In a first, Brazil elects a woman as President

Dilma Rousseff was elected the country's first female president on Sunday, as Brazilians voted strongly in favor of continuing the economic and social policies of the popular president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Ms Rousseff, who served as Mr da Silva's chief of staff and energy minister, joins a growing wave of democratically elected female leaders in the region and the world in the past five years, including Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina and Angela Merkel in Germany.

Ms Rousseff, 62, defeated José Serra, the former governor of São Paulo, with 56 percent of the vote to 44 percent, official numbers showed.