Argentina's government is bolstering its economic defenses as it battles runaway inflation that hit 109% in April, fast draining central bank foreign currency reserves, a weakening peso and simmering market fears of a sharp-shock devaluation, Reuters reported. The economy ministry announced a package of measures on Sunday including new interest rate hikes, more central bank intervention in currency markets and fast-tracked deals with creditors after inflation overshot all forecasts last week. An official source told Reuters the rate hike would be 600 basis points, bringing the rate up to 97%.

Argentina will unveil a set of emergency measures in a bid to stem additional currency losses, including a large increase to its key interest rate, as inflation spirals out of control in the run up to presidential elections, according to officials at the Economy Ministry and the central bank, Bloomberg News reported. The monetary authority will raise its benchmark rate by 600 basis points to 97% on Monday while boosting intervention in the foreign exchange market, the officials said, asking not to be named before measures are formally announced by Economy Minister Sergio Massa.

Brazil’s central bank chief said high levels of public debt are to blame for interest rates steady at a six-year high, countering President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s criticism of monetary policy and appeals for a rate cut, Bloomberg News reported. If government debt were low, “the cost of money would be cheaper for everyone,” Roberto Campos Neto said during a TV interview with Brazil’s CNN. Campos Neto said it’s not the central bank’s fault when the government issues a bond and pays yields of 6% above inflation, like Brazil did recently.

Rio de Janeiro’s electric utility filed for protection from creditors after warning that it was struggling to pay its debts without government authorization to increase tariffs, Bloomberg News reported. Its bonds and shares sank. Light SA, as the holding company for Light is called, filed a request for protection from creditors of 11 billion reais ($2.23 billion) to a Rio de Janeiro court on Friday, according to a regulatory filing.

Argentina's monthly inflation rate for April is expected to clock in at 7.5% according to a Reuters poll of analysts, keeping the annual rate at its quickest pace since the country emerged from a hyperinflation crisis in the early 1990s, Reuters reported. Argentina, a major global grains supplier, is battling 12-month inflation above 100%, which is one of the highest rates globally. This is hurting the centre-left Peronist administration, which had hoped to ease financial pressure on voters ahead of a tough election challenge this October.

The economy of Peru, the world's No.2 copper producer, may have contracted in the first quarter, though the most likely scenario is for no growth at all, the head of the Andean nation's central bank Julio Velarde said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The grim outlook comes after neighboring Chile upwardly revised its forecast for annual economic growth this year to 0.3%, reversing a previous estimate of a 0.7% contraction.

Rio de Janeiro’s electric company says so many people are stealing power in the city’s slums that it has been pushed into default, causing a massive selloff and attracting a veteran buyer of distressed Brazilian corporations, Bloomberg News reported. Light SA lost around $200 million last year from the illegal hookups, perched like a tangle of wire birds’ nests atop power poles across Rio’s favelas. That’s even after years of investment to prevent theft. The 120-year-old utility says it can’t keep absorbing the losses, which also include delinquencies and judicial costs.

A U.S. court of appeals has granted Venezuela a temporary stay preventing six companies from joining a proposed court auction of shares in a Citgo Petroleum parent to enforce judgments for past expropriation of assets, Reuters reported. Since March, creditors including a unit of O-I Glass, Huntington Ingalls Industries, ACL1 Investments, Koch Minerals and mining firms Rusoro Mining and Gold Reserve, have been granted rights to seize shares in the parent of Venezuela-owned refiner Citgo, PDV Holding.

Argentines withdrew over $1 billion of US dollar deposits from the banking system from late March to the end of April as speculation spread about a potential currency devaluation in the official exchange rate, Bloomberg News reported. Dollar deposits dropped from nearly $16.4 billion on March 20 to just below $15.3 billion by the end of April, a 6.7% decline, according to central bank data released Friday. In Argentina, checking accounts are denominated in pesos but savings accounts can be denominated in US dollars, a reality after decades of currency crises and runaway inflation.

Brazil’s central bank held its interest rate steady for the sixth straight meeting, sticking with its tough inflation warnings and tweaking its language only slightly even as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva calls for looser monetary policy, Bloomberg News reported. The bank’s board kept the Selic unchanged at 13.75% late on Wednesday as expected by almost all economists in a Bloomberg survey. In a statement, Copom, as the board is known, made a small concession by saying a new rate hike is less likely, softening language used since September.