Bolivia: Amazon Road Deal Canceled
April 10, 2012 - New York Times (Reuters)

By REUTERS

President Evo Morales said Tuesday that he was rescinding a contract awarded to the Brazilian company OAS to build a road through the Amazon, casting further doubt on a project that set off fierce antigovernment protests last year.

Mr. Morales partly halted work on the most controversial stretch of the road in September, seeking to ease tensions over the $415 million project, which met with strong opposition from his indigenous base.

Brazil's state development bank was to have financed about 80 percent of the project, which has been at the center of Bolivian politics for nearly a year. Mr. Morales had put the road plan at the heart of his drive to increase infrastructure investment in the impoverished nation.