Sao Palo, Brazil (AHN) – Brazil’s central bank cited a “substantial deterioration” in its outlook for the economy and unexpectedly announced a cut in its key interest to 12 percent from 12.5 percent.

Rising prices have been a problem in Brazil, and the central bank had raised its key interest rate five times this year in an effort to contain inflation.

However, inflation is still running at a six-year high of 7.1 percent.

The continued high inflation rate couple with the unexpected cut coming a few days after several politicians had called for a rate cut. Observers say it calls into question the central bank’s independence.

Brazil, which is the biggest economy in South America, grew at the rate of 7 percent last year. This year Brazil’s economy is expected to grow at the rate of 5 percent.

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Hanoi, Vietnam (AHN) – Inflation surged by 23 percent in Vietnam in August, the highest rate in Asia.

Vietnam’s consumer-price inflation index rose by 23.03 percent compared to the same period last year, according to the country’s General Statistics Office (GSO). In July, the CPI rose by 22.16 percent.

A representative for the General Statistics Office attributed the increases to higher prices for food and fuel, with prices for food and drink increasing by a whopping 34 percent. In addition, dollar-pegged currencies are causing more inflation in prices of many commodities as the U.S. dollar continues to weaken.

The increase in CPI came despite actions taken by the central bank and the government to tighten monetary and fiscal policy to curb inflation and stabilize the economy.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Bank of America (BAC Fortune 500) announced it is partnering with two other entities to develop solar energy from rooftop installations.

The project will ultimately produce about 733 megawatts of solar energy, which is enough energy to power 100,000 homes and represents about 50 percent of the energy output of a nuclear powered electric plant.

A federal loan guarantee through the Department of Energy will help to fund the $2.6 billion project. It will be the world’s largest single effort to install solar energy panels on rooftops. The panels will be installed on the rooftops of industrial buildings in several states. DOE will guarantee 80 percent of the $1.4 billion debt financing. The rest of the money will come from private loan and funding sources.

Other partners in the project include real estate owner Prologis (PLD) and utility NRG Energy (NRG, Fortune 500).

In a press release, Tom Doyle, president of NRG Solar, NRG’s solar subsidiary, put the project into perspective.

“NRG believes rooftop solar is a smart choice for industrial, commercial and residential property owners in markets around the country, and this program provides the commercial scale that will bring the benefits of solar power to customers across the country,” Doyle said. “This program will nearly double the amount of grid-connected solar online in the United States today and make another positive contribution to cleaner air and a healthy environment.”

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – First time jobless claims dropped by 6,000 during the week ending May 28, but still remained above 400,000 mark, signaling continued weakness in the employment sector of the economy.

The advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial unemployment compensation insurance claims was 422,000, down from the previous week’s revised figure of 428,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Economists say that initial unemployment claims must drop below the 400,000 mark and stay there for the labor market to recover from the massive job losses of the recent recession.

However, bringing the unemployment rate down might not happen anytime soon, since first time claims for unemployment compensation have stubbornly remained above the 400,000 mark for the past eight weeks.

News was no better for the less volatile 4-week moving average, which was 425,500, down by 14,000 from the previous week’s revised average of 439,500.

In addition, the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate at 3.0 percent for the week ending May 21 was unchanged from the previous week.

However, the total number of people claiming jobless benefits in all programs for the week ending May 14, the latest week for which such data is available, did drop. That number was 7,682,830, down by 56,742 from the prior week.

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending May 21 were:

• California (+7,053)
• Massachusetts (+1,948)
• South Carolina (+1,066)
• Wisconsin (+1,019)
• Pennsylvania (+959)

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London, United Kingdom (AHN) – People in the United Kingdom are not saving enough for retirement through an employer-sponsored or private pension, according to several surveys.

A survey done by HSBC of 17,000 people in 17 countries found that only 39 percent of people in the UK have a financial plan to save for their retirement compared to up to 84 percent of people in Malaysia.

While another survey of 4,177 UK employees by the National Association of Pension Funds and YouGov found that 49 percent of workers in the UK had savings for retirement through pension at their workplace or a private pension plan.

