World IN BRIEF : BRAZIL : Deep Recession Tied to Fight on Inflation

President Fernando Collor de Mello’s draconian anti-inflation plan, implemented last March, has set off Brazil’s worst recession in 10 years, according to data from the IBGE, the government statistics institute. Since Collor froze a third of the nation’s wealth, ended indexation of wages to prices and slashed government spending, Brazil’s gross domestic product fell 8.8%, compared to the same period a year ago, the IBGE said in data released in Rio de Janeiro. The freeze on liquidity, the data showed, meant a sharp fall in orders which sent production crashing 16.87% between April and June, compared with the same period last year.