Oi SA, Brazil's largest fixed-line telephone carrier, plans to start meetings with bondholders and banks next week as part of the country's biggest-ever bankruptcy protection process, Chief Executive Marco Schroeder said on Thursday, Reuters reported. To restructure its 64.5 billion reais ($20 billion) of bonds, bank debt and other liabilities, Oi will propose a mix of cuts in the nominal debt value, extension of maturities and conversion of debt to equity, he said in a phone interview. Schroeder did not elaborate on the terms to be proposed.

Brazil’s unemployment rate increased between March and May, while wages continued to decline, as Latin America’s largest economy faces a deep and prolonged recession, the Financial Times reported. Joblessness rose to 11.2% from 10.2% in the previous three-month period and 8.1% compared with a year earlier, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, or IBGE, said Wednesday. Average monthly wages fell to 1,982 Brazilian reais ($582), adjusted for inflation, from 2,037 reais in the year-earlier period. The drop in jobs and wages comes as the country’s recession lingers.

Brazil's biggest bankruptcy filing ever is sending shockwaves far beyond the recession-hit country's borders as operator Oi SA seeks creditor protection from global telecoms suppliers and export banks around the world. Oi is seeking protection on over 500 million reais ($150 million) of accounts payable to international providers from Nokia Corp and Ericsson to IBM Corp and Alcatel-Lucent SA, according to court documents reviewed by Reuters.

Brazil’s federal government plans to bail out the state of Rio de Janeiro with 2.9 billion reais ($849 million) as it struggles with a fiscal crisis less than two months before the Olympic Games begin, The Wall Street Journal reported. According to a presidential decree published late Tuesday, the transfer is to be used for public security during the Olympics and Paralympics, set to be held in August and September, respectively.

Brazil’s Oi SA, a telecommunications company that recently filed the largest bankruptcy in the country’s history, is seeking court protection in the U.S. to shield its assets from an affiliate of hedge fund Aurelius Capital Management LP, one of its holdout bondholders, The Wall Street Journal reported. Oi and several affiliates sought chapter 15 protection—the section of the bankruptcy code that deals with international insolvencies—at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan on Tuesday, with a debt load of $19 billion.

The bankruptcy petition of mobile phone carrier Oi SA, the biggest ever in Brazil, poses no threat to the country's financial system, central bank director Aldo Mendes said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The company's petition late on Monday to seek protection from creditors on 65.4 billion reais ($19.2 billion) in liabilities, raised alarms about the exposure of local lenders. Speaking at an event in Sao Paulo, Mendes, director of monetary policy, also said the bank is waiting on international economic events before deciding whether to intervene in the local currency market.

Venezuela is convulsing from hunger, the International New York Times reported. Hundreds of people here in the city of Cumaná, home to one of the region’s independence heroes, marched on a supermarket in recent days, screaming for food. They forced open a large metal gate and poured inside. They snatched water, flour, cornmeal, salt, sugar, potatoes, anything they could find, leaving behind only broken freezers and overturned shelves. And they showed that even in a country with the largest oil reserves in the world, it is possible for people to riot because there is not enough food.

Brazil’s troubled telephone company Oi SA on Monday filed the largest bankruptcy protection request in the country’s history just days after debt restructuring talks with creditors collapsed, The Wall Street Journal reported. The filing of Oi and six subsidiaries lists 65.4 billion reais ($19.26 billion) in debt. In its filing, the company said it chose judicial reorganization to preserve the value of its holdings and to continue providing service to its customers.

Venezuela is “highly unlikely” to have enough hard currency to fully make its debt payments this year, although a default isn’t inevitable, according to a report from Moody’s Investors Service, Bloomberg News reported. State-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, which has large payments due this year, is likely to default before the sovereign, the credit ratings company said. That, in turn, could imperil government finances to the point it won’t be able to make payments either, according to the report.

An ambitious constitutional amendment to freeze budget spending would cut the uncertainty over public finances that is the root cause of Brazil’s deep recession, according to the country’s new finance minister, the Irish Times reported on a Financial Times story. “With this kind . . . of tough fiscal policy . . . everyone will be able to project the numbers,” Henrique Meirelles said.