As many as 20,000 Brazilians are expected to march in Sao Paulo today in what organizers vow will be the biggest yet in a wave of protests to rock Latin America\u2019s largest economy in little more than a week.<\/p>\n
Authorities are pledging to keep riot police at bay to avoid a repeat of clashes June 13 that left dozens wounded when rubber bullets and tear gas were fired upon activists protesting an increase in bus fares. Groups in three other cities — Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia and Belo Horizonte — are also taking to the streets today.<\/p>\n
The demonstrations have grown larger and spread across the country as discontent about inflation and the economy mount, fueling dissatisfaction with President Dilma Rousseff. The president, whose approval rating slipped eight percentage points this month, was jeered at a packed soccer stadium over the weekend while inaugurating the Confederations Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn alarm has sounded,\u201d Alexandre Barros, head of Brasilia-based political risk consulting firm Early Warning. \u201cThe average Brazilian doesn\u2019t know what the government should do, but they feel their pockets being pinched.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soccer fans booed Rousseff for more than a minute as she was introduced in Brasilia at the June 15 opening of the two-week tournament, a warm-up to next year\u2019s World Cup. The heckling intensified when Sepp Blatter, president of soccer\u2019s governing body FIFA, admonished the crowd for not showing \u201crespect.\u201d A stern-faced Rousseff then cut short the moment with a single sentence declaring a start to the tournament.
\nSoccer Protests<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s political allies played down the significance of the jeering at a game where tickets cost more than $100 — about a quarter of Brazil\u2019s monthly minimum wage. Jose Guimaraes, leader of the ruling Workers\u2019 Party in the lower house, told O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper that rowdy fans would\u2019ve greeted any politician introduced the same way. Click here for the full story.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As many as 20,000 Brazilians are expected to march in Sao Paulo today in what organizers vow will be the biggest yet in a wave of protests to rock Latin America\u2019s largest economy in little more than a week. Authorities are pledging to keep riot police at bay to avoid a repeat of clashes June […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-important-news-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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