
With only a few days left for next Sunday's runoff in Chile's presidential election two factors have become decisive and a challenge for the two hopefuls, opposition candidate conservative Sebastian Piñera, and Alejandro Guillier, the incumbent, reluctantly accepted by the current system in office.

The Organization of American States (OAS) and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of Brazil signed the Procedural Agreement for the first deployment of an Electoral Observation Mission to Brazil.

Mexican national oil company Pemex blamed the cancellation of a potentially lucrative deepwater Gulf of Mexico project on weak investor appetite due to competition from recent auctions in Brazil and low oil prices. Mexico’s oil regulator canceled a tender to pick an equity partner for Pemex’s Nobilis-Maximino project, as company interest was not as robust as expected.

Free-trade talks between the European Union and Mercosur still face hurdles over beef and ethanol, and an expected deal announcement this week might not happen, officials involved in negotiations admitted on Monday. Mercosur diplomats on the sidelines of the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires said EU officials had not presented improved offers on EU tariff-free imports for beef and ethanol as promised.

Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski acknowledged that he worked as a financial adviser for an irrigation project owned by the Brazilian builder Odebrecht, contradicting his previous denials of having any links to the company. Odebrecht is at the center of Latin America’s biggest graft scandal and has admitted to paying about US$ 30 million in bribes to secure contracts in Peru over a decade.

Honduras' electoral tribunal has finished the partial recount of votes from the disputed presidential election, declaring the results are extremely consistent with the original count. In the partial recount of 4,753 ballot boxes, President Juan Orlando Hernandez won 50.1% of the votes, against some 31.5% for his rival Salvador Nasralla.

The challenger in Honduras' still unresolved presidential election has filed a challenge to the November 26 contest that seeks to annul the results and requests a recount. Salvador Nasralla, candidate of the opposition alliance, and his campaign team handed over the paperwork with just minutes to spare before a midnight deadline on Friday.

Auto sales in Brazil are likely to beat prior forecasts and accelerate next year, national automakers association Anfavea said on Wednesday, underscoring the gathering strength of a recovery in Latin America’s largest economy.

Spain's Banco Santander said it had sold its U.S. unit Totalbank to Chile’s BCI for US$528 million as part of moves to sell non-core assets it inherited when it bought Banco Popular. BCI owns City National Bank of Florida and had been in talks with TotalBank’s former owner Banco Popular before it was acquired by Santander.

Brazil’s economic recovery gained traction in the third quarter, supported by steady family consumption and a rebound in investment. GDP expanded 0.1% from the second quarter and 1.4% from the previous year, the national statistics agency said.