Striking truckers in Brazil have disrupted supplies and exports from one of the world's agricultural powerhouses, triggering the premature slaughter of millions of chickens as feed failed to reach farmers. The strike over high fuel prices has paralyzed Brazil, the top global exporter of soybeans, sugar, coffee and chicken.
Brazil's Minister of Institutional Security Sergio Etchegoyen on Tuesday rejected calls to deploy military troops to break up protracted nationwide protests against fuel price hikes. Etchegoyen, a general appointed by President Michel Temer, said such a heavy-handed response was outdated.
Brazil’s Superior Labor Court (TST) ruled on Tuesday that a 72-hour strike planned by workers of state-run oil company Petrobras was illegal, the office of the government’s solicitor general said.
One of the main unions behind a crippling truckers' strike in Latin America's largest nation on Tuesday called on its members to return to work, warning that failing to do so would erode hard-won gains.
A nationwide protest by Brazilian truckers was slow to unwind on Monday, even after the week-long demonstrations against diesel price hikes got the government to cave to their demands, causing stocks and the currency to slide.
Brazil's President Michel Temer announced late on Sunday new measures to reduce operating costs for truckers in a bid to end a week-long protest that has severely hampered the flow of food, fuel and key exports in Latin America's largest economy.
A truckers protest over diesel prices that has crippled key sectors of Latin America's biggest economy dragged into Friday night, putting drivers in a standoff with Brazilian President Michel Temer who authorized military force to clear highways. The protest will stretch into its sixth day on Saturday.
Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht SA's will use part of a 2.6 billion reais (US$709.96 million) bank loan to repay a loan in arrears with state-controlled bank Banco do Brasil SA, according to sources quoted by Reuters. Under the terms of an agreement announced on Friday, the engineering group, at the center of a corruption scandal, will repay a 100 million reais debt to Banco do Brasil.
BYD, China’s biggest electric vehicle maker by sales, signed a 2.5 billion Brazilian real (US$ 689 million) deal this week to build a monorail system in Brazil’s Salvador city, the firm said. It’s the company’s biggest overseas monorail investment yet, according to a company spokesperson. Construction will start on the 20-kilometer route this year, and it’s expected to begin operations in 2021.
The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) declared Brazil free of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) with vaccination on Thursday, opening new export prospects for the world’s largest beef exporter. The OIE already considered most of Brazil to be free of foot-and-mouth with vaccination. The declaration, which the government had been expecting since the start of the year, extends certification to the whole country.