Brazil

• Wednesday, April 6th 2016 - 08:42 UTC

  Brazil's governance crisis closer to a snap election as soon as October

  

  A Supreme Court judge ordered Brazil's Congress on Tuesday to start impeachment proceedings against Vice President Michel Temer, deepening a political crisis and uncertainty over leadership of Latin America's largest country. Justice Marco Aurelio Mello told the lower house to convene an impeachment committee to consider putting Temer on trial on charges he helped manipulate budget accounting as part of President Dilma Rousseff's administration.

• Tuesday, April 5th 2016 - 06:26 UTC

  Brazil's defense makes its case before the congressional impeachment committee

  

  Attorney General Jose Eduardo Cardozo told the congressional impeachment committee Monday that Rousseff had done nothing wrong and to remove her would be tantamount to a putsch.“As such, impeaching her would be a coup, a violation of the constitution, an affront to the rule of law, without any need to resort to bayonets,” Cardozo told the 65-member committee.

• Tuesday, April 5th 2016 - 05:47 UTC

  Panama Papers: Brazil with 57 names including companies and politicians from all parties

  

  Politicians from seven parties in Brazil were named as clients of a Panama-based firm at the center of a massive data leak over possible tax evasion, O Estado de S.Paulo said on Monday.

• Monday, April 4th 2016 - 04:12 UTC

  Petrobras launches voluntary layoff program to cut 12.000 jobs

  

  Brazil's embattled oil company Petrobras said it will launch a voluntary layoff program to cut an estimated 12,000 jobs in a bid to save up to 33 billion reais ($9.20 billion) by 2020. The program will cost 4.4 billion reais and is open to all employees, according to a statement from Petrobras, which has been hard hit by low oil prices, refinery project problems and a massive price-fixing, bribery and political kickback scandal.

• Sunday, April 3rd 2016 - 07:52 UTC

  Mega corporation Odebrecht involved in Petrobras case, plans to sell assets to meet debt obligations

  

  Troubled Brazilian construction company Odebrecht SA plans to sell about 12 billion reais (US$3.4 billion) in assets to help meet its debt obligations, according to the builder’s chief executive officer. The company had a gross debt of 85 billion reais in 2014, the most recent figure available, but much of it is long-term debt and the biggest payments start only in 2025, Odebrecht CEO Newton de Souza said in an interview published Friday in the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper.

• Thursday, March 31st 2016 - 02:04 UTC

  Rousseff cancels Washington trip to avoid Temer from becoming acting president

  

  President Dilma Rousseff decided on Tuesday to cancel her planned trip to the United States next Thursday to participate in the 4th Nuclear Security Summit, to be held in Washington.

• Thursday, March 31st 2016 - 00:28 UTC

  European Court supports UK ruling on Brazilian mistakenly shot dead in 2005

  

  British authorities were right not to prosecute police officers over the killing of a Brazilian man who was shot dead on the London Underground after being mistaken for a suicide bomber, a European court ruled on Wednesday.

• Wednesday, March 30th 2016 - 08:32 UTC

  Brazil Finance minister disregards calls from Lula for tax breaks and more credit

  

  Brazilian Finance Minister Nelson Barbosa said on Tuesday it is not the time for more tax breaks, disagreeing publicly with former president Lula da Silva's call for fiscal stimulus to revive a moribund economy.

• Wednesday, March 30th 2016 - 06:28 UTC

  Dilma main ally abandons government pushing her closer to impeachment

  

  A anticipated Brazil's largest party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, PMDB, announced on Tuesday it was leaving President Dilma Rousseff's governing coalition and pulling its members from her government, a departure that raises the odds she could be impeached in a matter of months.

• Tuesday, March 29th 2016 - 08:38 UTC

  Brazil's Bar Association filed an impeachment request against Rousseff for obstruction of justice

  

  The Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) filed a request on Monday to impeach President Dilma Rousseff for obstructing justice, fiscal accounting tricks and granting international soccer body FIFA tax-exempt status during the 2014 World Cup.