Brazil Closes Banks for Rest of Week:...

Brazil Closes Banks for Rest of Week: Brazil’s Central Bank, the equivalent of the U.S. Federal Reserve, closed the nation’s banks for the remainder of the week in anticipation of a series of emergency economic measures to be announced by President-elect Fernando Collor de Mello. Central Bank spokesman Pedro Kleinberg said the three-day bank holiday was ordered at the request of Zelia Cardoso de Mello, the nation’s new economic minister, who is to take office with the new president on Thursday. The move took many locals and economists by surprise because only a day earlier Cardoso de Mello had said, “A bank holiday is absolutely not necessary.”