RIO DE JANEIRO/BRASILIA: An estimated 1 million people took to the streets in cities across Brazil on Thursday as the country’s biggest protests in two decades intensified despite government concessions meant to quell the demonstrations, reports international media.
In the capital, Brasilia, tens of thousands of protesters marched around the landmark modernist buildings that house Congress and the Supreme Court and briefly set fire to the outside of the Foreign Ministry. Police said about 80 of the protesters, some with homemade explosives, made it into the ministry building before they were repelled.
In Ribeirão Preto, near São Paulo, a 20-year-old demonstrator died after a driver plowed a jeep into a crowd. Brazilian media reported hundreds of minor injuries across the country, including a Rio television reporter who recounted being hit by a rubber bullet fired by police.
The swelling tide of protests prompted President Dilma Rousseff to cancel a trip next week to Japan, her office said. The president, whose administration was caught off-guard by the rapid growth of the demonstrations, also planned an emergency meeting for Friday, a government source said.
