Brazil's Petrobras has admitted it is so far unable to calculate how much money was stolen from the company in a vast corruption scandal that has shaken confidence in the world’s second-largest emerging market, the Financial Times reported. After two months of delays, the state-controlled oil producer finally published its unaudited financial statements for the third quarter of 2014 at just after 4am on Wednesday in Brazil to avoid breaking some of its debt covenants.

Nicolás Maduro promised “God will provide” after Venezuela’s president returned to Caracas apparently empty handed from a world tour where he had sought financial help for his country’s ravaged economy. Venezuela — which is a member of Opec, the oil producer’s cartel — is heavily dependent on exports of crude, the price of which has more than halved since the summer to under $50 a barrel on Thursday. In a televised state of the nation speech, Mr Maduro said oil would “not return to $100”, adding: “We have less foreign currency . . . But God will provide”.

Latin America is turning into the world leader in corporate-bond defaults, Bloomberg News reported. Four companies in the region have skipped dollar-denominated debt payments this month, more than any other area and almost half the total in all of 2014. In a sign bond investors are increasingly concerned about Latin American companies’ ability to repay debt, borrowers led by Mexico’s oil-rig operators have pushed the amount of the region’s bonds trading at distressed prices to $58 billion, about a third of all emerging-market debt trading at such levels.

Brazil will next month increase taxes on fuel and loans to individuals and adjust other duties to help plug the government’s yawning budget deficit, the Financial Times reported. New finance minister Joaquim Levy announced the measures on the eve of a visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos, during which he will seek to convince investors that Latin America’s biggest economy is setting its finances back on track. “The increase in revenue due to the above measures is expected to be R$20.63bn in 2015,” the finance ministry said in a statement.

OAS SA, the Brazilian builder that skipped bond payments this month as it tries to restructure debt, is seeking a 2 billion-real ($760 million) loan that would be repaid with proceeds from asset sales, three people with knowledge of the matter said, Bloomberg News reported. The loan would be backed by OAS’s stake in Invepar, an airport and toll-road operator, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. Other assets might also be pledged as collateral. The Sao Paulo-based company, which has a stake of 24.4 percent in Invepar, said Jan.

Brazil’s Planning and Budget Ministry ordered the federal government to cut some spending until the country’s congress approves a budget law for 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported. The measure, which is more restrictive than existing rules, is another sign new Finance Minister Joaquim Levy and his economic team, which includes Planning and Budget Minister Nelson Barbosa, are serious about getting public finances in order, economists said. The order, announced Thursday, will save 1.9 billion reais ($708 million) a month, according to Brazil’s Planning and Budget Ministry.

The hopes of easing a debt dispute between Argentina and a group of New York hedge funds seemed to be dashed on Monday after the country’s economy minister made an offer that appeared to fall well short of what the investors were seeking, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. Argentina made the informal offer after a potentially onerous legal clause in its bonds ceased to apply on Dec. 31. The hedge funds, known as holdouts, had sued Argentina in the United States to get full payments on bonds that the country defaulted on in 2001.

From the days when monarchs over-borrowed for their mercantile adventures, to Argentina’s recent failure to pay its creditors, countries have long run into trouble paying back what they have borrowed. Spain’s 16th-century king, Philip II, reigned over four of his country’s defaults. Greece and Argentina have reneged on their commitments to bondholders seven and eight times respectively over the past 200 years. And most countries have defaulted at least once in their history. But what precisely happens when countries stop paying what they owe?

The Argentine government and a holdout group of bond creditors led by billionaire Paul Singer will soon have a chance to renegotiate a longstanding debt dispute that U.S. courts and the United Nations have wrestled with and that ultimately could affect debt restructuring worldwide, The New Zealand Herald reported on an AP story. The so-called Rights Upon Future Offers clause, built into renegotiated debt exchanges in 2005 and 2010, expires at midnight Wednesday. The clause obligated Argentina to provide older creditors the same terms it gave creditors in any new negotiations.

President Dilma Rousseff said she will tighten Brazil’s budget, increase investment and productivity in an effort to restart economic growth, while minimizing “sacrifices” by the population, Bloomberg News reported. “We will prove that economic adjustments are possible without revoking acquired rights or betraying our social obligations,” Rousseff said Thursday during the swearing-in ceremony for her second term.