Violent crime cost Brazil 258 billion Reais (about 100 billion dollars) in 2013, a figure equivalent to 5.4% of the country's GDP, according to the new Brazilian Public Safety Annual Report, in which it is stated that an average of six people died in police operations each day during the year.
Venezuela needs a 'major social agreement' to adjust its economy and overcome the current and persistent political conflicts in the country, said Ernesto Samper, chairman of Unasur (Union of South American Nations) during a visit to Brasilia.
Brazil raised domestic wholesale gasoline and diesel prices for the first time in more than 11 months effective Friday in a move to bolster the finances of the heavily indebted Petrobras oil and gas company after years of refining losses.
The number of Brazilians living in extreme poverty grew for the first time in a decade, according to government figures. The Institute of Economic Research reported that the number of people in households with incomes below the poverty threshold of 30 dollars rose from 10.1 to 10.5 million people, which means a 3.7% increase.
Mercosur and the Pacific Alliance are not contradictory competing blocks, and can advance towards a mutually beneficial convergence, said Chile's Economy minister Luis Felipe Cespedes during a trade and investment promotion seminar in Brazil.
Brazil ran a trade deficit of 1.17 billion last month, the largest shortfall for October in 16 years, the government said on Monday. Imports totaled 19.5bn, while exports amounted to 18.3bn, the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade said in a report.
Brazilian banker Luiz Carlos Trabuco Cappi, president of Bradesco, turned down an invitation from president Dilma Rousseff to occupy the Finance ministry as of next January first. According to the Sao Paulo financial publication Valor, there was no insistence on the issue from political sources.
The re-election of President Dilma Rousseff's in Brazil has exposed a deeply divided country with an overwhelming support for the incumbent in the impoverished northeast, where millions receive benefits from huge welfare programs the ruling Workers Party (PT) has rolled out over the past decade.
Argentina and Brazil were elected by the United Nations General Assembly as members of the UN Economic and Social Council, ESOCOC for a period of three years beginning next January first. Argentina received 182 out of 186 votes.
Brazil and Uruguay as of next December will be able to use local currencies in bilateral trade, disregarding appealing to US dollars, based on the agreement signed last Friday between the central bank presidents of the two countries, Alexandre Tombini (Brazil) and Alberto Graña (Uruguay).