Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff pledged to hold talks with her growing number of critics and said her embattled government needed to show humility, after the Sunday massive protests erupted across the country.
Brazilian prosecutors have formally charged the treasurer of the ruling Workers' Party and 26 others with corruption linked to state-run Petrobras, in the latest blow to President Dilma Rousseff from the widening scandal.
Brazilian police arrested a former Petrobras executive on Monday, in a broad kickback and money laundering investigation that has rattled some of the nation's biggest companies and political parties.
Over one million demonstrators marched in cities and towns across Brazil to protest a sluggish economy, rising prices and corruption, and some even calling for the impeachment of populist President Dilma Rousseff. The marches on Sunday come as Brazil struggles to overcome economic and political malaise and pick up the pieces of a boom that crumbled once Rousseff took office in 2011.
Argentina’s central bank governor Alejandro Vanoli said that despite the continued erosion of the Brazilian currency against the US dollar, which ended the week trading at 3.28 Real to the greenback, monetary policy will continue to manage the foreign exchange to avoid volatility and ensure economic growth.
Pro-government labor unions, student organizations and social activists staged demonstrations across Brazil on Friday in support of President Dilma Rousseff, two days before mass protests planned against her administration.
Brazilian meats giant JBS SA plans to focus on Australia, U.S. pork operations and its processed foods division under a 2015 strategy focused on organic expansion rather than acquisitions, CEO Wesley Batista said on Thursday, and estimated that between 2.5 billion to 3 billion reais (806 million/967 million dollars) in capital investment will be needed this year to support the strategy.
Brazil's economic growth depends more on the approval of austerity measures needed to rebuild investor confidence than on a weaker currency, Finance Minister Joaquim Levy told O Globo newspaper.
President Dilma Rousseff said here Thursday that Brazil's economic woes are cyclical in nature that the austerity measures her administration has adopted to rectify the situation will begin to bear fruit late this year.
Brazil's Central Bank appears likely to continue raising interest rates in the short-term, saying in its most recent meeting that its inflation-fighting effort in recent months has been insufficiently effective. The view was reflected in the minutes, published on Thursday, of its monetary policy committee's March 4 meeting, when the bank raised its benchmark Selic interest rate by 50 basis points to 12.75%.