In Brazil, protesters clash with police as a general strike empties schools and brings business to a

Source: Los Angeles Times


Jill Langlois
APRIL 28, 2017, 7:00 PM | REPORTING FROM SAO PAULO, BRAZIL


Protests large and small swept across Brazil on Friday, leaving businesses closed, schools empty and an unpopular president facing ever louder calls to step down.

For the first time in more than 20 years, Brazilians held a general strike, with millions of workers walking off the job to protest controversial labor and pension reforms that were proposed by a president with an approval rating of just 4% and that are currently moving through Congress. Thousands of protesters took to the streets in the country’s major cities, many carrying signs reading “Fora Temer!” — “out” with President Michel Temer.

Most protests passed without incident, but by Friday night a group of protesters advanced on the Sao Paulo neighborhood where Temer owns a house. They broke up sidewalks and lobbed chunks of concrete at police trying to disperse the crowd with tear gas and flash grenades. Protesters also set some buses on fire, and at least 16 arrests were reported.

A larger, peaceful protest, estimated at 70,000, headed out in the direction of Temer's home from a nearby neighborhood earlier in the evening to protest the president, whom they consider illegitimate, and his recent proposed labor and pension reforms. Temer, the former vice president who succeeded Dilma Rousseff as president after she was impeached last year, still lives in the vice president’s residence in Brasilia, the capital.



Read more: http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-brazil-strike-20170428-story.html