(Reuters) - Detroit's default and debt restructuring plan are precedent-setting in the U.S. municipal market, Moody's Investors Service said on Monday, because the city is looking to bondholders, as well as labor unions and pensioners, to share the pain. The city on Friday defaulted on a $39.7 million payment on certificates of participation and presented a plan to restructure its finances.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Anti-government protests are not a threat so far to Turkey's investment-grade credit rating, Fitch said on Friday, but much depends on how the authorities handle the unrest. Fitch said demonstrations so far had not been on a scale to cause significant economic disruption but could escalate and harm the economy if poorly handled by the authorities. Fitch gave Turkey an investment grade rating of 'BBB-' in November, citing underlying economic strengths.

Standard and Poor's revised its outlook for emerging powerhouse Brazil to negative on Friday due to slowing economic growth and overburdened government finances. With a negative outlook, the ratings agency signals that a downgrade to Brazil's sovereign debt rating could take place over the next two years. Slow growth and unchanged government spending "risk weakening Brazil's financial profile and could, absent corrective measures, result in weaker fiscal performance and an increase in the government's debt burden," the agency said in a statement.

International ratings agency Moody's downgraded Tunisia's sovereign debt rating one notch to Ba2 and placed it on negative outlook on Thursday, citing "persistent political uncertainty and the risk of instability." Moody's said the move, which follows its decision in February to drop the rating to Ba1, primarily reflected the political tensions plaguing the north African nation since its 2011 revolution. The other two factors were the fragile state of undercapitalised government-owned banks and external pressures on Tunisia's balance of payments and government finances.