
China has decided to end its decades-long one-child policy, the state-run Xinhua news agency reports. Couples will now be allowed to have two children, it said, citing a statement from the Communist Party. The controversial policy was introduced nationally in 1979, to slow the population growth rate.

United States growth slowed sharply in the third quarter of the year. GDP grew at an annualized pace of 1.5% between July and September, according to the Department of Commerce, down from 3.9% in the second quarter. The slowdown was partly due to companies running down stockpiles of goods in their warehouses.

Argentina's outgoing leader Cristina Fernandez gave an emotional campaign speech on Thursday in her first public address since a surprisingly weak performance by her handpicked candidate in the first-round presidential election on Sunday. Without mentioning allied candidate Daniel Scioli by name, the outgoing president implicitly backed him by calling for support for her progressive social policies to go on after she hands the presidency over to her successor in six weeks.

Humpback is the first well to encounter oil in the potentially larger systems in deeper waters off the southeast of the Falkland Islands; however the oil and gas across a number of reservoir targets in the well drilled to a depth of 5.136 meters, were in non-commercial quantities.

Tierra del Fuego governor Fabiana Ríos and members of the Malvinas Observatory met at Ushuaia government house to thank Ushuaia Bureau for the design and elaboration of the Malvinas Cause pamphlet which outlines the Argentine position in the Falklands Islands sovereignty claim and will be released later in the week.

Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez put his old profession as physician to use helping revive a young French allergic woman on a flight to Paris, according to a report on the Montevideo weekly Busqueda. The incident occurred last Monday.

The US Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged on Wednesday, but downplayed global economic headwinds and left the door open to tightening monetary policy at its next meeting in December.

The first public opinion poll released since Argentina's Sunday presidential election and ahead of the 22 November runoff indicates that the opposition candidate Mauricio Macri is a few points ahead of incumbent Daniel Scioli in a tight race but still with a large percentage who remain undecided.

Describing Brazil as a valued partner of Britain, and champion on climate change and tackling deforestation, Minister of State for Latin America, Hugo Swire, attended on Wednesday the Amazon Day 2015 at the Brazilian embassy where he also met with ministers Texeira, Levy and Coutinho who are in London for the first UK-Brazil economic and financial dialogue round.

Argentina on Tuesday halved the daily amount of dollars companies can transfer abroad without authorization, currency traders said, while the country's insurance regulator put new limits on the amount of hard currency assets insurers can hold.