Brazil's escalating protests

[cratehorus]

RIO DE JANEIRO: At least one million people rallied across Brazil on Thursday in escalating mass demonstrations over the quality of public services and the high cost of staging the World Cup, police and experts said.

The mounting pressure on the government of President Dilma Rousseff in the face of the biggest street protests the South American country has seen in 20 years prompted her to cancel a trip to Japan planned for next week.

Security forces struggled to maintain order in several cities, firing tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse groups of rowdy protesters who hurled stones and lit fires.

Police fired tear gas in Rio de Janeiro, scene of the biggest protest where 300,000 people demonstrated near City Hall, while in the capital Brasilia, security forces blocked protesters trying to break into the foreign ministry and throwing burning objects.

Police and experts, quoted by Brazilian media, said at least one million marched in more than 100 cities across the country of 194 million people, an intensification of a movement sparked two weeks ago by public anger about a hike in public transport fares.

The protests have spiraled into a wider call for an end to government corruption in the world's seventh largest economy, a call fueled by resentment over the $15 billion cost of hosting the Confederations Cup and the World Cup.

In Rio, police fired tear gas to disperse a small group of stone-throwing protesters. At least one person was hurt in the clashes, which sparked panic in the crowd.

Demonstrators also set ablaze a vehicle owned by the SBT television station.

A protester died after a motorist hit him and two other demonstrators in the southeastern city of Ribeirao Preto, police said.

In the northeastern city of Salvador, one of the host cities for the Confederations Cup, police fired tear gas against some of the 20,000 protesters massed two kilometers (1.2 miles) from the stadium where Uruguay defeated Nigeria 2-1.

Vehicles used by world football's governing body FIFA were stoned in the Bahia state capital and riot police had to intervene.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, meanwhile, called for an investigation into the possible use of "excessive force" on demonstrators and journalists during protests last week.

On Wednesday, protesters had scored a major victory when authorities in Rio and Sao Paulo, Brazil's two biggest cities, canceled the controversial transit fare hikes, but that was not enough to placate the demonstrators.

In Sao Paulo, an estimated 110,000 people flooded the main Paulista Avenue to celebrate the fare rollback and keep the pressure on Rousseff's leftist government to increase social spending.

"Victory, this is just the beginning," one huge banner read.

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