
Brazilian food company BRF SA said the potential closure of slaughterhouses due the spread of the novel coronavirus at meat production sites would make it impossible to keep output at current levels.

The Falkland Islands Government this week unveiled plans for a “prudent” budget that maintains the current levels of expenditure but does not propose any increase in fees and charges. The budget aims to keep the current levels of service delivery but shies away from major investments or increases in operating costs.

The German economy is likely to shrink by 6.6% this year as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic before growing by 10.2% in 2021, the Ifo Institute said on Thursday in its latest update.

The coronavirus lockdown will ease next week for most of Britain's population, Boris Johnson announced on Thursday, as a row persisted over the prime minister's closest adviser taking a long-distance journey during lockdown.

Uruguay's Economy minister Azucena Arbeleche confirmed that the Inter American Development Bank had awarded the country a 1,7bn dollars soft loan to address the sanitary, social and economic emergency as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Americas will bear the brunt of an estimated 305 million job losses that the coronavirus pandemic will cause worldwide between April and June, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said on Wednesday.

Chile's government is struggling to control a coronavirus outbreak that could revive mass social unrest as its hospital system comes under increasing pressure. With a population of 18 million, Chile is reporting new Covid-19 cases at a pace comparable to that of Spain at the peak of the virus' spread in March, on a per capita basis, and resources are close to maxed out in Latin America's wealthiest economy.

The health system in Peru is on the brink of collapse, with public hospitals facing drastic equipment shortages amid a rising number of coronavirus cases. A University of Washington study has projected that Covid-19 deaths in Peru will reach nearly 20,000 by August, indicating that demand is likely to outstrip the supply of beds in intensive care units.

The European Union unveiled a proposed 750-billion-euro (US$ 825bn) recovery plan Wednesday to get the continent back on its feet after the devastation wreaked by the coronavirus pandemic, as Latin America outpaced Europe and the US in the number of daily infections.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged Britain on Wednesday to move on from what he described as a “very, very frustrating episode” when his closest adviser provoked outrage for taking a long-distance drive during the coronavirus lockdown.