New Brazil finance minister to tackle pension, labor reform

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil's new finance minister pledged Friday to take on even potentially thorny reforms if they prove necessary to jump-start the stalled economy, even as the country's interim President Michel Temer came under increasing fire for appointing an all-white, all-male Cabinet.

The 75-year-old career politician from the economic capital of Sao Paulo pledged that hauling Brazil out of its worst recession in decades would be his first order of business, and his appointment of Henrique Meirelles, the former head of Brazil's Central Bank, was well-received by financial market.

While Meirelles pledged to take on even politically toxic reforms if his team judges them necessary — including an overhaul of the country's onerous pension system, which allows some people to retire as early as their 50s.

While Rousseff was impeached on allegations her government used illegal accounting tricks to hide large deficits in the federal budget most analysts say the tanking economy played a major role in her undoing.

Rousseff dismisses the charges as a pretext for a "coup without violence," saying the allegations were cooked up by foes hungry for power that they couldn't reach though the ballot box and bent on dismantling social programs that have helped pull an estimated 35 million Brazilians out of grinding poverty.

At least nine of Temer's 22 appointees have faced or are facing allegations of corruption and other wrongdoing, including in the sprawling graft probe that saw billions of dollars syphoned out of Brazil's state-run oil company, Petrobras.