The blackout period remains in place, page-17

"A blackout period in place is good news......it means there is something going on behind closed doors.....so there is still hope yet"

I agree, my gut feeling is that there are genuine discussions/negotiations taking place.
The fact that the blackout period has been in place for so long means that the negotiations have also been going on for that long.
If in fact the negotiations have been going on for such a length of time then I would think that we may hear something very soon as to whether those negotiations have amounted to anything significant.
Hopefully agreements can be reached and we can at last see some good news.