
The S&P 500 and Dow Jones industrial average notched record closing highs on Monday as news of another promising coronavirus vaccine fanned hopes of eradicating Covid-19, while spiking infections and new shutdowns threatened to hobble a recovery from the pandemic recession.

By Matthew Smith for Oilprice.com – Sharply weaker oil prices, the COVID-19 pandemic, and heightened geopolitical uncertainty have done little to blunt Brazil’s epic offshore oil boom. By September 2020 Brazil had soared to be the third-largest supplier of crude oil to China, the world’s second-largest economy.

As a result of the significant operational and financial risks presented by the global pandemic, the Falkland Islands Meat Company, FIMCo, in consultation with the autonomous government of the Islands, FIG, and elected lawmakers, MLAs, has made the decision not to employ any overseas meat workers this summer.

Argentine meat processing plants will invest US$ 187 million in a bid to increase exports from the country by 33% over three years to 1.2 million tons per year, the head of a local trade group said on Monday during a conference with government officials.

Economy Minister Martin Guzman and other Argentine officials were placed in preventive isolation on Sunday after a member of a visiting IMF mission tested positive for COVID-19, the government said.

Asia Pacific nations including China, Japan and South Korea on Sunday signed the world’s largest regional free trade agreement, encompassing nearly a third of the world’s population and gross domestic product.

Economic activity in Brazil rose in September for the fifth month, a central bank survey showed on Friday, more than economists had expected, pointing to a solid recovery in the third quarter from the worst of the COVID-19 shock earlier in the year.

The continuing coronavirus pandemic poses the most significant risk to Chile’s financial system as institutions’ capacity to take mitigating action diminishes, the country’s Central Bank warned in a report on Wednesday.

Dominic Cummings quit as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s most powerful aide and will leave by the end of the year. The news will plunge the Prime Minister’s leadership into a rough situation at a critical time for the UK as it navigates the closing stages of Brexit.

More than 30 years after the overthrow of Jean-Claude Duvalier, Haiti is still waiting to get back the fortune that the dictator and his family deposited in Switzerland. The delay is down to legal intrigues being played out in the Swiss courts.