Brazil's first female president takes office Jan. 1st

Democracy Now reports that Brazil's first female president will be sworn in on Saturday!

Dilma Rousseff is a former leftist guerrilla who was imprisoned and tortured for three years during Brazil’s dictatorship in the 1970s. Rousseff is a close ally of Brazil’s outgoing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In a recent nationally televised address, Lula praised the progress Brazil has made over the past eight years.

"It is deeply symbolic that the presidential sash is being handed over from the first working-class president to the first female president. This will be a landmark in the beautiful path our people have been building to turn Brazil, if it’s God’s will, into one of the world’s most equal countries."
- Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva