WASHINGTON / AFP The United States and Cuba will sign a bilateral agreement authorising up to 110 scheduled daily commercial flights to Havana and nine other destinations on the communist island. The deal restores regular flights between the two countries for the first time in more than half a century. Once the accord is signed, US authorities will immediately invite …

Rio De Janeiro/BLOOMBERG The Brazilian real became more volatile as the government tries to push Congress to pass a proposed tax increases to avoid other levies that could further weigh on economic growth. One-week implied volatility surged 0.6 percentage point to 19.24 percent, the second-highest among the world’s 16 most- traded currencies. The real slumped 0.2 percent to 4.0059 per …

Washington / AFP Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro named a new head of his economic team just five weeks after he had handed the job to a widely criticized professor who blamed the world’s fastest inflation on the country’s “parasitic” business class. Luis Salas, who had held the post as economy vice president since Jan. 6, is leaving for family reasons, …