
Commodities hit 13-year lows on Monday as metals markets crashed but a steady close in oil and higher grains markets helped a key sector benchmark settle off the day's trough. Copper and nickel prices fell to multi-year lows, forcing the Thomson Reuters/Core Commodity CRB Index to its lowest levels since November 2002.

Mercosur is only waiting for the European Union to begin the political negotiations on the long delayed overall trade agreement, announced Paraguay's foreign minister Eladio Loizaga in Asunción, just back from Brussels where he met with EU and Belgian officials.

Falkland Oil and Gas Limited, FOGL, one of several international companies involved in the Falklands' oil industry, announced on Monday that the 14/20 Isobel 2 well was spudded by Premier Oil as operator on Saturday, 21 November.

A landmark summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) has opened in the Iranian capital Tehran with the participation of the heads of nine member states. Presidents of Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Iraq, Bolivia, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Turkmenistan as well as the Algerian prime minister are the key participants.

In his first press conference as Argentine president-elect, Mauricio Macri announced on Monday he would not have a Secretary of Economy but rather an economic cabinet with six members, and anticipated that the team that will be taking office with him, as well as those in the province of Buenos Aires, will include many officials which do not come from the political system.

”It’s unfair to pin the blame on the August 11 Yuan devaluation because currencies were already declining due to the “unconventional monetary policies” of some nations, Raghuram Rajan was cited as saying in an interview with the SCMP.

The inclusion of the Chinese currency in the International Monetary Fund's special drawing rights (SDR) basket is long awaited, long overdue and, finally, all but a foregone conclusion.

China said it cracked the nation’s biggest “underground bank,” which handled 410 billion Yuan (USD64 billion) of illegal foreign-exchange transactions, as the authorities try to combat corruption and rein in capital outflows that have hit records this year.

Job losses in Brazil accelerated in October to the fastest pace so far this year as the country's political and economic crisis continues to worsen. Brazil's economy lost a net 169,131 payroll jobs in October, the Labor Ministry reported, up from 95,602 layoffs in September.

The worst effects of the European recession risk becoming permanent in places, according to a left-leaning think tank. The IPPR's latest report pointed to the high level of unemployment and underemployment across Europe and said the chances of these becoming entrenched is deeply alarming. It said there was 10% unemployment and a 5% underemployment rate in Europe.