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Latin American markets were mixed to lower on the day, as Brazil posted another fall on concerns the country's ongoing political scandal may ensnare Finance Minister Antonio Palocci.
Still, Brazil came off earlier lows toward the close of the session. U.S. markets, meanwhile, were little changed. Mexico and Argentina rose on the day.
Brazil's benchmark Bovespa Index tumbled 255.97 points, or 0.95%, while Mexico's benchmark Bolsa Index advanced 58.18 points, or 0.40%. Argentina's Merval Index jumped 10.76 points, or 0.72%.
Brazilian shares endured another negative session amid the latest developments in the country's ongoing political scandal. This time, allegations reached market friendly Finance Minister Antonio Palocci.
Brazil newswire Broadcast reported that São Paulo state prosecutors received testimony from a former aide to Palocci when he was mayor of Ribeirão Preto, in the interior of São Paulo, in the 1990s.
The aide said that Palocci received kickbacks from contractors and then gave the money to the Workers Party. Subsequently, Palocci "vehemently denied" receiving kickbacks in a written statement.
On the corporate front, state-run oil firm Petrobras announced that it will raise the price of gas that is imported from Bolivia and then sold to distributors in Brazil.
Petrobras will implement a 13% hike on September 1st and then an additional 10% rise on November 1st. Separately, the firm announced that its U.S. unit, Petrobras America, won 53 offshore oil and gas exploration and production blocks in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of an auction by the U.S. Minerals Management Service.
Elsewhere, CVRD will take a 10% stake in Germany-based ThyssenKrupp Stahl AG's 1.5 billion euro steel mill project in Brazil. ThyssenKrupp's supervisory bodies today approved the deal, which is set to produce about 4.4 million metric tons of slabs a year.
Mexico added to gains posted yesterday, bolstered by telecom issues. In economic headlines, the National Statistics Institute, or Inegi, said that unemployment rose to 4% in July from 3.6% in June.
A mining and steel union official warned that Mexican mines, including those of Grupo Mexico, could face a second round of work stoppages on Monday if talks regarding the recent strikes do not move forward.
In research news, a major investment bank upgraded supermarket operator Controladora Comerci to "buy" from "neutral," due to the firm's better sales outlook.
Argentine issues advanced on the last day of the expiration of options contracts, which can sometimes lead to market volatility. In economic reports, the national statistics agency, or INDEC, said that industrial production rose a disappointing 6.7% year-on-year on a seasonally adjusted basis. July's result follows a 6.4% advance in June's output.
Thomson Financial Corporate Group - www.thomsonfinancial.com
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The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.