The Brazilian government has announced plans for $7 billion in spending cuts and $8 billion in additional taxes aimed at plugging the hole in the country’s 2016 budget. The austerity package is designed to balance the harsh economic downturn of the seventh-largest economy, whose sovereign credit rating was cut to ‘junk’ status last week. The measures are going to freeze public sector salaries,... 

A grim Ministry of Finance (MOF) report circulating in the Kremlin today warns that Venezuela’s “nuclear option” crashing of its currency yesterday is a “clear signal” that the Western banking systems “house of cards”, erected in the aftermath of the 2007-2008 Global Economic Crisis, is in “total collapse” with the expected final outcome to be an “apocalyptic” crash of the US...