Brazil

• Sunday, April 2nd 2017 - 08:34 UTC

  Electoral Court decides this week on continuity of Temer's presidency

  

  Brazilian President Michel Temer is facing a terrible week, with a court theoretically annulling his presidency and forcing him to step down from office. Temer is widely expected to find a way to escape this. But the mere fact that a court is considering such a thing shows the depths of uncertainty in Latin America’s biggest country as it tries to survive in a huge corruption scandal, a two-year recession and record unemployment.

• Friday, March 31st 2017 - 07:40 UTC

  WHO dispatched 3.5 million doses of yellow fever vaccine for outbreak in Brazil

  

  In response to the yellow fever outbreak currently on-going in Brazil some 3.5 million doses of vaccine from the emergency stockpile were deployed to the country through the International Coordinating Group (ICG) on Vaccine Provision for yellow fever.

• Friday, March 31st 2017 - 05:05 UTC

  Odebrecht insists Rousseff was aware of slush funds provided for the presidential campaign

  

  One of Brazil's leading newspapers, Folha de Sao Paulo, reported that the Odebrecht family group confessed to have provided the 2014 presidential ticket campaign, Dilma Rousseff-Michel Temer with millions of dollars in slush funds for the campaign.

• Friday, March 31st 2017 - 04:39 UTC

  Rousseff's “hangman” sentenced to 15 years in prison for corruption

  

  A federal court sentenced Brazil’s former speaker of the Lower House, Eduardo Cunha, to more than 15 years in prison on Thursday for corruption, making him the highest-profile political conviction yet in the “Operation Car Wash” scandal. The former politician’s defense team said they would appeal the decision but Cunha will remain imprisoned pending appeal.

• Thursday, March 30th 2017 - 10:11 UTC

  Brazil and US in talks for a Temer visit to the White House

  

  Brazilian and U.S. officials are in talks about a White House visit by President Michel Temer to discuss bilateral trade and investment issues, according to Planalto sources. U.S. President Donald Trump invited Temer for a visit during a March 18 phone call, when the two leaders discussed deepening commercial and business ties between the Western Hemisphere's largest economies, the sources said.

• Thursday, March 30th 2017 - 09:56 UTC

  Brazilian tainted meat: minister believes “the worst of the process is over”

  

  Worldwide markets have been slamming their doors on Brazilian meat since revelations that rotten product was being sold with faked certificates, but the agriculture minister said Thursday “the worst of the process is over.”

• Thursday, March 30th 2017 - 06:25 UTC

  Brazil's Temer job on the line: Electoral Court could force him out of office on campaign financing

  

  Brazilian President Michel Temer since taking office, in May 2016, has faced one crisis after the other, and now the man who rose to power thanks to an impeachment process of Dilma Rousseff, faces himself the threat of removal from office.

• Wednesday, March 29th 2017 - 07:36 UTC

  Brazil ready to further cut interest rates to support economy as inflation falls

  

  Bigger interest rate cuts are an option for Brazil's central bank, Governor Ilan Goldfajn anticipated, signaling an emphasis on supporting the economy as inflation falls faster than expected. The central bank has lowered its benchmark rate in each of monetary policymakers' four meetings since last October, when it made the first cut in four years. The bank reduced the rate by 25 basis points in each of the first two cuts, followed by two drops of 75 basis points apiece. The rate now stands at 12.25%.

• Tuesday, March 28th 2017 - 07:58 UTC

  China, Russia, EU interested in operating Brazilian railways

  

  Brazil's planned auction of the rights to expand and operate the North-South railway between Tocantins and Sao Paulo states has drawn the interest of major operators from countries including Russia, China and Spain, a government official said.

• Monday, March 27th 2017 - 11:07 UTC

  Petrobras posted losses of US$ 4.8 billion during 2016

  

  Brazil's state-run oil company says it posted a US$4.8 billion loss in 2016 mainly because of a reduction in the value of assets it needs to sell to lower a debt estimated at more than US$100 billion.