrets to half-baked BS scandal fodder passes this desk. A lot. With the blog, I basically take the same attitude as with my personal contacts, i.e. if it's not worthy of passing on, it won't be passed on. If it's what I consider good intel, then I'll mention it. In the end it's my call and the buck stops here.
  

So in the specific case of "Ecuador mining law coming out next week", nothing has changed on that one since last Wednesday and I fully expect it to happen, probably later in the week once Chávez has come and gone from Ecuador (the H man visits Tuesday). To give a bit of background, I understand that Correa wants to meet with Chiriboga to discuss a couple of items contained in the draft before the final law is published, pomp and fanfare and press conference and the whole nueve yardas. So once the Muffin has his chat with Galo, the green lights are on.

Would I bet 20 bucks that the law hits next week? Yes, no doubts. I've heard from three separate places that it'll happen, one is particularly trustworthy and duplicity is unlikely from at least two of the three. Would I bet my mortgage on it happening? No, don't be stupid. This is LatAm. Relax and smell flowers.