The massive increase in credit in Brazil over the last ten years had increased the risk of a credit crunch for the country's financial sector.

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto vows big changes with the economic reforms he's pushing and they've already taken more than a little change from the pockets of mega-mogul Carlos Slim.

PHNOM PENH — Five-months pregnant, Im Chanthy was told that her husband's body had been found in the trunk of his car, brutally hacked to death for reporting on illegal logging and land concessions in Cambodia. Most of these concessions, a new report by environmental watchdog Global Witness found, are owned by two Vietnamese rubber companies, which, with the financial support of Deutsche Bank, an arm of the World Bank and local governments, have acquired more than 500,000 acres of land in Cambodia and neighboring Laos.

Global hotel brands' aggressive expansion in the Arabian Gulf is helping to drive profits in the face of Europe's faltering economy and partially offset lackluster markets hit by the Arab uprisings, the CEOs of some of the world's biggest hotel groups told CNBC.