You are kindly invited to go to our polls page.

This will only take a few seconds!

Thank you!

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and business leaders visited Istanbul to secure a stronger foothold in Turkey’s domestic market and make good on its regional ties (Reuters).

BUSINESS

Brazil’s Embraer closed a deal to sell 20 planes to Argentina’s recently nationalized flag carrier airline (Reuters).

Brazilian mining giant Vale cut its investment plans for 2009 to $9 billion from $14.2 billion (Reuters).

Weaker demand for iron ore should force Vale to concede price cuts to Asian clients in annual negotiations, but any cut should be less than Australian rivals face (Reuters).

Brazilian insurance company Maritima expects to grow sharply in the next five years after selling a stake to Yasuda, a local unit of Sompo Japan Insurance Inc (Reuters).

Brazilian sugar and ethanol producer Cosan agreed to sell its aviation fuel business to Shell Brasil Ltda, the domestic unit of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, for $75 million (Reuters).

The merger of Brazilian food companies Perdigao and Sadia creates a global behemoth that looks poised to dominate the world poultry market (Reuters).

Itau Unibanco, Latin America’s largest bank by assets, said it is considering expanding in Brazil by acquiring small and mid-sized financial institutions to complement its line of products (Reuters).

Drogasil, Brazil’s second-biggest retail pharmacy, will stick with its plan to add about 40 stores this year as the pharmaceutical industry withstands the country’s economic slump (Bloomberg)

PETROBRAS

Investors have largely shrugged off a Senate investigation into Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras but uncertainty over the probe’s findings could eventually weigh on the share price of the Latin American energy powerhouse, analysts said (Reuters).

The China Development Bank may offer financing to Petrobras SA beyond the $10 billion, 10-year loan given to  company this week, Petrobras Chief Executive Jose Sergio Gabrielli said (Reuters).

Petrobras  sees its investments in the Black Sea totaling $300 million over the next two years, International Director Jorge Zelada said (Reuters).

BIOGENETICS

Brazil’s biosafety regulator CTNBio has approved the use of Monsanto’s Bollgard 2 genetically modified cotton seed (Reuters).

ELECTIONS

A new health scare for Dilma Rousseff, the presidential hopeful for Brazil’s ruling party, has raised further uncertainty over next year’s election with some coalition partners calling for the president to consider backing other candidates or running himself (Reuters).

ECONOMY

Brazil’s unemployment rate fell to 8.9 percent in April from March (Bloomberg).

The strong, consistent winds that for centuries have powered the colorful wooden “jangada” fishing boats off Brazil’s northern coast are now making the area the center of the country’s fastest-growing energy sector.

Read the full story at Reuters

A law expected to be approved by Brazil’s Congress granting 1.2 million people and numerous companies titles to a huge chunk of the Amazon rain forest could provoke a new wave of land-grabbing and deforestation, conservationists warn.

Read the full story at Reuters

OIL

Sao Tome and Principe and Nigeria are expected as of 2011 to auction off four new oil blocks, which are smaller than those currently under prospection, the president of the Joint Development Authority (JDA) said (Macauhub).

LOAN

The President of Nigeria, Umaru YarÁdua has requested that parliament approve a government proposal to grant a subsidised loan of US$10 million to Sao Tome and Principe, to help the country to solve its financial difficulties (Macauhub).

RETAIL & BRAZIL

Over 150 containers of various food stuffs are due to arrive in Sao Tome from Brazil on 29 April, as part of the first imports by local retailers, thanks to a credit line of US$5 million from the Brazilian government (Macauhub).

PRIVATISATION

The government of Sao Tome and Principe intended to privatize the water and electricity company and should shortly launch an international tender, said the minister for Natural Resources, Energy and the Environment Monday in Sao Tome (Macauhub).

A U.S. trade accord with Panama, which is opposed by labor unions, won’t be submitted to Congress for approval until President Obama offers a new “framework” for trade, an administration official said (Bloomberg).

Panama’s specialty coffee growers say they harvested fewer high-priced beans this year and struggled to meet contracts with buyers because of bad weather and problems with labor and investments (Reuters).

SR Rating, a Brazilian firm, will soon issue a judgment on American government bonds.

Read the full story in The Economist

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Tribunal is the most overburdened court in the world, thanks to a plethora of rights and privileges entrenched in the country’s 1988 constitution. A critic from within found his audience.

Read the full article in The Economist

The share of Brazilians who described themselves as Catholic fell from 99.7% in the first census to 73.9% in 2000. But a new trend is emerging.

Read the full story in The Economist

BANKING

Brazil’s state development bank BNDES said on Friday it disbursed 2.0 percent more in loans in the first four months of this year than last, as companies hit by the global recession deferred investments or turned to commercial creditors (Reuters).

FRAUD

Brazil’s Senate launched an investigation on Friday into alleged tax and procurement fraud at state-owned oil company Petrobras. The inquiry will investigate indications of fraud in the procurement of oil platforms, the construction of an oil refinery in the northeastern city of Recife and in the use of sponsorship funds (Reuters).

MEAT

Brazil’s JBS, the world’s largest beef producer and owner of JBS-Swift, reported a bigger first-quarter loss, citing a surge in debt servicing costs and losses at its Argentine unit (Reuters).

Perdigao, Brazil’s second-largest food company,  posted a net loss of 226 million reais ($108.4 million) for the first quarter, versus a 51 million reais profit for the year-ago period (Reuters).

Sadia, Brazil’s largest poultry and pork producer posted a net loss of 239.2 million reais ($114.8 million) for the first quarter, after a net profit of 248.3 million in the year-ago period (Reuters).

TELECOMS

Brazilian telecommunications group Oi Participacoes said  its first-quarter profit fell 98 percent after it took over smaller rival Brasil Telecom (Reuters).

AIR TRAVEL

Brazilian airline Gol Linhas Aereas posted its first profit in six quarters as fuel costs dropped and the company trimmed financial and operational expenses (Reuters).

OIL

Brazil should create a new state-run oil company to manage some of its subsalt oil reserves and adopt a production-sharing model in other areas, the head of the National Petroleum Agency said (Reuters).

Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency (ANP) also said it had denied state-run oil company Petrobras a time extension to exploit five blocks in the subsalt cluster (Reuters).

STEEL

Cia. Siderurgica Nacional, Brazil’s third-biggest steelmaker, announced on Wednesday the appointment of Paulo Penido Pinto Marques as its new chief financial officer (Reuters).

CHEMICALS

Brazilian petrochemical giant Braskem SA won a 555.6 billion-real ($268 million) loan commitment from the Brazilian government as part of a plan to produce polyethylene through the use of ethanol (Reuters).

At a time when big financial firms are reviled by many for leading the world into crisis, a ramshackle bank on a potholed street has lessons in economic independence that are catching on around the world.

Read the full story at Reuters

South Africa’s banking system was stable and performing better than systems in many developed markets, Nedbank Group chairman Reuel Khoza said.

Read the full story in Business Day