Morales’ flirts with seizing silver

BOLIVIA: The nation’s first Indigenous President is considering nationalising a Canadian miner’s silver property in order to ease Indigenous protests over a contested mining project.

But Evo Morales says he has not yet made the final decision about whether he’ll revoke South American Silver Corp’s concession.

“Nationalisation is our obligation, I already raised the issue of nationalising (the Malku Khota project) last year, and I told (local residents) to reach an agreement, because when they want to we’re going to nationalise,” Morales was reported as saying.

It follows violent protests over the exploration in the Malku Khota region. The company wants to start the extraction process around 2014, but there are several Indigenous groups concerned bout the project.