
Brazilian police arrested a senior General Electric Co executive on Wednesday, as part of a sprawling investigation into fraud in medical equipment tenders overseen by health authorities in the state of Rio de Janeiro, police and prosecutors said.

Industrial output in Brazil plummeted in May at the sharpest pace in a decade, highlighting the deep impact of a nationwide truckers' strike in the final weeks of that month. Production fell 10.9% from April, government statistics agency IBGE said on Wednesday, the largest decline since December 2008.

Embraer SA Chief Executive Officer Paulo Souza e Silva said the company is in the final stage of talks to combine operations with Boeing Co, newspaper Valor Economico reported on its website late on Wednesday. Souza e Silva, attending an event hosted by the paper, declined to elaborate on details of the agreement and described the negotiation as complex.

A Brazilian businessman famous for amassing and then losing a multi-billion-dollar fortune has been convicted of corruption and money laundering and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Jailed former Brazil president Lula da Silva has decided to cease commenting on the World Cup for Brazilian television to avoid breaking election rules. The 72-year-old leftist politician was the front-runner for October's presidential elections until his incarceration in April after being convicted of accepting a bribe from Brazilian construction company OAS.

Brazil's Supreme Court (STF) Justice Edson Fachin has referred the appeal filed by the former president Lula da Silva's defense team to the full court. The ruling is expected for August, after the recess of the Brazilian judiciary.

Brazilians' disapproval of Michel Temer's administration has risen from 72% to 79% in the second quarter of 2018, according to a survey conducted by the National Industry Confederation (CNI) and Ibope.

The Brazilian real climbed almost 1% against the dollar on Thursday, as a rout on Wednesday led to a technical correction and a key poll showed Brazil's left failing to gain steam in presidential elections scheduled for October.

Brazil’s central bank on Thursday slashed its growth forecast for 2018 gross domestic product after a nationwide truckers strike paralyzed key sectors of Latin America’s largest economy. The bank sees GDP growth of 1.6% this year, according to its quarterly inflation report, compared to 2.6% previously.

Argentina’s benchmark MerVal stock index closed down 8.8% on Wednesday, its worst daily performance since early 2014, as concerns about trade tensions between the United States and China prompted a selloff across emerging market assets.