
The UK and Brazil made agreements on financial services, taxation, sustainable growth and Green Finance, helping to boost jobs and investments for UK companies. The fourth Economic and Financial Dialogue (EFD) between the UK and Brazil on 10 December 2020 saw the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, and the Brazilian Economy Minister Paulo Guedes, meeting to build further economic ties between the two countries. They were joined by central bank Governors and heads of financial sector regulators.

United States health authorities, shipping services and hospitals stood ready on Friday to immediately launch a mass-inoculation campaign of unparalleled dimension, as federal regulators granted emergency approval to the first COVID-19 vaccine in the United States.

Argentina’s lower house of Congress approved a bill to legalize abortion in the early hours of Friday morning, a big step forward for the legislation that could set the tone for a wider shift in conservative Latin America.

Uruguay will hand to Argentina next 16 December the pro tempore chair of the South American trade bloc Mercosur. The ceremony as happened six months before with Paraguay will be virtual given the coronavirus pandemic, according to a release from the Uruguayan Executive Office.

The Brazilian government has the financial tools to support some of the country’s most vulnerable people next year without threatening the spending cap, its most important fiscal anchor, Economy Minister Paulo Guedes said on Friday.

Federal prosecutors in Brazil filed a civil lawsuit against Danish shipping company Maersk and former executives representing the firm for alleged corruption involving shipping contracts with state-run oil firm Petrobras, they said on Friday.

Argentina said it has secured doses to begin administering Russia’s Sputnik vaccine before year-end and President Alberto Fernandez will be the first to take it. The government is planning to give the shot to 10 million vulnerable Argentines before March, Fernandez said.

Argentine grains inspectors and oilseeds workers extended on Friday a wage strike as stalling contract negotiations threaten to interrupt exports from one of the world's main grain producers.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised he will raise the matter of the Falklands fishery in the European Union after Labour MP Derek Twigg made representations on behalf of the Islands at Prime Minister’s Question Time on Wednesday.

A panel of outside advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration on Thursday (Dec 10) voted overwhelmingly to endorse emergency use of Pfizer Inc's coronavirus vaccine, paving the way for the agency to authorize the shot for a nation that has lost more than 285,000 lives to Covid-19.