Brazil

British repair and insurance firm Homeserve is in early-stage talks with utility companies to introduce its services in more than 10 countries, including Turkey, as it looks to step up its international expansion.

It was a typically anodyne statement by the World Health Organisation: "Given the magnitude of the Zika crisis, WHO encourages affected countries and their partners to boost the use of both old and new approaches to mosquito control." Anodyne, that is, until you realize what they mean by "new approaches."

Spending a day in southern Antalya was enough to understand the startup environment in Turkey.

Startup Turkey, supported by Istanbul Technical University, in Antalya is one of the biggest internet meetings in this geography.

The first international shipment of liquefied natural gas in decades from the lower 48 states is poised to leave for Brazil from Louisiana.

U.S. gas producer Cheniere Energy was poised on Feb. 24 to make the first-ever export shipment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from shale fields.

The carrier Asia Vision is scheduled to set sail for Brazil as soon as loading at the Sabine Pass liquefaction plan in Louisiana is completed, the company said.

Moody's became the third big agency to cut Brazil's credit rating to junk on Feb. 24, citing mounting debt and political instability in Latin America's biggest country.

NASA has revealed that a huge meteor crashed into the Atlantic ocean earlier this month releasing energy equivalent to 13,000 tons of TNT.

The meteor exploded on February 6 at 14:00 UTC in the air 620 miles (1,000km) off the coast of Brazil, with the force equivalent to an atomic bomb, but no one noticed it.

Joint teams of U.S. and Brazilian health workers will fan out across one of Brazil's poorest states Feb. 23 in search of mothers and infants for a study aimed at determining whether the Zika virus is causing babies to be born with unusually small heads.

Bulgaria's Foreign Ministry has advised the country's citizens to exercise caution when visiting parts of South America afflicted by mosquito-transmitted diseases.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on Feb. 18 cut its 2016 economic growth forecast to 3 percent from 3.3 percent owing to disappointing data, sluggish demand, weak investment and a high risk of financial instability.