- Brazil’s economy in the first quarter grew 1.4 percent from the previous quarter and 3.4 percent from the same quarter in 2005. The economy was boosted by growth in industry, services, and agriculture.
- Canada’s June unemployment rate remained at 6.1 percent, 0.6 percent lower than the rate in June 2005. This 32-year low continued as employment increased 1.3 percent, or 216,000 jobs — more than double the growth of the first half of 2005. Large job increases occurred in the health care and social assistance sectors, while declines in fulltime jobs were offset by gains in part-time work.
- In a hotly contested election, conservative Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party won Mexico’s presidential election by a less than one-percent margin — about 220,000 votes out of 41 million. He beat Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, his leftist rival and former mayor of Mexico City. Mexicans living abroad, mostly in the U.S., were allowed to vote for Mexico’s president for the first time, but registered numbers were lower than expected. Obrador said he would contest the election results in court. Calderon replaces Vicente Fox and will serve a six-year, non-renewable term. His party won about 41 percent of the congressional seats, snatching the majority position away from the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party.
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