
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats were beaten into third place by the anti-immigrant and anti-Islam Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in a north-eastern state election on Sunday, TV exit polls showed.

Argentine president Mauricio Macri announced in China that besides boosting and balancing bilateral trade and confirming the infrastructure and energy deals reached by his predecessor, Chinese tourists will no longer need visas to visit Argentina.

The expanding US economy added another 151,000 jobs in August, according to the US Labor Department, while the unemployment rate stayed at 4.9%. The number of extra jobs was sharply down from an upwardly revised July figure of 275,000. It was also a smaller rise than the average monthly increase of 204,000 seen during the previous 12 months.

Argentina's president Mauricio Macri greeted Brazil’s confirmed head of state Michel Temer for the first time since Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment and removal last week as the two met briefly during the G20 summit taking place in China.

President Mauricio Macri got another big nod of support as US President Barack Obama highlighted him as one of the few national leaders setting an example for the world by going against a wave of protectionism gaining presence on a global scale, in a speech during the G20 conference.

Pope Francis called for people to pray to the Aparecida Virgin to protect all of Brazil and all of the Brazilian people in this very sad moment, in reference to the removal of Dilma Rousseff as president and her replacement by vice-president and interim president Michel Temer, which occurred last week.

Brazil's new president Michel Temer received strong support from Beijing when Chinese president Xi Jinping expressed confidence in Brazil's ability to maintain stability and cooperation between the two countries, during a meeting on Friday with Temer in Hangzhou, the resort that will host the G20 summit

The impeachment process that led to the removal of Dilma Rousseff from office on Wednesday, August 31, increased the gap among the continent's governments. While the U.S. said that the definite ousting of the now-former president of Brazil followed constitutional proceedings, the so-called Bolivarian governments – Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia – reacted by calling their ambassadors back.

Opponents of President Nicolas Maduro flooded Venezuela's capital on Thursday in one of the biggest mass protests against socialist rule for more than a decade. Dressed in white and chanting “this government will fall,” hundreds of thousands rallied across Caracas to demand a recall referendum against Maduro and decry a deep economic crisis in the oil rich country.

Uruguay's Home Secretary Eduardo Bonomi described the removal of Brazilian ex president Dilma Rousseff as a “coup” and underlined her successor Michel Temer “has no legitimacy” to occupy the Executive. He added that the events of this week in Brazil have had an impact on Brazilian democracy and the region overall.