The latter survey also found that 34 percent are relying on a state pension, 21 percent say they plan to put money into an individual savings account and 17 percent say they plan to invest in real estate as a way to fund their retirement.

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Beijing, China (AHN) – Tightening measures by Beijing have helped to ease China’s inflation rate but not to contain it and officials warn that inflation now is spreading beyond food prices.

China’s central bank has increased interest rates by a quarter-point every two months. That resulted in slowing down inflation in consumer prices, but it did not contain the increases.

Rising prices for food, fuel and housing were all identified as serious problems causing the economy to overheat and result in double-digit inflation rates.

On the other hand, rising wages have helped to fuel consumer demand for those items.

China’s 11.2 percent annual inflation rate is down from 11.7 percent last month.

For now, observers expect the central bank to continue to raise interest rates and allow the yuan to appreciate in value against the dollar. That would result in lowering prices Chinese consumers pay for imported items such as fuel and food.

However, Chinese government officials have been opposed to allowing the yuan to appreciate because doing so would increase the prices of China’s exports to other countries.

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Moscow, Russian Federation (AHN) – Strong inflationary pressure that threatened to derail Russia’s feeble economic recovery prompted the central bank to raise its key interest rate by 0.25 basis points to 8.25 percent.

The Russian Central Bank announced the increase in its refinancing rate on Friday and said it would take effect on Tuesday.

It marked the second time since February that the bank has raised its rate, before that the bank had not raised its main interest rate in two years.

Bank officials said their focus was to combat inflation. The inflation rate reached 9.6 percent on April 25.

In addition, the value of the ruble has risen against the dollar. The ruble is at its highest rate in currency trading against the dollar since December.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – United States conglomerate General Electric (GE) saw a 79 percent leap in its net earnings during the first three months of 2011, company officials announced Thursday.

GE had first quarter net earnings of $3.4 billion, which beat expectations and also increased the company’s dividend.

Moreover, GE revenues rose by 6 percent to $38.45 billion at a time when many analysts expected a decrease.

The company saw most of its growth come from the strong performance of its GE Capital financial services unit, which offset pressure on profit margins from the company’s industrial businesses, particularly its energy equipment.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Gold prices soared above a record $1,500.70 per troy ounce in trading Wednesday, boosted by a weaker dollar and investors seeking a shelter amid concerns over the anemic global economic recovery.

In fact, traders said much of the drive in gold prices came from Standard & Poor downgrading its outlook on United States debt from “stable” to “negative,” a move that could indicate S&P might downgrade its AAA credit rating for the U.S.

Analysts said gold prices could go as high as $1,510 or $1,520 per ounce, but that they could also go down if investors sell-off because they think gold prices are stretched too much.

However, other analysts think that gold prices might stay stable at this price because industrial uses for the precious metal will keep demand stable.

Concerns also drove silver prices to a 31-year high of $44.34 an ounce.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Inflation rose in March at its highest rate in more than a year fueled by high gas prices that hit consumers in the pocket, causing retail sales to stall.

According to Friday’s report from the Labor Department, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 2.7 percent in March compared to the same period in 2010. Labor Department officials said that was the largest 12-month increase in the government’s chief measure of inflation since December 2009.

However, the core CPI, which is a measure of prices except volatile energy and food prices, rose only 1.2 percent from a year ago. Analysts consider the core CPI a better tool to predict long-term inflation.

Nevertheless, consumers dealing with higher fuel and food prices might not be comforted by the lower inflation readings of the core CPI. Gasoline prices rose by 5.6 percent in March and are up 27.5 percent from a year ago. Meantime, food prices rose 0.8 percent in March. That represents the largest increase in prices in a one-month period since July 2008. In addition, food prices were 2.9 percent higher than a year ago.

Those higher prices apparently caused retail sales to slow.

Although analysts expected U.S. retail sales to rise by 0.5 percent from February to March, in reality sales only increased by 0.4 percent to $389.6 billion in March, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. However, that represented a 7.1 percent increase from the same period a year ago.

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