Bolivian president to meet rebel governors

Bolivian President Evo Morales has agreed to meet with opposition governors in a bid to break the country's political deadlock. The meeting will take place in La Paz on 7 January.

The five governors are deeply opposed to the president's leftist reform programme. Four provinces recently declared themselves autonomous in response to a draft constitution which only has the backing of the president's allies.

The opposition governors accuse the president, himself an Aymara Indian, of supporting the country's indigenous population at the expense of richer regions. They want the government to direct more funds from the president's energy nationalisation to their own regions away from the country's poorer indigenous regions.