According to a report from Brazil's Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) released Tuesday, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of South America's largest country grew 0.8% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the last three months of 2023 and 2.5% interannually after a 0.1% contraction in the fourth quarter of last year.
Health authorities in the Brazilian flood-hit State of Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul confirmed Monday that an eighth patient had died of leptospirosis, Agencia Brasil reported. The victim was a 31-year-old man from São Leopoldo who had prolonged exposure to contaminated water.
Brazil tops the list of suspected dengue cases in the region with 6.3 of them, followed by Argentina's 420,000, Paraguay's 257,000, and Peru's 200,000, Agencia Brasil reported Monday. In South America's largest country, more than 3 million of these notifications have yielded positive laboratory results.
With the European Union and United States strongly limiting imports of electric vehicles, EV, from China, exports of manufactured pure electric and plug-in hybrid cars to Brazil soared 13-fold year-on-year to 40,163 units in April, making it the biggest export market for a second straight month, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).
Urban trains in Porto Alegre resumed operations this week, albeit on shortened routes, as the capital city of the Brazilian State of Rio Grande do Sul slowly recovers from the unprecedented floods caused by rains way above average, Agencia Brasil reported. Convoy capacity was also cut down to 30,000 passengers from the usual 110,000 passengers on working days.
Less than a week after announcing a codeshare agreement for flights marketed jointly but operated separately, Brazilian carriers Gol and Azul were reported to have engaged in talks that could lead to a full-size merger that would reshape the entire gameboard for the aviation industry in the region.
The government of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced on Wednesday the transfer of Ambassador Frederico Meyer from Tel Aviv to Geneva to head the mission before the United Nations (UN) Conference on Disarmament, Agencia Brasil reported. According to the Diário Oficial da Uniao, a replacement has not been sent to Israel.
The global container shipping capacity has been strained due to the Red Sea/Suez Canal situation and a restocking cycle in the U.S. and Europe with strong purchasing of Chinese goods. On May 17, the Shanghai Export Containerized Freight Index (SCFI) rose to 2520.76 points, a 9.3% increase from the previous week and more than a 130% increase since the Red Sea crisis in December, points out the Shanghai Shipping Exchange.
According to the latest MapBiomas survey, the Cerrado has surpassed the Amazon as Brazil's most deforested biome in 2023 following the damages detected in the region known as Matopiba, which includes Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí, and Bahia totaling 1,110,326 hectares destroyed, a 68% increase from 2022.
The new CEO of Brazil's State-run oil company Petrobras Monday defended during a press conference the company's current pricing policies to preserve domestic market stability, Agência Brasil reported. Magda Chambriard had been on her post three days after a reshuffle ordered by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.